Angola
Angola is a large country in Africa. It was a colony of Portugal from 1574 until November 1975. The capital and largest city is Luanda, its primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, it is Angola's administrative centre. Luanda and its metropolitan area is the most populous Portuguese-speaking capital city in the world and the most populous Lusophone city outside Brazil, with over 8.3 million inhabitants in 2020 (a third of Angola's population).
The Portuguese constructed a railway from Luanda to Malanje, the capital city of Malanje Province, with a population of 455,000 and a municipality which has a population of 506,847 (2014 census). It is located 381 km east Luanda. Near it are the spectacular Calandula waterfalls, the rock formations of Pungo Andongo, and the Capanda Dam.
The city of Benguela with its port, Lobito, was a considerable trading haven and once a major embarkation point for the slave trade to the Americas. The famous 'Benguela Railway' was built in the early 20th century by Portugal to connect the city and Lobito to the interior, and it achieved great success when linked to the copperbelt of Katanga in the Belgian Congo. From the junction there at Tenke it continued into Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) where it joined the colonial railways built by the British upon which you could continue to Beira in Portuguese Mozambique, or changing at Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, on to South Africa.[1]
The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (Portuguese: Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; abbreviated FNLA), a terrorist group founded in 1954 as the União dos Povos do Norte de Angola, began fighting for Angolan independence from Portugal in the so-called war of independence, under the leadership of Holden Roberto. The Portuguese dealt with them without mercy.
The Angolan Civil War (Portuguese: Guerra Civil Angolana) broke out in 1975 and continued, 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 terroist groups, 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 communists were supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, sending military supplies and soldiers.
External links
Sources
- ↑ Bredin, Miles, Blood on the Tracks, Picador (Macmillan), London, 1994, ISBN: 0-330-33033-0
- Huibregtse, Dr. P. K., Angola:the real story (translated into English by Nicolette Buhr), Forum Books, The Hague, Netherlands, 1965. ISBN: 90-235-8076-1
