Angolan War of Independence - 1960s

1960s

On 3 January 1961 Angolan peasants in the region of Baixa de Cassanje, Malanje, boycotted the Cotonang's cotton fields where they worked, demanding better working conditions and higher wages. Cotonang was a company owned by Portuguese, British and German investors. Challenging the authorities, the peasants burned their identification cards and attacked Portuguese traders. This was known as the Baixa de Cassanje revolt. By 4 February the Portuguese military responded to the rebellion by bombing villages in the area, allegedly using napalm, killing up to 7,000 indigenous Africans.

On the same day, 50 independentist militants in Luanda stormed a police station and São Paulo prison, killing seven policemen. Forty of the MPLA attackers were killed, and none of the prisoners were freed. The government held a funeral for the deceased police officers on 5 February, during which the Portuguese citizens committed random acts of violence against the ethnic black majority living in Luanda's slums (musseques). Separatist militants attacked a second prison on 10 February and the Portuguese reaction was equally brutal.

On 15 March, the Union of Peoples of Angola (UPA), under the leadership of Holden Roberto, launched an incursion into Angola from its base in Zaïre, leading 4000 to 5000 militants. His forces took farms, government outposts, and trading centers, killing officials and civilians, most of them Ovimbundu "contract workers" from the Central Highlands. The UPA entered northern Angola and proceeded to massacre the civilian population killing 1,000 whites and 6,000 blacks (women and children included of both white European and black African descent) through cross-border attacks - it was the start of the Portuguese Colonial War.

The Portuguese regrouped and took control of Pedra Verde, the UPA's last base in northern Angola, on 20 September. In the first year of the war 20,0000 to 30,000 Angolan civilians were killed by Portuguese forces and between 400,000 and 500,000 refugees went to Zaire. UPA militants joined pro-independence refugees and continued to launch attacks from across the border in Zaire, creating more refugees and terror among local communities. A UPA patrol took 21 MPLA militants prisoner and then executed them on 9 October 1961 in the Ferreira incident, sparking further violence between the two groups. The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 163, calling on Portugal to desist from repressive measures against the Angolan people.

Roberto merged the UPA with the Democratic Party of Angola to form the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in March 1962. A few weeks later he established the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE) on March 27, appointing Jonas Savimbi to the position of Foreign Minister. Roberto established a political alliance with Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko by divorcing his wife and marrying a woman from Mobutu's wife's village. Roberto visited Israel and received aid from the Israeli government from 1963 to 1969.

The MPLA held a party congress in Leopoldville during 1962. Viriato da Cruz, found to be slow, negligent, and adverse to planning, and was replaced by Agostinho Neto. In addition to the change in leadership the MPLA adopted and reaffirmed its policies for an independent Angola:

• Democracy
• Multiracialism
• Non-alignment
• Nationalization
• National liberation of the entire colony.
• No foreign military bases in Angola.

Savimbi left the FNLA in 1964 and founded UNITA in response to Roberto's unwillingness to spread the war outside the traditional Kingdom of Kongo. Neto met Marxist leader Che Guevara in 1965 and soon received funding from the governments of Cuba, German Democratic Republic, and the Soviet Union. In May 1966 Daniel Chipenda, then a member of MPLA, established the Eastern Front, significantly expanding the MPLA's reach in Angola. When the EF collapsed, Chipenda and Neto each blamed the other's factions.

UNITA carried out its first attack on 25 December 1966, preventing trains from passing through the Benguela railway at Teixeira de Sousa on the border with Zambia. UNITA derailed the railway twice in 1967, angering the Zambian government which exported copper through the railway. President Kenneth Kaunda responded by kicking UNITA's 500 fighters out of Zambia. Savimbi moved to Cairo, Egypt where he lived for a year. He secretly entered Angola through Zambia and worked with the Portuguese military against the MPLA.

UNITA had its main base in distant south-eastern Angolan provinces, where the Portuguese and FNLA influence were for all practical purposes very low, and where there was no guerrilla war at all. UNITA was from the beginning far better organized and disciplined than either the MPLA or the FNLA. Its fighters also showed a much better understanding of guerrilla operations. They were especially active along the Benguela railway, repeatedly causing damage to the Portuguese, and to the Republic of Congo and Zambia, both of which used the railway for transportation of their exports to Angolan ports.

During the late 1960s the FNLA and MPLA fought each other as much as they did the Portuguese with MPLA forces assisting the Portuguese in finding FNLA hideouts.