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Angola was made part of the Congo Kingdom by Wene in the 14th century. It was flourishing a century later, when the first
Portuguese explorers reached the country. Relations between the Europeans and the Congo kings were good and missionaries were
sent over. The kings’ sons were sent to Lisbon for education until the 17th century, after which the slave trade soured all
trust between the two countries. An estimated one million slaves were shipped to Portuguese Brazil between the 16th and 17th
centuries. The formal abolition of the slave trade in 1836, following the loss of Brazil, resulted in the Portuguese intensifying
colonisation of its other territories, including Angola. The slave trade in Portuguese colonies continued officially until
the 1870s and thereafter, barely disguised, until the early 20th century.
Under the fascist government that took power in Lisbon in 1926, Portuguese rule was further consolidated. Opposition was relatively
muted until the 1950s – when it did emerge, however, the divisions between the liberation movements laid the foundations for
the civil war, which has consumed Angola for most of the past four decades. The Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation
of Angola (MPLA) and the social-democratic National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) suffered severe repression during
the early 1960s after the failure of a rebellion launched by their supporters in 1961. In 1964, dissident members of FNLA
formed the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The three independence movements fought a guerrilla
war against the colonial government until 1974 and the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal. The new radical
military government in Lisbon opted for rapid decolonisation, put into effect in November 1975.
The tenuous tripartite agreement between the rival independence movements soon collapsed and civil war followed, pitting MPLA
(supported by the then USSR and Cuba) against FNLA and UNITA (backed by South Africa, the USA and the UK). MPLA achieved formal
victory in February 1976, although it never fully defeated UNITA, which, with South African support and the dominating leadership
of Jonas Savimbi, sustained a continuous and effective guerrilla war in the south and centre of the country. Cold-war politics
contributed to this becoming Africa’s longest civil war, with an estimated cost of 500,000 lives.
Repeated attempts to find a political settlement, including an initiative by the then president, Nelson Mandela, all ended
in failure. By now, it had become clear to everyone – including his former western backers – that Savimbi would not accept
any outcome that did not leave him in charge – an outcome which was never likely to occur. Meanwhile, the war staggered on,
with both sides exploiting their control of parts of Angola’s vast natural resources – oil, in the case of the government,
and diamond mines, in the case of UNITA – to finance their campaigns. The government side, wearied by the years of fighting,
drifted under the leadership of ailing president Dos Santos into inertia and corruption. The biggest losers, inevitably, were
the people of Angola, most of whom were reduced to subsistence agriculture or a marginal urban existence.
In February 2002, Savimbi was killed during a clash with the Angolan army. Within weeks of his death, military leaders on
both sides had signed a ceasefire, paving the way for a final political settlement. This was achieved within weeks and the
people and government of Angola celebrated their first year of continuous peace for more than a quarter of a century, in April
2003. Although there is still some sporadic fighting, notably between government forces and separatist groups in the oil-rich
Cabinda enclave, most of the country has now embarked upon the monumental task of reconstruction.
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Overview 
