حرب الاستقلال الأنگولية

حرب الاستقلال الأنگولية
جزء من the Portuguese Colonial War, the Decolonization of Africa, and the Cold War
Portuguese troops on patrol in Angola
التاريخ 4 February 1961 – 25 April 1974 (cease fire) (13 years, 2 months and 3 weeks) 11 November 1975 (independence) الموقع Angola النتيجة MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA political victory Ceasefire after the Carnation Revolution Alvor Agreement and Angolan independence in 1975 Start of the Angolan Civil War
المتحاربون
MPLA FNLA UNITA FLEC	Portugal جنوب أفريقيا
Material support: الاتحاد السوڤيتي كوبا الصين الولايات المتحدة إسرائيل زائير الكونغو الجزائر تونس تنزانيا
القادة والزعماء
Agostinho Neto Lúcio Lara Holden Roberto Jonas Savimbi	Francisco da Costa Gomes
القوى
90,000	65,000
الضحايا والخسائر
~30,000 Total	2,991 killed (1,526 KIA & 1,465 non-combat related)(According to Portuguese Government) 9,000+ casualties (other estimates) 4,684 with permanent deficiency (physical or psychological)
30,000–50,000 civilians killed

Map of the present provinces of Angola, corresponding almost exactly to the Portuguese-era districts.

حرب الاستقلال الأنگولية (1961–1974) began as an uprising against forced cotton cultivation, and it became a multi-faction struggle for the control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola among three nationalist movements and a separatist movement. The war ended when a leftist military coup in Lisbon in April 1974 overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo regime, and the new regime immediately stopped all military action in the African colonies, declaring its intention to grant them independence without delay.

The conflict is usually approached as a branch or a theater of the wider Portuguese Overseas War, which also included the independence wars of غينيا-بيساو and of موزمبيق.

It was a guerrilla war in which the Portuguese armed and security forces waged a counter-insurgency campaign against armed groups mostly dispersed across sparsely populated areas of the vast Angolan countryside. Many atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict. In the end, the Portuguese achieved overall military victory, and before the Carnation Revolution in Portugal most of Angola's territory was under Portuguese control.

In Angola, after the Portuguese had stopped the war, an armed conflict broke out among the nationalist movements. This war formally came to an end in January 1975 when the Portuguese government, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) signed the اتفاقية ألڤور.

 خلفية عن الإقليم

In 1482, the Kingdom of Portugal's caravels, commanded by navigator Diogo Cão, arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo. Other expeditions followed, and close relations were soon established between the two kingdoms. The Portuguese brought firearms, many other technological advances, and a new religion, Christianity. In return, the King of the Congo offered slaves, ivory and minerals.

Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda. Novais occupied a strip of land with a hundred families of colonists and four hundred soldiers, and established a fortified settlement. The Portuguese crown granted Luanda the status of city in 1605. Several other settlements, forts and ports were founded and maintained by the Portuguese. Benguela, a Portuguese fort from 1587, a town from 1617, was another important early settlement founded and ruled by Portugal.

 الخصوم

 القوات البرتغالية

Portuguese paratroopers in the rainforest of northern Angola

The Portuguese forces engaged in the conflict included mainly the Armed Forces, but also the security and paramilitary forces.

 القوات المسلحة

An SA-330 Puma of the Portuguese Air Force.

A Portuguese F-84 being loaded with ordnance in the 1960s, at Luanda Air Base, during the Portuguese Colonial War.

Portuguese Air Force F-84 Thunderjet.

 الميليشيات والقوات غير النظامية

Besides the regular armed and security forces, there were a number of para-military and irregular forces, some of them under the control of the military and other controlled by the civil authorities.

The OPVDCA (Provincial Organization of Volunteers and Civil Defense of Angola) was a militia-type corps responsible for internal security and civil defense roles, with similar characteristics to those of the Portuguese Legion existing in European Portugal. It was under the direct control of the Governor-General of the province. Its origins was the Corps of Volunteers organized in the beginning of the conflict, which became the Provincial Organization of Volunteers in 1962, assuming also the role of civil defense in 1964, when it became the OPVDCA. It was made up of volunteers that served in part-time, most of these being initially whites, but latter becoming increasingly multi-racial. In the conflict, the OPVDCA was mainly employed in the defense of people, lines of communications and sensitive installations. It included a central provincial command and a district command in each of the Angolan districts. It is estimated that by the end of the conflict there were 20,000 OPVDCA volunteers.

