Elias Salupeto Pena | |
---|---|
Died | 2 November 1992 |
Occupation(s) | a representative of UNITA, politician |
Known for | being murdered |
Family | Jonas Savimbi (distant relative) |
Elias Salupeto Pena (died 2 November 1992) [1] served as the representative of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), an anti-Communist rebel group that fought against the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Angolan Civil War, to the Joint Military and Political Commission. [2] Pena was a distant relative of, and a senior advisor to, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. [3]
The government killed Pena [4] along with Jeremias Chitunda, the Vice President of UNITA, in Luanda in November 1992, following the first round of the presidential election in what was known as the Halloween Massacre. [2]
Angola was first settled by San hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo. In the 15th century, Portuguese colonists began trading, and a settlement was established at Luanda during the 16th century. Portugal annexed territories in the region which were ruled as a colony from 1655, and Angola was incorporated as an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. After the Angolan War of Independence, which ended in 1974 with an army mutiny and leftist coup in Lisbon, Angola achieved independence in 1975 through the Alvor Agreement. After independence, Angola entered a long period of civil war that lasted until 2002.
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) 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 the 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 was one of several groups which waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974. Once independence was achieved, it then became an anti-communist group which confronted the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi had extensive contact with anti-communist activists in the United States, including Jack Abramoff and was one of the leading anti-communist voices in the world. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.
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