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Angola Independence Struggle, Civil War, and Intervention
When the African nationalist revolt erupted in early
1961, the
Portuguese army in Angola numbered about 8,000 men, 5,000
of whom
were African. The colonial forces responded brutally, and
by the
end of the summer they had regained control over most of
the
territory. The human cost, however, was enormous: more
than 2,000
Europeans and up to 50,000 Africans died, and about 10
percent of
Angola's African population fled to Zaire. By early 1962,
the
Portuguese army in Angola had grown to 50,000 and
thereafter
averaged 60,000 into the mid-1970s. About half of this
expansion
was achieved by conscription in Angola, and most
conscripts were
Africans. The Portuguese established a counterinsurgency
program of
population resettlement throughout the country. By the
mid-1970s,
more than 1 million peasants had been relocated into
strategic
settlements, and 30,000 males had been impressed into
service in
lightly armed militia units to defend them.
The thirteen-year Angolan war for independence, in
which three
rival nationalist groups fought the Portuguese to a
stalemate,
ended after the April 1974 military coup in Portugal. At
that time,
the MPLA and the FNLA had an estimated 10,000 guerrillas
each, and
UNITA had about 2,000. Within a year, these groups had
become
locked in a complex armed struggle for supremacy. By
November 1975,
when independence under a three-way coalition government
was
scheduled, the MPLA and the FNLA had built up their armies
to
27,000 and 22,000, respectively, while UNITA had mustered
some
8,000 to 10,000. Further complicating the situation was a
substantial foreign military presence. Although the
Portuguese
forces numbered only 3,000 to 4,000 by late 1975, some
2,000 to
3,000 Cubans had arrived in support of the MPLA, from
1,000 to
2,000 Zairian regulars had crossed the border to aid the
FNLA, and
4,000 to 5,000 SADF troops had intervened on behalf of
UNITA. The
civil war was soon decided in favor of the MPLA by virtue
of the
massive influx of Soviet weapons and advisers and Cuban
troops.
Data as of February 1989
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