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The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Angolan War for Independence (1961–1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975–2002). The war was one of the most prominent Cold War proxy wars, with UNITA receiving military aid initially from People's Republic of China from 1966 until October 1975 and later from the United States and apartheid South Africa while the MPLA received support from the Soviet Union and its allies, especially Cuba.
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan revolutionary politician and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974 then confronted the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.
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 a left-wing political party from Angola. 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 the ruling since its end.
USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968) was a Spruance-class destroyer in the United States Navy. She was named for Admiral Arthur W. Radford USN (1896–1973), the first naval officer to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Angolan War of Independence, called in Angola the Luta Armada de Libertação Nacional, began as an uprising against forced cultivation of cotton, and it became a multi-faction struggle for the control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola among three nationalist movements and a separatist movement. The war ended when a leftist military coup in Lisbon in April 1974 overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship, and the new regime immediately stopped all military action in the African colonies, declaring its intention to grant them independence without delay.
l'Unità was an Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1924. It was supportive of that party's successor parties, the Democratic Party of the Left, Democrats of the Left and from October 2007 until its closure the Democratic Party. The newspaper closed on 31 July 2014. It was restarted on 30 June 2015, but it ceased again on 3 June 2017.
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. The war 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). The war was used as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War by rival states such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the United States.
Corps General Abelardo Colomé Ibarra was a Vice President of the Council of State of Cuba and the Cuban Minister of the Interior, serving in the latter position from 1989, until his retirement in October, 2015. Known as Furry he first laid the foundations of State Security in 1959.
Abel Epalanga Chivukuvuku is an Angolan politician and leader of the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola electoral alliance (CASA-CE). Previously, as a long-time member of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), he served as the Chief of UNITA's Parliament from October 1998 to September 2000.
Operation Savannah was the South African code name for their military incursion into Angola in 1975–1976. It was part of the South African Border War and arose due to the Angolan War of Independence. The operation also materially influenced the subsequent Angolan Civil War. South African forces invaded deep into Angola with the objective of driving the MPLA, Soviet and Cuban forces out of southern Angola so as to strengthen the position of UNITA, the main opponent of the MPLA and an ally of South Africa.
The Caprivi conflict was an armed conflict between the Namibian government and the Caprivi Liberation Army, a rebel group that waged a brief insurrection in 1999 for the secession of the Caprivi Strip.
The Lusaka Protocol, initialed in Lusaka, Zambia on October 31, 1994, attempted to end the Angolan Civil War by integrating and disarming UNITA and starting national reconciliation. Both sides signed a truce as part of the protocol on November 15, 1994, and the treaty was signed on November 20, 1994.
In the 1980s in Angola, fighting spread outward from the southeast, where most of the fighting had taken place in the 1970s, as the African National Congress (ANC) and SWAPO increased their activity. The South African government responded by sending troops back into Angola, intervening in the war from 1981 to 1987, prompting the Soviet Union to deliver massive amounts of military aid from 1981 to 1986. The USSR gave the Angolan government over US$2 billion in aid in 1984. In 1981, newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan's U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, developed a linkage policy, tying Namibian independence to Cuban withdrawal and peace in Angola.
Relations between Angola and South Africa in the post-apartheid era are quite strong as the ruling parties in both states, the African National Congress in South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, fought together during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. They fought against UNITA rebels, based in Angola, and the apartheid-era government in South Africa which supported them. Nelson Mandela mediated between the MPLA and UNITA during the final years of the Angolan Civil War. Although South Africa was preponderant in terms of relative capabilities during the late twentieth century, the recent growth of Angola has led to a more balanced relation.
The Cuban intervention in Angola began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops in support of the communist-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the pro-western National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The intervention came after the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War, which occurred after the former Portuguese colony was granted independence after the Angolan War of Independence. The civil war quickly became a proxy war between the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the United States. South Africa and the United States backed UNITA and the FNLA, while communist nations backed the MPLA.
The People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola or FAPLA was originally the armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) but later (1975–1991) became Angola's official armed forces when the MPLA took control of the government.
Brigadier Alberto Joaquim Vinama, also known as Chendovava, served as the Chief of staff of the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola, the armed wing of UNITA, from January 1985 until his death in October 1986. He replaced Demosthenes Amos Chilingutila, demoted to Chief of Operations, who regained his office upon Vinama's death.
In the 1990s in Angola, the last decade of the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the Angolan government transitioned from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one, a move made possible by political changes abroad and military victories at home. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on April 1, eliminated the southwestern front of combat as South African forces withdrew to the east. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system.
Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician who was the 53rd Prime Minister from 1998 to 2000. Later he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. He is also a journalist and served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). Sometimes media refers to him as Leader Maximo, due to his first name Massimo, but also for his dominant position in the left-wing coalitions during the Second Republic. Earlier in his career he was a member of the Italian Communist Party, and he was the first former communist to become prime minister of a NATO country and yet the only former communist prime minister of Italy.
The 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot down occurred on November 25, 1985, in Angola during the Angolan Civil War. An Aeroflot Antonov An-12BP cargo aircraft operated by the Soviet Air Force flying from Cuito Cuanavale to Luanda was shot down, allegedly by South African Special Forces, and crashed approximately 43 kilometres (27 mi) east of Menongue in Angola's Cuando Cubango province. The incident took place in the aftermath of the Soviet Union-backed People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola's (FAPLA) operation 2 Congresso do Partido conducted against units of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. The transport was carrying eight crew members, 13 passengers and two tank diesel engines in need of repairs. According to eyewitnesses from the local populace and investigative reports the aircraft was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). All people on board the aircraft died in the crash.
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