 القوات الوطنية والانفصالية

 UPA/FNLA

المقالة الرئيسية: National Liberation Front of Angola

 MPLA

المقالة الرئيسية: MPLA

The People's Movement of Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was founded in 1956, by the merging of the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUA) and the Angolan Communist Party (PCA). The MPLA was an organization of the left-wing politics, which included mixed race and white members of the Angolan intelligentsia and urban elites, supported by the Ambundu and other ethnic groups of the Luanda, Bengo, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul and Mallange districts. It was headed by Agostinho Neto (president) and Viriato da Cruz (secretary-general), both Portuguese-educated urban intellectuals. It was mainly externally supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, with its tentative to receive support from the الولايات المتحدة failing, as these were already supporting UPA/FNLA.

The armed wing of the MPLA was the People's Army of Liberation of Angola (EPLA). In its peak, the EPLA included around 4500 fighters, being organized in military regions. It was mainly equipped with Soviet weapons, mostly received through Zambia, which included Tokarev pistol, PPS submachine guns, Simonov automatic rifles, Kalashnikov assault rifles, machine-guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank mines and anti-personnel mines

 يونيتا

المقالة الرئيسية: يونيتا

The Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was created in 1966 by Jonas Savimbi, a dissident of FNLA. Jonas Savimbi was the Foreign Minister of the GRAE but entered in course of clash with Holden Roberto, accusing him of having a complicity with the USA and of following an imperialist policy. Savimbi was member of the Ovimbundu tribe of Central and Southern Angola, son of an Evangelic pastor, who went to study medicine in European Portugal, although never graduating.

The Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FALA) constituted the armed branch of UNITA. They had a small number of fighters and were not well equipped. Its high difficulties led Savimbi to make agreements with the Portuguese authorities, focusing more in fighting MPLA.

When the war ended, UNITA was the only of the nationalists movements which was able to maintain forces operating inside the Angolan territory, with the forces of the remaining movements being completely eliminated or expelled by the Portuguese Forces.

 FLEC

المقالة الرئيسية: Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) was founded in 1963, by the merging of the Movement for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (MLEC), the Action Committee of the Cabinda National Union (CAUNC) and the Mayombe National Alliance (ALLIAMA). On the contrary of the remaining three movements, FLEC did not fought for the independente of the whole Angola, but only for the independence of Cabinda, which it considered a separate country. Although its activities started still before the withdrawal of Portugal from Angola, the military actions of FLEC occurred mainly after, being aimed against the Angolan armed and security forces. FLEC is the only of the nationalist and separatist movements that still maintains a guerrilla warfare until today.

 RDL

المقالة الرئيسية: Eastern Revolt

The Eastern Revolt (RDL) was a dissident wing of the MPLA, created in 1973, under the leadership of Daniel Chipenda, in opposition to the line of Agostinho Neto. A second dissident wing was the Active Revolt, created at the same time.

 أحداث ما قبل الحرب

 السياسة الدولية

The international politics of the late 1940s and 1950s was marked by the Cold War and the wind of change in the European colonies in Asia and Africa.

In October 1954, the Algerian War was initiated by a series of explosions in Algiers. This conflict would lead to the presence of more than 400,000 French military in Algeria until its end in 1962. Foreseeing a similar conflict in its African territories, the Portuguese military paid acute attention to this war, sending observers and personnel to be trained in the counter-insurgence warfare tactics employed by the French.

In 1955, the Bandung Conference was held in Indonesia, with the participation of 29 Asian and African countries, most of which were newly independent. The conference promoted the Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and opposed colonialism or neocolonialism. It was an important step towards the Non-Aligned Movement.

Following the admission of Portugal to the United Nations in December 1955, the Secretary-General officially asked the Portuguese Government if the country had non-self-governing territories under its administration. Maintaining consistency with its official doctrine that all Portuguese overseas provinces were an integral part of Portugal as was the Portuguese European territory, the Portuguese Government responded that Portugal did not have any territories that could be qualified as non-self-governing and so it did not have any obligation of providing any information requested under the Article 73 of the United Nations Charter.

In 1957, Ghana (former British Gold Coast) becomes the first European colony in Africa to achieve independence, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. In 1958, he organized the Conference of African Independent States, which aimed to be the African Bandung.

