angola pea



Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (República de Angola, pronounced Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in south-central Africa bordering Namibia to the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, and Zambia to the east, and with a west coast along the Atlantic Ocean. The exclave province Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola was a Portuguese colony from the 16th century to 1975. The country is the second-largest petroleum and diamond producer in sub-Saharan Africa, yet its people are among the continent's poorest. According to the International Monetary Fund, more than $4 billion in oil receipts have disappeared from Angola's treasury in the 2000s. In August 2006, a peace deal was signed with a faction of the FLEC, a separatist guerrilla from the Cabinda exclave in the North, which is still active. About 65% of Angola's oil comes from that region.


Early migrations

Khoisan hunter-gatherers are some of the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area. They were largely replaced by Bantu tribes during Bantu migrations, though small numbers of Khoisan remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day. The Bantu came from the north, probably from somewhere near the present-day Republic of Cameroon. When they reached what is now Angola they encountered the Khoisan, Bushmen and other groups considerably less advanced than themselves, who they easily dominated with their superior knowledge of metal-working, ceramic and agriculture. The establishment of the Bantu took many centuries and gave rise to various groupings who took on different ethnic characteristics.

Portuguese rule

The geographical areas now designated as Angola first became the subject to incursions by Europeans in the late 15th century. In 1483 Portugal established a base at the river Congo, where the Kongo State, Ndongo and Lunda existed. The Kongo State stretched from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. Angola became a link in European trade with India and Southeast Asia. Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda", with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela, a Portuguese fort from 1587, a town from 1617, was another important early settlement founded and ruled by the Europeans. The Portuguese would establish several settlements, forts and trading posts along the coastal strip of current-day Angola, which relied on slave trade, commerce on raw materials, and exchange of goods for survival. The African slave trade provided a large number of black slaves to Europeans and their African agents. For example, in what is now Angola, the Imbangala had economies which were heavily focused on the slave trade. European traders would export manufactured goods to the coast of Africa where they would be exchanged for slaves. Within the Portuguese Empire, most black African slaves were traded to Brazilian merchants arrived to Portugal's African ports from other Portuguese colony - Brazil (South America) - seeking cheap workforce for use on Brazilian agricultural plantations. This trade would last until the first half of the 1800s. The Portuguese gradually took control of the coastal strip throughout the sixteenth century by a series of treaties and wars forming the Portuguese colony of Angola. Taking advantage of the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch occupied Luanda from 1641 to 1648, where they allied with local peoples to consolidate their colonial rule against the remaining Portuguese resistance.

In 1648, Portugal retook Luanda and initiated a conquest of the lost territories, which restored the pre-occupation possessions of Portugal by 1650. Treaties regulated relations with Congo in 1649 and Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last great Portuguese expansion, as attempts to invade Congo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Portugal expanded its territory behind the colony of Benguela in the eighteenth century, and began the attempt to occupy other regions in the mid-nineteenth century. The process resulted in few gains until the 1880s. Development of the interior began after the Berlin Conference in 1885, fixed the colony's borders, and British and Portuguese investment fostered mining, railways, and agriculture. Full Portuguese administrative control of the interior didn't occur until the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1951, the colony was designated as an overseas province, called Portuguese West Africa. Portugal had a presence in Angola for nearly five hundred years, and the population's initial reaction to calls for independence was mixed.


In the early 1960s, Angolan independentist guerrillas formed in and supported by foreign countries, started operations. This was the beginning of the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974). Portuguese Army's leftist military officers overthrew the Caetano government in Lisbon in the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974. The transitional government opened negotiations with the three main independentist guerrilla groups: MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA, concluding separate peace agreements with each organization. With Portugal out of the picture, the nationalist movements turned on each other, fighting for control of Luanda and international recognition. Holden Roberto, Agostinho Neto, and Jonas Savimbi met in Bukavu, Zaire in July and agreed to negotiate with the Portuguese as one political entity. They met again in Mombasa, Kenya on January 5, 1975 and agreed to stop fighting each other, further outlining constitutional negotiations with the Portuguese. They met for a third time in Alvor, Portugal from January 10-15.

Roberto, Neto, Savimbi, and the Portuguese government signed the Alvor Agreement on January 15, setting November 11 as the date for independence. Alvor marked Angola’s transition from the war for independence to the war for Luanda. Portuguese authorities deliberately excluded the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) and Eastern Revolt from participating in the negotiations to ensure Angola’s territorial integrity, in direct opposition to the de Spínola’s plans for Angola. The coalition government the Alvor Agreement established soon fell as nationalist factions, doubting one another's commitment to the peace process, tried to take control of the colony by force.

