Angola: From Revolutionary Movement to Reactionary Regime

Abstract

Angola’s four decades of conflict ended in 2002 shortly after the death of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in combat. In important ways, Savimbi’s death marked the final victory of the revolutionary forces that participated in the various phases of Angola’s complex and interrelated conflicts that started in 1961 with the anticolonial war and then evolved into a long and protracted postcolonial civil war. The length and violence of the conflict are related to various factors—the way the colony was constructed, its resource endowment, the nationalist forces’ inability to agree both on a common front against colonialism and on a framework for the post-colonial state-building project, and Angola’s role as an important Cold War battleground. These factors, in turn, conditioned and complicated the revolutionary forces’ seizure and ultimate consolidation of power in Angola.