Today in History: Angola becomes independent of Portugal and immediately commences civil war, 1975 (Angola)
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Angola is celebrating 40 years of independence on 11 November. Now, however, people are no longer just asking for peace, democracy and bread, but also freedom.
In the face of President José Eduardo dos Santos’s 36-year rule, one slogan has emerged among Angola’s informed youth: Liberdade Já (Freedom Now).
On the same day, the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) will celebrate 40 years in power. Angolans have only known two kinds of rule: Portuguese colonialism and the authoritarian regime of MPLA.
During those years, the MPLA has chosen to perpetuate the worst practices of the very regime it claims to have replaced – the Portuguese colonial state. Economic extraction, the central objective of the colonial state, has become the means for the Angolan elite to assimilate into the Portuguese elite. The prime example is the president himself. His first born, billionaire Isabel dos Santos, is a major investor in Portugal.
Continue reading this article: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/nov/11/angola-forty-years-on-from-independence-lacks-freedom
When Portugal left Angola, finding it more expensive to maintain as a colony than it was worth, they did not bother putting in a new official government, which precipitated a civil war.
Read more about the struggle for independence: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=owq
Angola is celebrating 40 years of independence on 11 November. Now, however, people are no longer just asking for peace, democracy and bread, but also freedom.
In the face of President José Eduardo dos Santos’s 36-year rule, one slogan has emerged among Angola’s informed youth: Liberdade Já (Freedom Now).
On the same day, the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) will celebrate 40 years in power. Angolans have only known two kinds of rule: Portuguese colonialism and the authoritarian regime of MPLA.
During those years, the MPLA has chosen to perpetuate the worst practices of the very regime it claims to have replaced – the Portuguese colonial state. Economic extraction, the central objective of the colonial state, has become the means for the Angolan elite to assimilate into the Portuguese elite. The prime example is the president himself. His first born, billionaire Isabel dos Santos, is a major investor in Portugal.
Continue reading this article: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/nov/11/angola-forty-years-on-from-independence-lacks-freedom
When Portugal left Angola, finding it more expensive to maintain as a colony than it was worth, they did not bother putting in a new official government, which precipitated a civil war.
Read more about the struggle for independence: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=owq
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