Civil war

When it was known that Portuguese authorities and military forces would leave the territory and hand over power to the nationalist groups, a mass exodus of civilian Portuguese citizens ensued. The Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002), one of the largest and deadliest Cold War conflicts, erupted shortly after and lasted 27 years, ravaging the economy, disturbing social order and disrupting social stability in the newly independent country. Over 500,000 people lost their lives, as the three main factions and several smaller ones struggled for supremacy. Millions of Angolan refugees suffered with the conflict and left the country or simply fled to other regions of Angola. Today, all parties to conflict are active politically, but the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola's (MPLA) victory in the war prevents any opposition candidate or ethnic group from challenging dos Santos and the Kimbundu’s "de facto " control of the country. The MPLA’s base is among the Kimbundu people and the multiracial intelligentsia of Luanda. The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), based in the Bakongo region of the north, allied with the United States, the People's Republic of China and the Mobutu government in Zaïre. The United States, South Africa, and several other African nations also supported Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), whose ethnic and regional base lies in the Ovimbundu heartland of central Angola.

Ceasefire with UNITA




Parliamentary elections held on September, 5th, 2008, announced MPLA as the winning party with 81% of votes. The closest opposition party was UNITA with 10%. These elections were the first since 1992.

Administrative divisions


  1. Bengo
  2. Benguela
  3. Bié
  4. Cabinda
  5. Cuando Cubango
  6. Cuanza Norte
  7. Cuanza Sul
  8. Cunene
  9. Huambo
  1. Huila
  2. Luanda
  3. Lunda Norte
  4. Lunda Sul
  5. Malanje
  6. Moxico
  7. Namibe
  8. Uíge
  9. Zaire

Exclave of Cabinda

With an area of approximately 7,283 km² (2,800 square miles), the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unique in being separated from the rest of the country by a strip, some 60 km wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along the lower Congo river. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and north-northeast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population centre. According to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom live in neighbouring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil. The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, "the Kuwait of Africa". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) from 1968 onwards. Since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas province of Angola to the local independentist groups (MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA), the territory of Cabinda has been a theatre of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola (which has employed its military forces, the FAA – Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Cabindan separatists. The Cabindan separatists, FLEC-FAC, created a virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. In its website, it claimed to be committed to building a Republic of Cabinda in which "freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish". This Federal Republic, with Tchiowa (Cabinda) as its capital city, would be administratively made up of seven districts, with a system of government which the website simply describes as a "true democracy" and a legal system based on traditional N'Goyo law. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions, in a process which the Angolan government, although not totally fomented by it, undoubtedly encourages and duly exploits it.


The Angolan Armed Forces (AAF) is headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defense. There are three divisions--the Army, (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA), and Air and Air Defense Forces (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is about 110,000. The army is by far the largest of the services with about 100,000 men and women. The Navy numbers about 3,000 and operates several small patrol craft and barges. Air force personnel total about 7,000; its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers, and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucano for Training role, Czech-made L-39 for training and bombing role, Czech Zlin for training role and a variety of western made aircraft such as C-212Aviocar, Sud Aviation Aloutte III, etc. A small number of FAA personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).





At 481,321 square miles (1,246,700 km²), Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country (after Niger). It is comparable in size to Mali and is nearly twice the size of the US state of Texas, or five times the area of the United Kingdom.





The country has developed its economy since political stability arose in 2002. However, it faces huge social and economic problems as a result of an almost continual state of conflict since 1961, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage was reached after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. Rapidly rising production and revenues from the oil sector have been the main driving forces behind the improvements in overall economic activity – nevertheless, poverty remains widespread. Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Angola one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world in 2005. The capital city is the most developed and the only large economic center worth mentioning in the country, however, slums called musseques, stretch for miles beyond Luanda's former city limits.

According to the Heritage Foundation, an American think tank, oil from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil.



Angola is a majority Christian country, with 53% of citizens professing the religion. Most Angolan Christians are Roman Catholic, 38%, or Protestant, 15%. 47% of Angolans practice indigenous beliefs.






See also

Further reading

  • Pinto Escoval [2004): "Staatszerfall im südlichen Afrika. Das Beispiel Angola". Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin
  • Le Billon, P. Fuelling War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts. Routledge.


External links




  • Canal Angola Everything that have to do with Angolan Music and Culture
  • Mwangole News about music from Angola and events, Videos, Mp3
  • children of Angola – a web documentary on the forgotten children of Angola.
  • - Newspapers from Angola – The most important online newspapers from Angola.
  • Mwangole Amizades Angola Dating, relationship, and more
  • allAfrica - Angola – News headline links
  • Angola Press – Government-controlled news agency (in Portuguese, French and English)
  • Angonoticias (in Portuguese) – A popular news source in Angola
  • Mangole (in Portuguese) – A full news source in Angola and web directory of Angolan sites online
  • Televisão Pública de Angola (in Portuguese) – Angola's state-owned national TV station
  • Rádio Nacional de Angola (in Portuguese) – Angola's state-owned national radio station
  • Jornal de Angola (in Portuguese) – A popular newspaper in Angola
  • 400 Years Ago – Washington Post news story on the possible fate of the first African slaves taken to US.
  •  – "Amputee Beauty Pageant Crowns Miss Landmine 2008" news story about new beauty pageant in Angola for women who lost limbs in landmines admist the nation's civil war.





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