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Fractionism (Angolan Portuguese: fraccionismo) [1] was a political movement in Angola during the 1970s.
Fractionism culminated in the attempted coup d'etat on 27 May 1977 against Agostinho Neto, led by a leading figure of the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola), Nito Alves, who was in power since the country's independence. The movement had the support of the OCA (Organização dos Comunistas de Angola), but was suppressed with the help of Cuban military. An estimated 18,000 followers (or alleged followers) of Nito Alves were killed in the aftermath of the attempted coup, over a period that lasted up to two years.[ citation needed ]
Nito Alves fought alongside MPLA since 1961. In 1974, during the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, he was the leader of the military in the MPLA, in the region of Dembos, to the northeast of Luanda.
During the Provisional government, he became the leader of MPLA's supporters in the musseques of Luanda, where he organised committees named "Poder Popular" (Popular Power), fighting during the Civil War in Luanda against the National Liberation Front of Angola. [2]
Angola would obtain its independence one year and a few months later. At that point, according to the fraccionists, there was already a distortion of the ideals many supported had fought for. There was a wedge at the core of the movement between the "moderados" (moderates), committed to a steady and careful growth and the return of Agostinho Neto and Lopo do Nascimento, and a radical faction, led by Nito Alves, which objected to the predominance of mestizos and whites in the government.
According to the radicals, "the whites and those of mixed blood performed a disproportionate role in the government of a predominantly black country". However, at that time, there were already some black people in power, more so because president Agostinho Neto insisted in establishing a multiracial government in Angola. Some of those government members saw the opportunity of obtaining a larger share of power, explicitly launching an appeal for race to the people, as Nito Alves did when claiming, in a rally in Luanda's periphery, that "Angola would only be truly independent when whites, mestizos and blacks swept the streets together".
Nito Alves was considered by some as second in power to Agostinho Neto. He had been nominated Minister of the Interior when MPLA formed the first government of Angola. However, Nito Alves' dissatisfaction with Agostinho Neto's alleged orientation toward the intellectual urban mestizos, such as Lúcio Lara, influential historian and the party's chief ideologist, Paulo Jorge, and the Minister of Defence, "Iko" Carreira, constituted a division in the government.
This division became more evident during the Central Committee's 3rd plenary meeting on 23 to 29 October 1976, when Nito Alves and José Van-Dúnen were suspended for accusations of fractionism, after having played a crucial role in creating a 2nd MPLA. [3]
As a result of their suspension, Nito Alves and José Van-Dúnen proposed the creation of a committee of inquiry to find out whether there truly was fractionism at the core of the party. The committee was led by José Eduardo dos Santos, who dragged out the inquiries, as well as the reports about fractionism, causing the division to spread in MPLA.
It was because of this committee of inquiry that José Eduardo dos Santos himself, and the then prime-minister Lopo do Nascimento, were later on accused of being fractionists. However, José Eduardo dos Santos was cleared of charges by the provincial commissioner of Lubango, Belamino Van-Dúnem.
José Van-Dúnem's wife, Sita Valles, who had connections to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union obtained through the Komsomol, was also expelled from the MPLA, accused of being a spy for the KGB.
The realisation of a Grand Assembly of supporters on 21 May 1977, in Luanda, was the breaking point, with the official announcement of Nito Alves and José Van-Dúnem's expulsion. [2]
The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party, is an Angolan social democratic political party. The MPLA fought against the Portuguese Army in the Angolan War of Independence from 1961 to 1974, and defeated the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan Civil War. The party has ruled Angola since the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, being the de facto government throughout the civil war and continuing to rule afterwards.
José Eduardo dos Santos was the president of Angola from 1979 to 2017. As president, dos Santos was also the commander-in-chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and president of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the party that has ruled Angola since it won independence in 1975. By the time he stepped down in 2017, he was the second-longest-serving president in Africa, surpassed only by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
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António Agostinho Neto was an Angolan communist politician and poet. He served as the first president of Angola from 1975 to 1979, having led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the war for independence (1961–1974). Until his death, he led the MPLA in the civil war (1975–2002). Known also for his literary activities, he is considered Angola's preeminent poet. His birthday is celebrated as National Heroes' Day, a public holiday in Angola.
