Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War was a conflict that plagued the country from the beginning of its independence until 2002. The war was the longest running conflict in Africa and claimed the lives of a million people. The conflict was between the communist MPLA and Cuba against FNLA and UNITA, who in turn received support and assistance from the USA via South Africa and Zaire.
The United States and the USSR downplayed their involvement due to their own military problems in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and they participated through their various proxies only, although several USSR officers were killed and captured in Angola by the South Africans. Cuba would become the only major non-African nation to openly intervene in this conflict. The war ended with an international agreement in which the MPLA and UNITA agreed to hold democratic elections.
Read more about this topic: Military History Of Angola
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)