Angola's War of Independence

Angola's war began in 1961 with several outbreaks of resistance. In January cotton workers in the Baixa de Cassanje region revolted against forced cultivation; on 4 February militants attacked prisons in Luanda; and in March a rebellion in the north killed hundreds of settlers and many African workers, followed by Portuguese reprisals that killed many thousands of Africans.

The struggle was split among three movements with different ethnic and international bases: the MPLA, led by Agostinho Neto, rooted among Mbundu and urban mixed-race Angolans and backed by the Soviet bloc; the FNLA, led by Holden Roberto, based among the Bakongo and supported by Zaire and at times the US; and UNITA, founded in 1966 by Jonas Savimbi, drawing on the Ovimbundu. The three often fought each other as well as Portugal, which held most of the territory militarily.

These divisions meant that independence, when it came in 1975, was followed by a long civil war.