The Twenty-Seventh of May

Abstract

On 27 May 1977 the newly-independent Popular Republic of Angola was shaken to its foundations by an unexpected, though abortive, coup d’état. This preliminary history of that coup was written less than a year after the event and was presented to a conference on Angola which the author convened at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. It sheds light on post-colonial politics in Angola, on the social stratification of Luanda city, and on the role of the Cuban expeditionary force which landed in Africa in late 1975 and helped to keep the supporters of Agostinho Neto in power. The article was originally published in 1978 in African Affairs, the Journal of the Royal African Society and is reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.