Angolan Civil War Research Articles

UNITA’s Post-War Parliamentary Elite: From a Wartime Defeat to a Nationwide Party in Angola

Angola is governed under a presidential system characterised by a weakly institutionalised parliament ruled by the MPLA liberation movement since independence. UNITA, the largest opposition party in parliament, is also a liberation movement and former belligerent in the protracted Angolan civil war. Despite facing an uneven playing field, UNITA has seen its share of parliamentary seats increase in successive post-war elections. This makes it a relevant case study to understand patterns of elite formation and political representation more broadly. This article examines the composition of UNITA parliamentary elites in Angola in post-civil war legislatures, and how UNITA members of parliament (MPs) perceive representation tasks and engage in constituency-focused activities. We do so through a longitudinal study of post-civil war legislatures (from 2008, 2012, 2017 and 2022), drawing on new biographical data and interviews with MPs. We argue that, following the transition from rebel movement to political party, parliament became an arena in which UNITA was able to achieve a nationwide reach by integrating MPs with diverse backgrounds and by engaging with constituents. Additionally, while institutional rules favour national over local representation, MPs seem to invest in and value links with constituents. The study highlights how nationwide recruitment and connections with constituents contribute to elite formation.

Apropiación Nacional de las Nociones de Ciudadanía y Paz a la Luz de la Agenda Internacional en el Contexto de la Posguerra Civil en Angola

This study, which has as its problematic the repoliticization of the concepts of citizenship and peace and their joint analytical use, aims to show to what extent the national appropriation of the notions of “citizenship” and “peace” is conditioned by the international agenda, after the end of the civil war in Angola in 2002. This study is a qualitative approach, of a theoretical nature, developed through exploratory bibliographic research. The results indicate that, in Angola, the appropriation of the term “peace” is associated with the appropriation of the term “citizenship” only after the end of the civil war and, from an instrumental point of view, gains some importance following the birth of a new constitutional jurisdiction that changes several of the country's political rules and positions the citizen in an immense sphere of public spaces, but conditioned by the international agenda. From these results, we conclude that, in the post-war context, there are more continuities than ruptures in relation to the need for endogenous appropriation of the concepts of citizenship and peace and the deepening of the positioning of national and local actors within the dimension of the nation-state.

Betting the farm: Rural illiberal State-building in Angola via Chinese loans

Abstract Angola’s government has historically championed the revival of the agricultural sector as a national priority, though it has remained unclear what role the nation’s peasantry is intended to play. Looking to the future while fixated on the past, the first failed recipe for growth was initially based on nationalizing the colonial export model by incorporating the social and economic forces of the rural economy. The government’s early embrace of authoritarian modernization has since pursued an illiberal rural development model seeking to entrench the state’s control over rural areas and extend elite reproduction capacities, exercised principally through a series of state-owned enterprises. Upon the end of the civil war in Angola in 2002, the timely arrival of Chinese loans and technical assistance allowed the administration of President José Eduardo dos Santos to revitalize this strategy with a return to the establishment of a series of state agro-industrial farms a quarter century later. A historical presidential transition in 2017 upended these strategies of rural governance, leading to a vast privatization scheme of state assets built up over decades. This article reveals how the Angolan state has historically sought to engineer elite minority control over the agricultural sector while marginalizing the vast majority of the main rural economic actor, the peasantry. Likewise, the case study provides insight into the hidden costs of Chinese loans on Angola’s rural economy.

СССР в гражданских войнах в странах третьего мира во второй половине 1970-х гг. (на примере Анголы и Афганистана)

Introduction. One of the features of the Cold War was the movement of the rivalry of the superpowers into local armed conflicts and civil wars that took place on the territory of other states, mainly the Third World. The article examines the process of the involvement of the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1970s in the civil wars in Angola and Afghanistan. The policy of the USSR in armed conflicts outside the zone of its military-political influence has often been the subject of scientific research, but it has rarely been subjected to comparative analysis, and the authors make such an attempt, which is the novelty of the study. Methods and materials. The main method of the study is the method of comparative analysis (the actions of the USSR in 1975–1979 during the conflict in Angola and Soviet actions in the same period in Afghanistan are compared); the authors rely on documents, memoirs, and previous scientific works. Analysis. The first part of the article examines the process of the USSR’s involvement in the civil war in Angola, which began there soon after gaining independence, from the diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of Angola to the dispatch of Soviet military specialists. The second part of the article is devoted to the development of events in Afghanistan after the April 1978 revolution and Soviet involvement in them. Results. The authors conclude that the line adopted by the Soviet Union in relation to the military confrontation in Angola (financial, military, and other assistance, the dispatch of weapons, and military specialists) was ultimately more successful than the line implemented in relation to the civil war in Afghanistan in the form of direct military intervention by the Soviet army and its participation in the conflict outside the country. Authors contribution. T.V. Rabush described and analyzed the development of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Angola and with Afghanistan. R.A. Solovyev examined the military aspects of Soviet-Angolan and Soviet-Afghan cooperation (supply of weapons, sending military advisers, etc.). The research concept, conclusions, and literary editing of the text were carried out jointly.

