Angola, Africa: The Terror of a Mass Uprising Involving the African Working Class

Intrastate conflict has historically been savage and chaotic; nowhere have these descriptors been more fitting than within African civil wars. A legacy of colonialism, ineffective governance, and regional conflict scars the continent, resulting in regular political instability within its territories. The Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s cost the lives of an estimated three-million people- the majority of whom were civilians who succumbed to starvation (NWE 2015). This conflict has traditionally been understood to have been caused by ethnic tensions within the state, and justifiably so (Falola 1999, 125). The ethnic cleansing of the Igbo that occurred throughout September and October of 1966 in northern Nigeria undoubtedly played a

2. Why do you think historians regard Angola’s long civil war as an outgrowth of the cold war?

Once she understood the U.S.’s true participation, guilt for her country consumed her, ashamed that she had never known what was going on at the time and ashamed for what had happened. While the rest of the world played the events like that of a chess game (Kingsolver 317), with Lumumba and the rest of the Congolese as their pawns, the Congo was helpless to do

Many Africans were put into the work force, leading up to a wage labour force in the Congo twice as large as any other African colony. On June 30th, 1960, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo- Léopoldville. Patrice Lumumba was voted as president. The country was very unstable; regional tribal leaders held far more power than the central government and democracy began to break down. Lumumba asked the USSR for assistance. The United States viewed their presence as an attempt to take advantage of the situation and gain proxy state in the area. The US looked to replace Lumumba, and on September 14th, 1960, the government was overthrown and Lumumba was arrested. “Lumumba was taken to Thysville prison, then flown to Katanga Province, and finally beaten so savagely they couldn’t return the body to his widow without international embarrassment” (Kingsolver 323). However, poor relations with the groups in the Congo, the involvement of Belgium in the Congo affairs, and intervention of parties of the Cold War led to five years of political crisis and war from 1960-1965, ending with power seized by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. “I rad the page they’d folded back: Soviet Plan Moves Forward in Congo.” It said Khrushchev wanted to take over the Belgian Congo and deprive the innocent savages of becoming a free society, as part of his plan for world domination” (Kingsolver 161). In the 1970’s, the warring tribes of Angola had agreed to a peace plan, putting

Civil war constantly plagues Africa and can be the cause of tribalism, rival warlords fighting for control, and foreign influence to name a few. I will start off with civil war due to tribalism. The

(United Nations 1). Early in 1992, the R.U.F seized Kono, the diamond mining capital of Sierra Leone, because of the amount of profit in the diamond mining industry in Africa, and initiated a diamond conflict between some diamond mining nations in Africa, thus starting (Gerund) the “War over Conflict Diamonds”. In an attempt to put (Infinitive) a halt to this uprising, the National Provisional Ruling Council (N.P.R.C) waged war with the R.U.F., creating “Operation Genesis” to force out the R.U.F. (Brown 1). However, this did not succeed, causing an attack by the R.U.F. on Sierra Leoneans. To intimidate voters and keep control on the diamond mines, the R.U.F “chopped off the hands and feet of adults, teens, and infants.” (Brown 1). Despite this vicious onslaught, the R.U.F. was still allowed to participate (Infinitive) in the elections. (Brown 1). This remains the biggest reason that we must put an end to these rebel groups and the pain they cause to African families.

Furthermore, root causes of conflict on the continent are often associated with internal issues or an ‘African problem’. Alison Ayers discusses the false perception of civil war and ‘failed states’ that have been created and implemented by the West (Ayers 2012). She disputes that civil war is internally instigated and only portrayed this way due to western representations of Africa through media. Ayers states that these efforts are made by hegemonic powers and are ‘ideologically and politically convenient’ (Ayers 2012, 261). Her implications here suggest that these ideological subjugations render African regions vulnerable for the use of exploitation and continuous dependency on external powers. This becomes the norm of African perception

What we see in the case of civil war is that greed and capital are the roots of all evil and human life is seen as a last concern of the ones who crave for profit. Governments don’t always use their power and trust of their people for prosperity of the country but for their accumulative wealth. The government is willing to obtain the capital by any means necessary; even if that means that their own people die at the expense of natural resources that only obtain value by the assumption of the ones that wants it. In Sierra Leone this was the case that highlights these truths. Momoh gained the trust of the people of Sierra Leone and then sought the diamond mines as a profit for himself and his colleagues instead of for his people. Sierra

What has been a great factor in my ability to expand myself educationally are the implications of my country’s civil war. I am from Angola; a country that was struck with war almost immediately after it gained its independence from Portugal. The war ended back in 2002 however its effects can still be felt by its entire people. These effects come in a myriad of ways; from those who lost families or their livelihood, to those who had the patriotism shaken. To me the war has made the rebuilding of my country’s glory a responsibility which I wish to uphold. Now due to the war, many families were displaced and forced to leave their homes. As a child, parents sent me to live in South Africa in the hopes I could have life away from the war; however

From colonial rule to civil war, Angola is no stranger to elongated and extremely bloody conflicts. Throughout Angola’s history over the last five hundred years, the effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TST) have by far made the longest lasting impact on the nation’s volatile past and future. This horrible marginalization of the country’s population provided a strong foundation that ultimately shaped the country’s future conflicts; a commonality that is shared with many other former African colonies tied to the (TST). The main purpose of this paper will focus on this post-colonial descent into chaos, and what eventually evolved into the Angolan Civil war. What’s more, Angola also served a simultaneous role as a budding Cold War proxy battlefield; becoming one of the many future locations where the East and West meet unofficially, hashing out ideological aspirations softly and covertly on foreign soil.

The Crisis in Congo captivated an immense amount of attention from all around the world. The Crisis occurred between the early 1960s through to the middle of 1964. For about four years, several civil wars tore apart a country’s population causing an unbelievable number of deaths. The demand of human intervention came from many governments and non-governmental organizations.

Ethnic conflict and civil war is a recurrent phenomena affecting many countries in Africa, and has been ignored, oversimplified and overlooked by majority of the Western world. Despite the decades of conflict, and loss of life, when the media does cover conflict in Africa, the damage has already been done. For an example, the awareness regarding the Rwandan Crisis was very delayed and action was taken too late, causing the deaths of thousands of lives.

Instead of caring for the welfare of the country, the war for independence was quickly followed by a power struggle, especially after the involvement of UNITA. If it was not enough to have different leadership styles among the three fronts, they were also based on different ethnic roots and different political leadership styles. The support for the three fronts will then differ within the ethnic groups in Angola. Hence, the Angolan civil war also symbolizes the struggle between the different major political units mentioned above. Without a proper authority to govern Angola, hardly any regulations were implemented and order was barely maintained within the

Africa, as a continent, is one of the fastest growing regions in the world; however, social and economic issues such as poverty play a major role in stemming development in countries that need it the most. Widespread poverty, as such that is found in large parts of Africa, can usually be traced back to a country’s inability to continue to development at a fast enough pace to keep up with rapid demand of the population. In turn, one of the major factors that infringe on national growth, seen in many countries across Africa, is armed conflict. The longevity and sustainability of these conflicts is based solely on the prominence of the arms trade on the continent. This explicit trade feeds the conflicts and provokes a more militaristic

What role did competition between the superpowers have in the early stages of the Angolan Civil War (1974-76)?