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Angola Erstwhile Opposition: FLEC and the FNLA
FLEC waged an intermittent independence struggle
between its
establishment in 1963 and its virtual demise by the
mid-1980s.
Zaire's withdrawal of support and internal dissension in
the late
1970s caused FLEC to fragment into five factions, three of
which
remained marginally active militarily in the late 1980s. A
combination of the factions' internal divisions and lack
of
external support, on the one hand, and the heavy
concentration in
Cabinda of Cuban troops and FAPLA forces, on the other
hand,
reduced FLEC to little more than a nuisance. In 1983
Luanda granted
an unofficial amnesty to the guerrilla separatists, and
more than
8,000 refugees returned home. In February 1985, a
cease-fire
agreement was signed and talks began, but no formal
resolution was
reached. In late 1988, FLEC existed in little more than
name only.
Holden Roberto's FNLA was also defunct by 1988. After
losing to
the MPLA in the civil war, the FNLA retreated to its
traditional
refuge in Zaire and continued to wage a low-level
insurgency.
However, in 1978 Zaire withdrew its support of the FNLA as
part of
the Angolan-Zairian accord signed in the wake of the
second
invasion of Shaba Province. Ousted by his own commanders,
Roberto
was exiled to Paris in 1979. He emerged again in 1983 in
an
unsuccessful effort to generate international support and
material
aid for his 7,000 to 10,000 poorly armed troops, who
operated (but
did not control territory) in six northern Angolan
provinces.
FNLA remnants formed the Military Council of Angolan
Resistance
(Conselho Militar de Resistência Angolana--Comira) in
August 1980
to replace the moribund movement. Comira claimed to have
2,000
troops training in Zaire for an invasion of northern
Angola, but it
never offered more than sporadic challenges. Its lack of
strength
was the result of the loss of its major external patron,
the
broadening of the leadership of the MPLA-PT to include
more Bakongo
people (the primary source of FNLA support), and more
aggressive
FAPLA operations. Several Comira leaders defected to the
Angolan
side, and in 1984 more than 1,500 armed rebels and 20,000
civilian
supporters accepted the amnesty originally offered in 1978
and
surrendered to Angolan authorities. Hundreds were
integrated into
FAPLA and the security forces. Luanda reported in October
1988 that
11,000 former FNLA/Comira members had been "reintegrated
into
national reconstruction tasks," and in November the exiled
Roberto
was reported to have accepted amnesty.
Data as of February 1989
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