The former Belgian Congo and northern neighbor of Angola became independent in 1960, as the Republic of the Congo (known as "Congo-Léopoldville" and later "Congo-Kinshasa", being renamed "Republic of Zaire" in 1971), with Joseph Kasa-Vubu as president and Patrice Lumumba as prime-minister. Immediately after independence, a number of violent disturbances occurred leading to the Congo Crisis. The white population became a target, with more than 80,000 Belgian residents being forced to flee from the country. The Katanga seceded under the leadership of Moïse Tshombe. The crisis led to the intervention of United Nations and Belgian military forces. The Congolese internal conflicts would culminate with the ascension to power of Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965.

John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States on 20 January 1961. His Administration started to support the African nationalist movements, with the objective of neutralizing the increasing Soviet influence in Africa. Regarding Angola, the United States started to give direct support to the UPA and assumed a hostile attitude against Portugal, forbidding it to use American weapons in Africa.

In 1964, Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia, under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda. From then on, Angola was almost entirely surrounded by countries with regimes hostile to Portugal, the exception being South West Africa.

 السياسة الداخلية وتصاعد الوطنية الأنجولية

المقالة الرئيسية: 1950s in Angola

Angola highlighted on a map of modern-day Africa

The Portuguese Colonial Act – passed on 13 June 1933 – defined the relationship between the Portuguese overseas territories and the metropole, until being revised in 1951. The Colonial Act reflected an imperialistic view of the overseas territories typical among the European colonial powers of the late 1920s and 1930s. During the period in which it was in force, the Portuguese overseas territories lost the status of "provinces" that they had had since 1834, becoming designated "colonies", with the whole Portuguese overseas territories becoming officially designated "Portuguese Colonial Empire". The Colonial Act subtly recognized the supremacy of the Portuguese over native people, and even if the natives could pursue all studies including university, the de facto situation was of clear disadvantage due to deep cultural and social differences between most of the traditional indigenous communities and the ethnic Portuguese living in Angola.

Due to its imperialist orientation, the Colonial Act started to be called into question. In 1944, José Ferreira Bossa, former Minister of the Colonies, proposed the revision of the Act, including the end up of the designation "colonies" and the resume of the traditional designation "overseas provinces". On 11 June 1951, a new law passed in the Portuguese National Assembly reviewed the Constitution, finally repulsing the Colonial Act. As part of these, the provincial status was returned to all Portuguese overseas territories. By this law, the Portuguese territory of Angola ceased to be called Colónia de Angola (Colony of Angola) and started again to be officially called Província de Angola (Province of Angola).

In 1948, Viriato da Cruz and others formed the Movement of Young Intellectuals, an organization that promoted Angolan culture. Nationalists sent a letter to the United Nations calling for Angola to be given protectorate status under UN supervision.

In the 1950s, a new wave of Portuguese settlement in all of Portuguese Africa, including the overseas province of Angola, was encouraged by the ruling government of António de Oliveira Salazar.

In 1953, Angolan separatists founded the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUAA), the first political party to advocate Angolan independence from Portugal. In 1954, ethnic Bakongo nationalists in the Belgian Congo and Angola formed the Union of Peoples of Northern Angola (UPA), which advocated the independence of the historical Kingdom of Kongo, which included other territories outside the Portuguese overseas province of Angola.

During 1955, Mário Pinto de Andrade and his brother Joaquim formed the Angolan Communist Party (PCA). In December 1956 PLUAA merged with the PCA to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The MPLA, led by da Cruz, Mário Andrade, Ilidio Machado, and Lúcio Lara, derived support from the Ambundu and in Luanda.

In March 1959, when inaugurating the new military shooting range of Luanda, the Governor-General of Angola, Sá Viana Rebelo, made the famous Shooting Range Speech, where he predicted a possible conflict in Angola.

General Monteiro Libório assumed the command of the land forces of Angola, with prerogatives of commander-in-chief, in September 1959. He would be the Portuguese military commander in office when the conflict erupts.

Álvaro Silva Tavares assumed the office of Governor-General of Angola in January 1960, being the holder of the office when the conflict erupted.

During January 1961, Henrique Galvão, heading a group of operatives of the DRIL oppositionist movement, hijacked the Portuguese liner Santa Maria. The intention of Galvão was to set sail to Angola, where he would disembark and establish a rebel Portuguese government in opposition to Salazar, but he was forced to head to Brazil, where he liberated the crew and passengers in exchange for political asylum.