Fleeing the Wrong Way: Black Angolan Refugees and Apartheid South Africa’s Military Humanitarianism at the Angolan-Namibian Border, 1975–1978

This article contributes to two sets of growing historiographies: one on refugees and international humanitarian organizations during decolonization in Africa; and another one on military humanitarianism. The article’s focus is on the little-known case of thousands of Black Angolan refugees who fled from the civil war in Angola to the South African-occupied territory of Namibia in 1975–77. Based on archival sources and oral history interviews, I investigate how and why these refugees found themselves in camps administered by the apartheid-era military rather than an international humanitarian organization, such as the UNHCR. I highlight how these refugees found themselves in a two-fold predicament. First, they had the misfortune of having fled to a territory that, in the context of the global Cold War, was legally, politically, and militarily contested. Second, since the refugees included ex-colonial forces and armed fighters from different Angolan liberation movements, the ‘genuineness’ of their refugee status was questioned by various international organizations. My main argument is that while this group of refugees was in many ways exceptional, their story illustrates the struggles inherent in the UNHCR’s expansion beyond Europe. As a result, other actors – such as the apartheid-era military – stepped in to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees.

The Value of Managers' Export Experience: Lessons from the Angolan Civil War

Abstract We investigate how managers help firms grow by entering a new export market. We conduct an event study on the decision to export to Angola using data on Portuguese firms and workers. We evaluate the impact of the presence of managers with experience in exporting to the Angolan market on a firm's entry success in the aftermath of an exogenous shock: the sudden end of the Angolan civil war. We show that the presence of managers doubles the probability of a firm entering the market. We do not find any significant impact on the intensive margin of exports.

The role of natural resources in the Angolan civil war: Lesson for other African Nations

Conflict is an inevitable phenomenon in all human relations, irrespective of the nature of the country. Thus, the mechanism put in place to manage such conflict will determine whether it will go violent, and ultimately lead to civil war or the conflict will reduce to its barest minimum. The aftermath of civil war can be devastating as it often leads to loss of lives, properties and livelihoods. Also, whenever there is a civil war, the availability of natural resources might worsen the case as rebels often use the proceeds of natural resources to finance the war and procure arms. Therefore, this study examined the role of natural resources in the Angolan civil war. This study relied on secondary sources of data drawn from textbooks, Journals, official publications, conference papers, internet materials, newspapers, magazines and official documentaries that are relevant to the work. The study found that natural resources were not the major cause of the Angolan civil war, but it was used to finance the war. The MPLA had access to oil while the UNITA had access to diamond reserves which played a significant role in financing the war. Therefore, the study recommends that United Nations, European Union, African Union and other regional bodies should place stringent bans and restrictions on the purchase of natural resources from rebels in order to limit their chances of gaining access to funds which will definitely quell the intensity of the wars.

«ЗДЕСЬ ПЫЛЬ, ВОЙНА, УНИТА И КОШМАРЫ…»: ОБРАЗ АНГОЛЫ В ПОЭЗИИ СОВЕТСКИХ ВОЕННЫХ – УЧАСТНИКОВ ГРАЖДАНСКОЙ ВОЙНЫ В АНГОЛЕ (1975-2002 гг.)

