Angolan War of Independence

Angolan War of Independence
Part of the Portuguese Colonial War, the Decolonization of Africa and the Cold War

Portuguese troops on patrol in Angola
Date4 February 1961[citation needed] – 25 April 1974
(13 years, 2 months and 3 weeks)
Location
Portuguese Angola
Result

Angolan victory[25][26]

Territorial
changes		 Independence of Angola
Belligerents
Material support:
Material support:
FLEC
RDL
Material support:
Commanders and leaders
Strength
32,000[29] 65,000[citation needed]
Casualties and losses
25,000 killed[30] 6,000 killed[31]
4,684 with permanent deficiency (physical and/or psychological)
30,000–50,000 civilians killed[32]
Part of a series on the
History of Angola
Precolonial history to 1575
Colonization 1575–1641
Dutch occupation 1641–1648
Colonial history 1648–1951
Portuguese province 1951–1961
War of Independence 1961–1974
Sovereign socialist state 1975–1992
Civil War 1975–2002
Post-war Angola’s
See also
Years in Angola
Map of the present provinces of Angola, corresponding almost exactly to the Portuguese-era districts.

The Angolan War of Independence (Portuguese: Guerra de Independência de Angola; 1961–1974), known as the Armed Struggle of National Liberation (Portuguese: Luta Armada de Libertação Nacional)[33][34] in Angola, was a war of independence fought between the Angolan nationalist forces of the MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, and Portugal. It began as an uprising by Angolans against the Portuguese imposition of forced cultivation of only cotton as a commodity crop. As the resistance spread against colonial authorities, multiple factions developed that struggled for control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola. There were three nationalist movements and also a separatist movement.[35]

The war ended when a peaceful coup in Lisbon in April 1974 overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship. 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 Colonial War. This included the independence wars of Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.

The Angolans waged a guerrilla war, to which the Portuguese army and security forces conducted a counter-insurgency campaign against armed groups, who were mostly dispersed across sparsely populated areas of the vast Angolan countryside.[36] Many atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict.

After the Portuguese withdrew, an armed conflict broke out in Angola among the nationalist movements. The 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 Alvor Agreement. Informally, the civil war resumed by May 1975, including street fighting in Luanda and the surrounding countryside.

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  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference alvor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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