Feeling the need of having forces trained in counter-insurgency operations, the Portuguese Army created the Special Operations Troops Centre in April 1960, where companies of special forces (baptized special caçadores) started preparations. The first three companies of special caçadores (CCE) were dispatched to Angola in June 1960, mainly due to the Congo Crisis. Their main mission was to protect the Angolan regions bordering the ex-Belgian Congo, each being stationed in Cabinda (1st CCE), in Toto, Uíge (2nd CCE) and Malanje (3rd CCE).

 The Baixa de Cassanje revolt

المقالة الرئيسية: Baixa de Cassanje revolt

Although usually considered as an event that predates the Angolan War of Independence, some authors consider the Baixa de Cassanje revolt, also known as "Maria's War", as the initial event of the conflict. It was a labour conflict, not related directly with the calls for independence. The Baixa do Cassanje was a rich agricultural region of the Malanje District, bordering the ex-Belgian Congo, with approximately the size of Mainland Portugal, which was the origin of most of the cotton production of Angola. The region's cotton fields were in the hands of the Cotonang – General Company of the Cottons of Angola, a company mostly held by Belgian capital and which employed many natives. Despite its contribution for the development of the region, Cotonang had been accused several times of disrespecting the labour legislation regarding working conditions of its employees, causing it to become under the investigation of the Portuguese authorities, but with no relevant actions against it being yet taken.

Feeling discontent with Cotonang, in December 1960, many of its workers started to strike, demanding better working conditions and higher wages. The discontent was seized by infiltrated indoctrinators of the Congolese PSA (African Solidarity Party) to foment an uprising of the local peoples. At that time, the only Portuguese Army unit stationed in the region was the 3rd Special Caçadores Company (3rd CCE), tasked with the patrolling and protection of the border with the ex-Belgian Congo. Despite receiving complains from local whites who felt their security threatened, the Governor of the Malanje District, Júlio Monteiro – a mixed race Cape Verdean – did not authorize the 3rd CCE to act against the rebels and also forbade the acquisition of self-defense weapons by the white population. From 9 to 11 January 1961, the situation worsened, with the murder of a mixed race Cotonang foreman and with the surrounding of a 3rd CCE patrol by hundreds of rebels. Finally, on 2 February, the clashes between the rebels and the security forces erupted, with the first shots being fired, causing 11 deaths. By that time, the uprising had spread to the whole Malanje District and threatened to spread to the neighboring districts. The rebel leaders took advantage of the superstitious beliefs of most of their followers to convince them that the bullets of the Portuguese military forces were made of water and so could do no harm. Presumably due to this belief, the rebels, armed with machetes and canhangulos (home-made shotguns), attacked the military en masse, in the open field, without concern for their own protection, falling under the fire of the troops.

Given the limitations of the 3rd CCE to deal with the uprising in such a large region, the Command of the 3rd Military Region in Luanda decided to organize an operation with a stronger military force to subjugate it. A provisional battalion under the command of Major Rebocho Vaz was organized by the Luanda Infantry Regiment, integrating the 3rd CCE, the 4th CCE (stationed in Luanda) and the 5th CCE (that was still en route from the Metropole to Angola). On 4 February, the 4th CCE was already embarked in the train ready to be dispatched to Malanje, when an uprising at Luanda erupted, with several prisons and Police facilities being stormed. Despite the indefinite situation at Luanda and despite having few combat units available there, General Libório, commander of the 3rd Military Region decided to go forward with the sending of the 4th CCE to Malanje, which arrived there on 5 February. The provisional battalion started gradually to subdue the uprising.

The land forces were supported by the Portuguese Air Force, which employed Auster light observation and PV-2 ground attack aircraft. The military forces were able to assume the control of the region by 11 February. By the 16th, the provisional battalion was finally reinforced with the 5th CCE which had been held in Luanda as a reserve force after disembarking in Angola. Baixa do Cassanje was officially considered pacified on 27 February. The anti-Portuguese forces claimed that, during the subduing of the uprising, the Portuguese military bombed villages in the area, using napalm and killing between 400 and 7000 natives. However, the Portuguese military reported that no napalm was ever used in the operations and that the number of rebels dead was less than 300, plus 100 registered injured treated at the Malanje Hospital. The military forces suffered two dead and four injured.

After the subdue of the uprising, the Portuguese military pressed the Government-General of Angola to take actions to improve the working conditions of the Cotonang employees in order to defuse the situation. The Governor-General Silva Tavares took measures to calm down the situation and on 2 May 1961, the Government decreed the change of the labor legislation related with cotton culture. Apparently, these measures were successful in greatly reducing the discontent among the laborers of the Baixa de Cassanje, with the region remaining peaceful even after the UPA attacks of 15 March 1961.

