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 – 25 April 1974
(13 years, 2 months and 3 weeks)
Location
Result

Angolan victory[29][30]

Territorial
changes
Independence of Angola
Belligerents

MPLA


FNLA
UNITA (until 1972)


FLEC
RDL

 Portugal
UNITA (after 1972)

Commanders and leaders
Agostinho Neto
Lúcio Lara
Holden Roberto
Jonas Savimbi
Estado Novo (Portugal) António de Oliveira Salazar
Estado Novo (Portugal) Francisco da Costa Gomes
Estado Novo (Portugal) Marcello Caetano
Strength
32,000[33] 65,000
Casualties and losses
10,000~ killed 2,991 killed[34]
4,684 with permanent deficiency (physical and/or psychological)
30,000–50,000 civilians killed[35]
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 Luta Armada de Libertação Nacional ("Armed Struggle of National Liberation")[36][37] in Angola, began as an uprising against forced cultivation of cotton and evolved into a multi-faction struggle for control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola among three nationalist movements and a separatist movement.[38] The war ended when a peaceful coup in Lisbon in April 1974 overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship 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 Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.

It was a guerrilla war in which the Portuguese army and security forces waged a counter-insurgency campaign against armed groups mostly dispersed across sparsely populated areas of the vast Angolan countryside.[39] Many atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict.

In Angola, after the Portuguese withdrew, an armed conflict broke out 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. ^ Telepneva, Natalia (2022). Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975. The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 138–139. ISBN 978-1-4696-6586-3.
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