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Angola: History and Government Source Database: Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara Table of Contents Essay | Further Readings | Source Citation The Republic of Angola is descended from an early Portuguese dependency whose name, Angola, was appropriated from the conquered Mbundu state known as Ngola. It also has two modern predecessors, the twentieth-century Portuguese colony of Angola and its independent successor, the Marxist-Leninist People's Republic of Angola. Ancient Angola was small and organized almost entirely around supplying slaves to Brazil. By the mid-nineteenth century, with the end of the slave trade in sight, it was still a largely coastal, Afro-Portuguese state which stretched inland up the Kwanza River valley via a series of more-or-less dependent trading forts. By 1891 Portugal had succeeded in obtaining European diplomatic recognition of its claims to rule the lands and peoples now constituting Angola. It was just beginning, however, to succeed in extending its authority beyond the ancient coastal boundaries. This Portuguese expansionism, combined with the demise of the Atlantic slave trade and consequent dramatic growth in commodity exports, put extraordinary pressure on the communities that were soon to become a part of modern Angola. Chokwe, Kongo, Mbundu, and Ovimbundu were the most affected by changing conditions after 1850. They responded with generally successful efforts to compete economically. Nonetheless, all lost their independence between 1890 and 1922, during which time more than ninety military campaigns were launched either by or against the Portuguese. By the early twentieth century the extension of modern Portuguese colonialism was creating hardships for urban, assimilated Africans and Afro-Portuguese as well. Many were squeezed out of the administrative and commerical sectors which they had long dominated. One result was the emergence of proto-nationalist movements in Luanda and other coastal cities. Newspapers and cultural organizations were founded, a few of which even moved beyond parochial complaints to attack forced labor, racism, and other abuses, and to struggle with the meaning of an Angola rooted in Africa, rather than in Portugal. Portugal became a republic in 1910, and after 1932 a fascist dictatorship under António Salazar. Imposition of strong economic and military controls enabled the regime to concentrate on solidifying a colonial hierarchy based on lusophone culture. Under the Salazarist New State, early nationalist organizations were abolished or forced to operate as government-approved cultural societies. In 1951 Angola officially became an overseas province of Portugal, which subjected its people to even more systematic repression, now enforced by the Policia Internacionale de Defensa do Estado, the Portuguese secret police. Despite tight economic controls and government schemes such as those promoting the settlement of poor Portuguese peasants in the Central Highlands, overall economic development in Angola was slow. Portugal itself did not have adequate resources for colonial development, nor would the xenophobic New State seek foreign investors. Instead, land expropriation, divide and rule tactics, forced labor, and coerced cultivation formed the basis of the colonial economy. Not surprisingly, discontent became endemic in the countryside. Even those who did not protest, turning instead for assistance to legitimate sources such as Christian missions for access to modern schools, medical services, and information, were often considered subversive, especially if they associated with suspect foreign Protestants. During the 1950s tensions escalated significantly as nationalist currents sweeping through Africa seeped into Angola, sparking the foundation of modern nationalist movements by elements of the (often Protestant) educated few, who were also influenced by the cultural nationalist underground. Portugal, remaining impervious to pressures for change, responded with more settlers and more crackdowns, thus provoking a serious anticolonial rebellion in 1961, which proved a major historical turning point. From that time forward more and more Angolans were drawn into an intensifying liberation struggle led by three often competing nationalist movements: the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), founded in 1956 and based in the Afro-Portuguese and Mbundu region of Luanda; the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola), with its roots in Kongo, founded in 1962; and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), founded in 1966, which appealed to an Ovimbundu constituency. By the end of the decade each had set up offices outside the country and launched guerrilla operations inside it, especially in the north and east. The Portuguese government answered with ever-larger military campaigns. Its army in Angola was sixty-thousand strong by 1970. A few minor concessions did little to mollify nationalist sentiment. Portugal, however, did initiate successful efforts to promote economic development by finally opening up the colony to international corporations like the U.S.based Gulf Oil. Everything changed in 1974 as a result of the April military coup which ended fascism in Portugal. The new government moved quickly to terminate its colonial wars and negotiate terms for independence. In Angola, however, fighting continued as rival liberation armies contested control of the country. The last eighteen months of the colonial era were marked