 The 4 and 10 February events at Luanda

The facts about the events of 4 and 10 February 1961 are still very much clouded by the propaganda and contradictory information issued by the various parties about what really happened.

At a time when Luanda was full of foreign journalists that were covering the possible arriving at Angola of the hijacked liner Santa Maria and with the Baixa de Casanje revolt on its peak, on the early morning of 4 February 1961, a number of black militants, mostly armed with machetes, ambushed a Public Security Police (PSP) patrol-car and stormed the Civil Jail of São Paulo, the Military Detection House and the PSP Mobile Company Barracks, with the apparent objective of freeing political prisoners that were being held in those facilities. They were not able to storm other planned targets like the Airport, the National Broadcast Station, post office and military barracks. Different sources indicate the number of militants involved in the attacks as being between 50 and several hundred. The militants were able to kill the crew of the patrol-car, taking their weapons, but their assaults against the several facilities was repulsed, and they did not succeed in releasing any prisoners. In the assaults, the security forces suffered seven dead, including five white and one black police constables and a white Army corporal, in addition to seriously injuring several people. Different sources indicate between 25 and 40 attackers were killed.

The MPLA always officially claimed to be the originator of the attacks. However, this is contested. Several sources indicate the Angolan nationalist mixed race priest Manuel das Neves as the perpetrator of the attacks. Apparently this was also the PIDE theory, which arrested and sent him to the Metropole, where he was interned in religious houses.

An emotional funeral for the deceased police constables was held on 5 February, which was attended by thousands of persons, the majority being white inhabitants of Luanda. During the funeral, riots broke out, which would cause additional dead. There are several contradictory versions of what happened. The anti-Portuguese line states that the riots were originated by the whites, who desired to revenge the dead police constables, committing random acts of violence against the ethnic black majority living in Luanda's slums (musseques). Contrary versions state that the riots were caused when provocative shots were fired near the cemetery where the funeral was being held, causing panic among the attendants. The riots resulted in numerous deaths, though the exact number varies depending on the source. Accounts critical of Portuguese rule describe the events as a massacre carried out by white residents and security forces, with hundreds of Black Angolans killed. According to this perspective:

The Portuguese vengeance was awesome. The police helped civilian vigilantes organise nightly slaughters in the Luanda slums. The whites hauled Africans from their flimsy one-room huts, shot them and left their bodies in the streets. A Methodist missionary... testified that he personally knew of the deaths of almost three hundred.

— John Marcum

However, other sources claim that the massacre narrative is simply anti‑Portuguese propaganda, asserting instead that only 19 people died in the riots. According to this account:

During the funeral of the PSP constables, which reached a gigantic manifestation of grief, with the cemetery full of people, shots were heard outside that caused the widespread panic, especially in the interior, where people practically did not fit. In the ensuing confusion, and of the firing fired, resulted nineteen dead and numerous wounded, incident that gave rise to another myth of massacre, that would have reached hundreds of dead, wounded and imprisoned, completely false numbers. It must be said that many of these people were probably disarmed, even the force that was going to make the salvos of the order, to accompany the highest individualities of Luanda and that it was a military vehicle called on the occasion, that came to the place, and ended the generalized disorder. Also nobody explained, until today, who initiated these disturbances and fired the first shots.

— A.L. Pires Nunes

On 10 February, a similar attack was carried out against the Jail of São Paulo. The security forces were better prepared this time and were able to repulse the attacks without any of their men being killed, although, 22 of the attackers were killed. Apparently, other attacks were being planned, but were discovered and averted by the security forces.

 مسار النزاع

 بداية النزاع

القوات الاستعمارية البرتغالية في عرض عسكري في لواندا

فوزيلييرو برتغالي أثناء الحرب الاستعمارية البرتغالية، في أنجولا، 1969.

UPA badge

 نهاية النزاع

The three party leaders met again in Mombasa, Kenya on 5 January 1975 and agreed to stop fighting each other, further outlining constitutional negotiations with the Portuguese. They met for a third time, with Portuguese government officials, in Alvor, Portugal from 10 till 15 January. They signed on 15 January what became known as the Alvor Agreement, granting Angola independence on 11 November and establishing a transitional government.

The agreement ended the war for independence while marking the transition to civil war. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) and Eastern Revolt never signed the agreement as they were excluded from negotiations. The coalition government established by the Alvor Agreement soon fell as nationalist factions, doubting one another's commitment to the peace process, tried to take control of the colony by force.

