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Angolan refugees walking to DRC |
After independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola immediately broke out into one of the longest and bloodiest wars in African history.
While the roots of the conflict and events during this 27-year period are complicated, I will attempt to give a basic description of what happened.
MPLA vs. UNITA
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- The two sides in the conflict were MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola)
- MPLA is the current ruling party and has been since 1975. Jose Eduardo Dos Santos is the leader of this party and has been the president of Angola for 32 years. During the war, the MPLA declared itself a Marxist-Leninist organization.
- Agostinho Neto was the founder of MPLA and the first president of Angola. He is the namesake of the only public university in the country (that's where I work).
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| President Eduardo Jose Dos Santos |
- UNITA claimed to be anti-Communist in order to gain support from the United States, but certainly had socialist leanings. The party was led by Jonas Savimibi, who was Dos Santos's arch enemy until 2002 when he refused to participate in a run-off election with Dos Santos due to corruption allegations.
The Cold War
- The Angolan Civil War turned into a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was one of the bloodiest, longest, and most prominent armed conflicts of the Cold War.
- The U.S. backed UNITA, while the Soviets allied themselves with MPLA
- Fun fact alert! 25,000 Cuban soldiers, under the leadership of Che Guevara, were sent to Angola to train and fight beside the MPLA troops against American and South African forces
The Aftermath
- The war officially ended in April of 2002, shortly after the death of Savimbi at the hands of MPLA
- Military forces on all sides of the conflict littered Angola's once beautiful landscape with deadly landmines (Don't worry! There are no landmines in Luanda)
- 200,000 people were killed and over 1 million displaced
- Infrastructure and production capabilities remain devastated
Landmine victim - The MPLA and Dos Santos have ruled for over 30 years with no opposition and have been accused of human rights violations, corruption, and misuse of oil revenue