by a series of agreements which ultimately failed to stop the fighting or prevent increased internationalization of the conflict as each party sought outside aid. The People's Republic of Angola By 11 November 1975, the day of Angolan independence, the Portuguese had departed, but without formally transferring power to any one of the competing nationalist groups. However, the People's Republic of Angola (RPA), proclaimed in Luanda by the MPLA under the leadership of President Agostinho Neto, succeeded, with Soviet and Cuban aid, in gaining control of almost all of the country by early March 1976. The rivalries of the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA were a prime factor in preventing a peaceful transition to independence in the period 1974-1976. But pressures from outsiders, particularly the Soviet Union, South Africa, and the United States, intensified the conflict and helped the MPLA to triumph. The withdrawal of American aid from the FNLA in December 1975, the discrediting of UNITA once it had solicited South African help, and Soviet and Cuban aid to the MPLA, coupled with the fact that the MPLA was able to hold on to its traditional power base in Luanda, all helped the MPLA emerge victorious. Within a few months, most African and European countries had recognized it. In December 1976 Angola was admitted to the United Nations. From March 1976 the MPLA began both to implement its Marxist-Leninist principles and to build a sense of Angolan national identity. Apart from grappling with new administrative structures, the RPA government in the late 1970s had to rebuild a war-shattered economy further weakened by the departure of most Portuguese skilled labor. It had to deal with factionalism within its ranks and contend with continuing guerrilla actions sponsored by UNITA and its ally, South Africa, all while trying to improve education, health, and transport; create mass political organs; and foster the growth of an authentic Angolan cultural expression. At the time that cancer claimed his life in 1979, President Neto could still have been optimistic about achieving these goals. However, by 1981 his successor, former planning minister José Eduardo dos Santos, faced escalating conflict, again pitting the Cuban-aided MPLA against UNITA and UNITA's ally, South Africa, in the context of cold war politics and the struggle for Namibian independence. At mid-decade the South Africans occupied the southern borderlands, UNITA was receiving aid from the United States, fifty thousand Cubans were performing military and civilian tasks, and the Angolan army and air force were being built into formidable modern operations. In 1983 the most affected provinces were put under military governors. The war prevented the effective implementation of planned social and economic programs, stymieing efforts to institutionalize the key principle of "people's power." It also contributed to the evolution of a more centralized, presidentialist form of government. The leadership of the ruling party, now called the MPLA-PT (Workers Party), remained relatively closed and ethnically linked to the Luanda region, despite the success of President dos Santos in adding a few technically trained and less ideologically oriented people like himself to its ranks. Even as warfare settled into the fabric of Angolan life, the government was involved in international diplomacy designed to end it. Diplomatic efforts focused on the issue of Namibian independence, with South Africa insisting on linking it to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. In 1981 the United States accepted this linkage, and despite initial Angolan rejection of the principle, a long series of talks involving Angola, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States began. These culminated in 1988 with agreements both on independence for Namibia and Cuban troop withdrawals from Angola. With the regional situation more stabilized, the Angolan government intensified its drive to improve the economy and end the internal fighting with UNITA. African heads of state brokered talks between the parties, which resulted in a short-lived (but prophetic) agreement signed in Gabdolite, Zaire, in June 1990. Although the war dragged on in 1990, Cuban troop withdrawals and talks between the government and UNITA continued in Portugal, and the Soviet Union and United States now both backed the peace process. Important domestic political and economic changes were initiated. Most important, at its Third Party Congress in December 1990, the MPLA-PT voted to turn itself into a social democratic party, institute a multiparty system, and further liberalize the economy. By the end of 1991 peace finally seemed possible. A cease-fire was holding; the last Cuban troops had departed Angola under the watchful eyes of a United Nations Verification Mission, or UNAVEM; the Estoril (or Bicess) Peace Agreement had been signed by dos Santos and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi; and campaigning had begun for the following September's scheduled multiparty elections. The Republic of Angola In August 1992 constitutional changes instituting a multiparty democracy took effect, and thus the Republic of Angola was born. By this time election campaigning was intense, with no less than eighteen political parties, including UNITA and a renamed MPLA, contesting the presidency and seats in the new National Assembly. Hopes ran high in a war-weary land, but ominously, progress was very uneven in implementing key provisions of the Estoril accords relating to