The article is devoted to a socio-historical and cultural phenomenon, designated by the author as "amateur poetry of the Soviet military, participants in the civil war in Angola (1975-2002)". The author reveals the political and psychological reasons for the appeal of soldiers-internationalists to poetic creativity and proves the possibility of using these works as historical sources. A comprehensive analysis of the literary heritage of 17 Soviet military men who served in Angola in the 1970s–1990s was carried out in order to characterize the image of Angola. The author argues that the stereotypes imposed by the literature of the 20th century were continued in the poetry of the Soviet military, for whom the People's Republic of Angola appeared as a "distant" unknown African country. The dominant feature in creating the image of the country was a landscape built on recognizable memes: red earth, life-giving ocean, savannah, palm trees, papaya, heat. Another traditional motive for Soviet literature was the idea of Angola as "a place of confrontation between the forces of good and evil, socialism and imperialism", therefore, the fulfillment of international duty, cooperation with the "progressive forces of Angola" for these people was considered natural and fully justified. The third myth, reflected in amateur poetry, concerned the "poverty and backwardness" of Angola, and, therefore, its inability to defend its freedom and independence without outside help. The author proves that the stereotypes imposed by Soviet propaganda were refracted in amateur poetry under the influence of reality and time. Angola during the years of the civil war turned out to be not Gumilyov's "lost paradise", but a "terrible hell", from which not everyone managed to get out; "angolans" turned out to be not a single people dreaming of a "bright socialist future", but a multitude of warring tribes. The secrecy of the participation of the USSR in the conflict in Angola and the unwillingness of the authorities to recognize Soviet military as combatants entitled to appropriate benefits formed the idea of Angola as a country "where Soviet military personnel could not be".

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations governing prey choice by hunters in a post-war African forest-savannah macromosaic.

Overhunting typically increases during and after armed conflicts, and may lead to regional-scale defaunation. The mitigation of hunting impacts is complex because, among other reasons, several intrinsic and extrinsic motivations underpin the elevated deployment of hunting practices. Here we present the first study focusing on these motivations in a post-war zone. Following persistently heavy hunting pressure during the 27-year Angolan civil war, the offtake of small to medium-bodied species has increased recently as a result of large mammal depletion. However, prey choice associated with different motivations varied in terms of species trophic level and body size. While most residents hunted large-bodied species to maximize revenues from wildlife trade, many low-trophic level smaller species were harvested to meet local subsistence demands because they were more palatable and could be captured using artisanal traps near hunters' households. Mainly low-trophic level species were killed in retaliation for crop-raiding or livestock depredation. Considering all game species sampled in this study, 96% were captured to attend two or more motivations. In addition, hunting associated with different motivations was partitioned in terms of age and gender, with prey acquisition for the wildlife trade primarily carried out by adult men, while hunting to meet local subsistence needs and inhibit human-wildlife conflicts were carried out by adult men and women, children and even the elderly. In natural savannah areas lacking fish as a source of protein, a higher number of species was selected to supply both the meat trade and subsistence, while more species in forest areas were targeted for trade in animal body parts and conflict retaliation. Finally, local commerce in bushmeat and other body parts accrued higher domestic revenues compared to any alternative sources of direct and indirect income. However, these financial benefits were at best modest, largely unsustainable in terms of prey population collapses, and generated high long-term costs for the local to regional scale economy and native biodiversity.

Entre Kinshasa, Luanda e São Paulo: migração e educação nas trajetórias de solicitantes de refúgio angolanas no Brasil.

A presença de mulheres angolanas em São Paulo é narrada a partir das trajetórias migratórias das gerações anteriores, que também vivenciaram situações análogas a de refúgio. Suas experiências no Brasil como angolanas (não necessariamente lusófonas) e seus relatos acerca de deslocamentos entre Angola e República Democrática do Congo (RDC) no período da Guerra de Independência de Angola (1961-1974) e da Guerra Civil Angolana (1975-2002) são entrelaçadas pelas suas trajetórias educacionais e familiares. É relatada a permanência de dinâmicas educacionais coloniais no ensino dos idiomas francês e português em detrimento dos idiomas nacionais vinculados a grupos étnico-linguisticos, no contexto de formação de identidade nacional angolana no período pós-independência. O produto lingüístico de seu pouco domínio do idioma português é relacionado à sua dificuldade de inclusão no mercado de trabalho e o não reconhecimento de suas habilidades e certificações profissionais, situação que reforça sua posição como migrantes/refugiadas africanas no mercado de trabalho brasileiro.

Angolan battlefield tourism: Impact on the quality-of-life of South African Defence Force (SADF) veterans

This study sought to determine the tourism travel motives of former South African Defence Force veterans with Angolan civil war battlefield experience . Nine veterans completed qualitative interviews on their travel motives, influences across their life domains, and quality-of-life overall, three months pre- and post the tour . Thematic analysis yielded travel motives of social, camaraderie, and friendship as well as a sense of family belongingness . The veterans reported with a heightened quality-of-life overall from achieving a sense of closure to the battlefield experience events that troubled them for many years . The findings contribute to the knowledge base on the travel motives of military veterans with psychological trauma from historical conflicts, and the psychological recovery they would benefit post-conflict from visiting as tourists.

