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Angola Trend Analysis

Country Trend Analysis: Angola

Angola is a country with a bright future starting to form on its horizon. After decades of war it is starting to emerge as a democracy with a rapidly growing economy. The country plans to have legislative elections in September of 2008, and Presidential elections are scheduled for 2009. Even after its violent history, Angola is truly emerging as one of the few stabilizing countries of Africa.
Colonial economic development did not translate into social development for native Angolans. The Portuguese regime encouraged white immigration, especially after 1950, which intensified racial problems. As decolonization progressed in other African countries, Portugal, under the Salazar and Caetano dictatorships, rejected independence and treated its African colonies as overseas provinces. As a result, three independence movements emerged: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) led by Agostinho Neto, with a base among Kimbundu and the mixed-race intelligentsia of Luanda, and links to communist parties in Portugal and the East Bloc; the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto with an ethnic base in the Bakongo region of the north and links to the United States and the Mobutu regime in Kinshasa; and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Malheiro Savimbi with an ethnic and regional base in the Ovimbundu heartland in the center of the country and links to the People's Republic of China and apartheid South Africa. From the early 1960s, elements of these movements fought against the Portuguese. A 1974 a coup d'etat in Portugal established a military government that promptly ceased the war and agreed, in the Alvor Accords, to hand over power to a coalition of the three movements. The ideological differences between the three movements eventually led to armed conflict, with FNLA and UNITA forces attempting to wrestle control of Luanda from the MPLA. The...