 النفوذ الأجنبي

 الولايات المتحدة

The situation of the Portuguese in their overseas province of Angola soon became a matter of concern for a number of foreign powers particularly her military allies in NATO. The United States, for example, was concerned with the possibility of a Marxist regime being established in Luanda. That is why it started supplying weapons and ammunition to the UPA, which meanwhile grew considerably and merged with the Democratic Party of Angola to form the FNLA.

The leaders of the FNLA were, however, not satisfied with the US support. Savimbi consequently established good connections with the People's Republic of China, from where even larger shipments started arriving. The USA granted the company Aero Associates, from Tucson, Arizona, the permission to sell seven Douglas B-26 Invader bombers to Portugal in early 1965, despite Portugal's concerns about their support for the Marxists from Cuba and the USSR.

The aircraft were flown to Africa by John Richard Hawke – reportedly, a former Royal Air Force pilot – who on the start of one of the flights to Angola flew so low over the White House, that the United States Air Force forced him to land and he was arrested. In May 1965, Hawke was indicted for illegally selling arms and supporting the Portuguese, but was imprisoned for less than a year. The B-26s were not to see deployment in Angola until several years later.

 روديسيا وجنوب أفريقيا

Aside from the US, two other nations became involved in this war. These were Rhodesia and South Africa, both of which were ruled by the white minority. Their white-elected governments were concerned about their own future in the case of a Portuguese defeat. Rhodesia and South Africa initially limited their participation to shipments of arms and supplies. However, by 1968 the South Africans began providing Alouette III helicopters with crews to the Portuguese Air Force (FAP), and finally several companies of South African Defence Forces (SADF) infantry who were deployed in southern and central Angola. However, contemporary reports about them guarding the iron mines of Cassinga were never confirmed.

Finally, there were reports that a number of Rhodesian pilots were recruited to fly FAP helicopters. However, when the first Portuguese unit was equipped with Aerospatiale Puma helicopters, in 1969, its crews were almost exclusively South Africans. Rhodesian pilots were considered too valuable by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force (RRAF) to be deployed in support of the Portuguese. The SADF had pilots and helicopters operating out of the Centro Conjunto de Apoio Aéreo (CCAA – Joint Air Support Centre), setting up in Cuito Cuanavale during 1968.

 الاتحاد السوفيتي

During the late 1960s the USSR also became involved in the war in Angola, albeit almost exclusively via the MPLA. While the FNLA received only very limited arms shipments from the US, and the UNITA was getting hardly any support from outside the country, the Marxist MPLA developed very close relations with Moscow and was soon to start receiving significant shipments of arms via Tanzania and Zambia.

In 1969 the MPLA agreed with the USSR that in exchange for arms and supplies delivered to it the Soviets would—upon independence—be granted rights for establishing military bases in the country. Consequently, by the early 1970s, the MPLA developed into the strongest Angolan anti-colonial movement and the most powerful political party.^{[بحاجة لمصدر]}

 الأعقاب

Angolan Civil War, January–March 1976.

As soon as the agreement between the MPLA and Portugal for the transfer of power became known to the public, a mass exodus began. Over 300,000 people left Angola by November, most of them evacuated aboard TAP Boeing 707 aircraft. The British Royal Air Force also lent a hand, sending Vickers VC10 airliners to evacuate about 6,000 additional refugees. At this stage, the Angolan Civil War had started and spread out across the newly independent country. The devastating civil war lasted several decades and claimed a million lives and refugees in independent Angola.

In the wake of the conflict, Angola faced deterioration in central planning, economic development and growth, security, education and health system issues. Like the other newly independent African territories involved in the Portuguese Colonial War, after independence, Angola faced issues economic and social recession, corruption, poverty, inequality and failed central planning. Despite this Angola quickly reached and surpassed the standard of living prior to Portuguese colonialism by the end of the decade. A level of economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule became a major goal for the governments of the independent territory.^{[بحاجة لمصدر]}

 انظر أيضاً

• الحرب الاستعمارية البرتغالية
• أنجولا البرتغالية
• غرب أفريقيا البرتغالي
• كوبا في أنگولا

 وصلات خارجية

• (البرتغالية) Guerra Colonial: 1961–1974 – State-supported historical site of the Portuguese Colonial War (Portugal)
• OnWar timeline
• U.S. Involvement in Angolan Conflict from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archive