The Angolan Civil War was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
Nito Alves (1945–1977) was an Angolan revolutionary and politician who served as the first interior minister of Angola. A hardline member of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Alves is best known for his failed 1977 coup attempt against the government of Agostinho Neto.
Maria de Lourdes Pereira dos Santos Van-Dúnem was an Angolan singer. Usually called Lourdes Van-Dúnem, she was born in Luanda, and rose to stardom in the 1960s with the group Ngola Ritmos. She recorded her first album, Monami, with this group. She toured several times in Portugal, Algeria, and Brazil, in addition to performances in Angola. After her first album, most of her career was spent with the group Jovens do Prenda.
Lúcio Rodrigo Leite Barreto de Lara, also known by the pseudonym Tchiweka, was a physicist-mathematician, politician, professor, anti-colonial ideologist and one of the founding members of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). He served as General Secretary of the MPLA during the Angolan War of Independence and Angolan Civil War. Lara, a founding member of the MPLA, led the first MPLA members into Luanda on 8 November 1974. He swore in Agostinho Neto as the first president of the country.
The 1970s in Angola, a time of political and military turbulence, saw the end of Angola's War of Independence (1961–1975) and the outbreak of civil war (1975–2002). Agostinho Neto, the leader of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), declared the independence of the People's Republic of Angola on November 11, 1975, in accordance with the Alvor Accords. UNITA and the FNLA also declared Angolan independence as the Social Democratic Republic of Angola based in Huambo and the Democratic Republic of Angola based in Ambriz. FLEC, armed and backed by the French government, declared the independence of the Republic of Cabinda from Paris. The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) forged an alliance on November 23, proclaiming their own coalition government based in Huambo with Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi as co-presidents and José Ndelé and Johnny Pinnock Eduardo as co-Prime Ministers.
Soviet–Angolan relations were close until the Angolan government renounced Marxist-Leninism in 1990 and adopted a pro-Western foreign policy. The close, personal relationship between President Agostinho Neto and Cuban leader Fidel Castro complicated the Soviet Union's involvement in the Angolan Civil War and foiled several assassination attempts against Neto.
In the Angola–Cuba Declaration of 1984, signed 19 March 1984 in Havana by president José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Fidel Castro, premier of Cuba, the two countries agreed to the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola after the withdrawal of South African troops from Angola and Namibia, and after UN-Security Council resolution 435 on Namibian independence was strictly applied.
The People's Republic of Angola was the self-declared socialist state which governed Angola from its independence in 1975 until 25 August 1992, during the Angolan Civil War.
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Francisca Eugénia da Silva Dias Van Dunem is an Angolan-born Portuguese lawyer and politician who served as the Portuguese Minister of Justice from 26 November 2015 to 30 March 2022, in António Costa's XXI and XXII Constitutional Governments, and Minister of Internal Administration from 4 December 2021 to 30 March 2022. Van Dunem is Portugal's first black government minister in history.
Sita Maria Dias Valles was a paramilitary, doctor and member of the Portuguese Communist Party, in charge of the União dos Estudantes Comunistas. She was executed following the May 1977 coup attempt, presumably in August 1977 in Luanda, Angola.
The 1977 Angolan coup d'état attempt was a failed attempt by the Angolan interior minister Nito Alves to overthrow the government of Agostinho Neto. It took place on 27 May.
David Zé was an Angolan musician, composer and activist. He began his singing career while Angola was still under the rule of the Portuguese Empire and his music often expressed left-wing and anti-colonialist sentiments. David Zé, along with Artur Nunes, Urbano de Castro and others, was a part of a group of musicians called the FAPLA-Povo Alliance who had the role to spread social and political awareness to Angolan citizens to start a laborist movement to reform Angola after its revolution. He was given the official position of Director of Music in the Culture Ministry in the incoming MPLA regime.
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Avelino Henrique Saíde Vieira Dias Rodrigues Mingas was an Angolan economist, writer, soldier, and politician who was a notable figure in the anti-colonial struggle for independence in Angola. He was the first Minister of Finance of an independent Angola and one of the ten members of the first national legislature, the Revolutionary Council of the People. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). A close associate of Agostinho Neto and Lúcio Lara, he was killed by people associated with the fractionists during the 1977 Angolan coup attempt.