From spears to automatic rifles: The shift in hunting techniques as a mammal depletion driver during the Angolan civil war

Access to sophisticated hunting strategies increases in some political and economic contexts, such as during civil war episodes in Angola (Central Africa) in which there was a widespread distribution of automatic rifles to citizens. This facility favours the local people to slaughter larger animals, mainly during conflict gaps and in the post-war period. Herein, we conducted interviews with hunters to identify the hunting techniques used before, during and after the Angolan civil war in two different landscapes - savannah and forest. We collected information on techniques used by the hunter to approach, pursue and capture game species. Through a network approach and regression models we found that rifles introduced by the Angolan civil war magnify the spectrum of species caught from small-bodied to large-bodied species, and might induce a mammalian population abundance erosion. We also found a clear species-specific conjunct of hunting techniques, valuing the cost-benefit of each approach. The usage frequency of rifles was also higher in the savannah than in the forest. We reveal that changes over time for prey approximation and persecution techniques, which are possibly guided to attend the animal trade chain. Finally, these hunting technique changes has resulted in the predominance of individual hunting events with relatively low bushmeat shared between hunters, indicating a hunting pattern that contrasts with the historical hunting strategy based on collective expeditions. We can conclude that the shift in hunting techniques arising from the Angolan civil war induced a body-mediated decline in mammal diversity, causing their overwhelming annihilation.

Accusation and Legitimacy in the Civil War in Angola

Abstract This article analyses the main categories of accusation found in the speeches of leaders from the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) during the Civil War in Angola (1975-2002). Seeking to understand the entanglements between the global and local dimensions of the conflict, we argue that the accusations made by Agostinho Neto (MPLA), José Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA), and Jonas Savimbi (UNITA) aimed to delegitimize the ‘other’ in the act of claiming legitimacy to occupy the state. This is achieved through the opposition between accusatory categories attributed to the ‘other’ and their inverse, categories attributed to the person making the accusation. We thereby show how the understanding of political conflicts in general, and the conflict in Angola specifically, can be illuminated through the analysis of categories whose linguistic dimension is entangled with historically constituted social positionalities.

State–Diamond-Sector Relations in Angola, 1912–2002

Existing studies on mining in Angola are mostly concerned with its social and military underpinnings and tend to analyse the diamond sector as empirically distinct from the state. In addition, little attention has been paid to how they are bound together and what these interconnections mean for the nature of politics in Angola. This gap in the literature is significant because diamond companies produce far more than revenue and profits: for some 100 years, the diamond sector has governed, policed, defended and controlled the strategic, diamond-rich provinces of Lunda Sul and Lunda Norte. In order to fill this lacuna, this article offers a case study on the role of the diamond industry for the state in Angola from the creation of the first diamond company in 1917 to the end of the Angolan civil war in 2002. Drawing on a wide range of untapped official documents and on interviews, it argues that the diamond sector has functioned historically as the conduit through which the state projects its power and secures its interests in strategic but hostile territory.

Competitive Intervention, Protracted Conflict, and the Global Prevalence of Civil War

AbstractThis article develops a theory of competitive intervention in civil war to explain variation in the global prevalence of intrastate conflict. I describe the distortionary effects competitive interventions have on domestic bargaining processes and explain the unique strategic dilemmas they entail for third-party interveners. The theory uncovers the conditional nature of intervention under the shadow of inadvertent escalation and moves beyond popular anecdotes about “proxy wars” by deriving theoretically grounded propositions about the strategic logics motivating intervener behaviors. I then link temporal variation in patterns of competitive intervention to recent decreases in the prevalence and average duration of internal conflicts. The theory is tested with a quantitative analysis of all civil wars fought between 1975 and 2009 and a qualitative case study of the Angolan civil war (1975–1991). My results underscore the importance of a generalizable account of competitive intervention that not only explains past conflicts, but also informs contemporary policy.

Conflict diamonds and the Angolan Civil War (1992–2002)

In the early 1990s several rebel groups turned to natural resource extraction to pay for war. A key form of this is rebel diamond production, commonly referred to as conflict diamonds, which is widely perceived as being highly beneficial to insurgent organisations. Yet in the Angolan Civil War (1992–2002), the use of conflict diamonds by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) resulted in a decisive insurgent defeat. How can this outcome be explained? Offering a nuanced understanding of how conflict diamonds affect civil war, this article shows that although diamonds generated considerable revenue for UNITA, they were not an effective method for them to take on the Angolan government. This was for two reasons: internally, the rebels greatly struggled to convert their diamond proceeds into sufficient goods and services; and externally, it left the group highly vulnerable to international countermeasures in the form of United Nations Security Council sanctions. Natural resource extraction may therefore not be as useful to rebel groups as is frequently believed.