the integration of the MPLA's Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola and UNITA's troops into the new, nonpartisan Armed Forces of Angola. The five hundred members of the UN Verification Commission, now known as UNAVEM II, were not equipped to enforce, only to observe. The election, which was rated "free and fair" by UN observers, gave the MPLA 129 and UNITA 70 seats in the National Assembly, but required a run-off between dos Santos and Savimbi for president. Following the official announcement of election results, however, fighting broke out in Luanda and Huambo. By the end of the year full-scale war had engulfed most of the country. In January 1993 peace negotiations resumed under UN and Organization of African Unity auspices, with Portugal, Russia, and the United States as observers. By mid-year both the United States and South Africa had established full diplomatic relations with Angola, and a new UN special representative to Angola, Alioune Blondin Beye of Mali, had arrived. However, it was only in November 1994 that a new peace agreement, the Lusaka Protocol, was signed in Zaire and the fighting subsided. Again, the issues of demobilization and power sharing were central, as the MPLA and UNITA continued their contest for control of the country. This time, however, demobilization oversight was under a much stronger UN mission, the seven-thousand-member UNAVEM III. Implementation of the Lusaka accord, however, was behind schedule as of late 1996 in spite of several face-to-face meetings between Savimbi and dos Santos. The Republic of Angola is a multiparty democracy with a social market economy and a presidential form of government. The president of the republic is directly elected and may serve three five-year terms. A 1995 constitutional amendment created two vice presidencies, one of which was offered to UNITA's Savimbi, who rejected it in 1996. The National Assembly is authorized at 223 seats, but 3 seats reserved for Angolans living abroad have been left vacant. The assembly is the supreme state legislative body, to which the government is responsible. Its members, elected to four-year terms, convene twice yearly. A Standing Commission of the Assembly assumes power between sessions. The government comprises the president, vice-presidents, ministers, and secretaries of state. The Council of Ministers, whose members are appointed by the president, is headed by the prime minister and answerable to the National Assembly. In 1996 the MPLA had all of the more than twenty seats except for two or three held by minor parties, absent agreement with UNITA on its representation. The politics of Angola have been dominated since 1979 by two personalities, MPLA president dos Santos, and UNITA leader Savimbi, both highly educated, politically astute men who each claim to have the real key to Angola's future. Although Savimbi and UNITA still enjoy support among ethnic Ovimbundu in Angola, however, their international backing dropped precipitously in the 1990s with the end of the cold war. As of late 1996, control of substantial diamond production and a large cache of stockpiled weapons enabled UNITA to continue stalling against the time when a weary and disillusioned Angola might yet give them the opportunity to seize the power that otherwise eludes them. While the dos Santos government has been hampered by UNITA-caused delays in constituting a new national army and administration, it has been able to capitalize on Savimbi's international isolation. In particular, the United States in 1993 recognized the dos Santos government and imposed sanctions on weapons sales to UNITA; in 1996 it opened a USAID office in Luanda. In late 1996 the government continued with economic reforms and financial restructuring. Mine removal and reconstruction efforts were under way. Local agricultural markets were reviving. If peace can be sustained and national finances stabilized, the country's rich resources will continue to attract investment, which could, at long last, enable the people of Angola to prosper. -- Susan Herlin Broadhead FURTHER READINGS • • • • • • • • • • Up-to-date information on Angola is best obtained from the Internet and World Wide Web. Three general sites are the most useful: the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Michigan; and the Angolan Embassy, with ANGOP (the official Angolan news agency) news briefs updated daily. The Angola Peace Monitor, published by ACTSA, London, is also available on-line. Birmingham, David, and Phyllis M. Martin, eds. History of Central Africa. 2 vols. New York, 1983. Broadhead, Susan H. Historical Dictionary of Angola. 2d ed. Metuchen, N.J., 1992. Clarence-Smith, W. The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975. Manchester, U.K., 1985. James, W. Martin. A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990. New Brunswick, N.J., 1992. Marcum, John. The Angolan Revolution. Vol. 1, The Anatomy of an Explosion, 19501962. Cambridge, Mass., 1969. ------. The Angolan Revolution. Vol. 2, Exile, Politics, and Guerilla Warfare, 19621976. Cambridge, Mass., 1978. Núñez, Benjamin. Dictionary of Portuguese-African Civilization. Vol. 1. London, 1995. Sogge, David, comp. Sustainable Peace: Angola's Recovery. Harare, Zimbabwe, 1992. Sommerville, Keith. Angola: Politics, Economics, and Society. London, 1986. Source Citation: "Angola: History and Government." Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. 4 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com.ez.sccd.ctc.edu:3048/servlet/History/ Document Number: BT2344200027