“Yugoslavia's Help Was Extraordinary”: Political and Material Assistance from Belgrade to the MPLA in Its Rise to Power, 1961–1975

Based on newly declassified documents from former Yugoslav archives, this article reconstructs the process of material and political assistance that was rendered to the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) by Yugoslavia throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s until the time of Angola's independence and the beginning of the Angolan civil war in 1975. The archival evidence demonstrates that Yugoslavia's assistance to the MPLA guerrillas was one of the crucial factors that enabled the organization not only to survive the vicissitudes of international politics, but also to preserve and stabilize its strength for the final phase of the power struggle in Angola.

Koniec zimnej wojny na południu Afryki. Sprawa Namibii podczas negocjacji między Stanami Zjednoczonymi a Związkiem Sowieckim (1987–1988)

Spośród wielu sporów istniejących między Stanami Zjednoczonymi a Związkiem Sowieckim w czasie zimnej wojny jednymi z trwających najdłużej była wojna o niepodległość Namibii i wojna domowa w Angoli, w literaturze traktowane niekiedy jako jeden konflikt, nazywany południowoafrykańską wojną o granice. Walka Namibijczyków o wolność trwała od 1966 r., jednak 20 lat później wciąż nie było widać perspektyw szybkiego zakończenia konfliktu. Przełom nastąpił w latach 1987–1988 dzięki seriom spotkań i negocjacji, jakie odbyły się między administracją prezydenta USA Ronalda Reagana i sekretarza generalnego KPZS Michaiła Gorbaczowa. Dla rozwiązania kwestii Namibii kluczowym rokiem był 1988 dzięki podpisaniu w Nowym Jorku grudniowych porozumień między władzami Angoli, Kuby i RPA. Rok później rozpoczęto realizację Rezolucji Rady Bezpieczeństwa ONZ nr 435, a wojska południowoafrykańskie zaczęły stopniowo opuszczać terytorium Namibii. Artykuł ma na celu wskazać najważniejsze aspekty negocjacji między USA i ZSRS w sprawie Namibii w latach 1987–1988, głównie przed szczytem i w czasie jego trwania (Moskwa, przełom maja i czerwca 1988 r.).

Poaching and human encroachment reverse recovery of African savannah elephants in south-east Angola despite 14 years of peace.

With populations of African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) declining across the continent, assessing the status of individual elephant populations is important for conservation. Angola’s elephant population represents a key linkage between the larger populations of Namibia and Botswana. Elephants in Angola were decimated during the 1975–2002 Angolan civil war, but a 2005 survey showed that populations were recolonizing former habitats. Between 2005 and 2015, no research was permitted on elephants in Angola, but elsewhere in Africa many elephant populations experienced a poaching crisis. In 2015, we were able to resume elephant research in Angola. We used aerial surveys and satellite monitoring of collared elephants to determine the current status of elephant populations in Angola and to learn how human populations may be affecting elephant habitat usage. The aerial survey revealed a population of 3,395 ± SE of 797 elephants, but populations had declined 21% from the 2005 estimate. The high number of carcasses observed on the survey suggests that populations may have increased after the 2005 survey but were declining rapidly as of 2015. Satellite-collared elephants avoided areas <6 km from human indicators but preferred areas nearer humans at scales of 6–40 km, suggesting that humans may be displacing elephants from preferred habitats near rivers. Taken together, these results suggest that Angola’s elephant population is experiencing intense poaching and may be losing habitat to human settlements. Without action to conserve their populations, Angola’s elephants face an uncertain future.

Renegotiated (Post)Colonial Relations within the New Portuguese Migration to Angola

This article examines the new wave of Portuguese migration to Luanda in the first decade after Angola's civil war, a time characterised by extensive economic growth and shifting economic prospects in Angola. It frames Portuguese–Angolan relations in contemporary Angola, relations that are sometimes portrayed as amicable and influenced by a common brotherhood, as multifaceted. This article distinguishes different social, cultural, and historic interpretations of this migration and investigates how such interpretations influence people's relations, identities, feelings, and personal understandings of the social, political, and historic contexts that people confront on a daily basis in contemporary Luanda, a capital city where “colonial encounters in postcolonial contexts” have increasingly become everyday occurrences. It argues that at the intersections of Angolan and Portuguese contact in Angola, new configurations of power are being produced and reproduced against the backdrop of its colonial history and Lusotropicalist myths, where colonial and postcolonial inequalities, as well as economic opportunities, are brought to the fore in both Angolan and Portuguese imaginaries.