Talk:Angolan War of Independence

DYK comment

This is pure nonsense. The war against the Portuguese stopped in April 1974. From that date onwards until 2002 the war was between the nationalist movements and their allies. -- Aflis (talk) 15:03, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Content

The following content needs to be added in at some point Perspicacite 18:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC):

Upon hearing of the coup, Neto, who was in Montreal, Canada at the time, proclaimed, "Our victory." Neto had only 3,000 militants under his command when officers overthrew the Caetano government.

Daniel Chipenda, a member of the MPLA, established the Eastern Front, significantly expanding the MPLA's reach in Angola, in May 1966. When the EF collapsed Chipenda and Neto each blamed the other's factions. In 1972 the Soviet Union allied with Chipenda's faction, giving him aid. The Eastern Revolt also received aid from the governments of Zambia and South Africa. Chipenda left the MPLA in 1973, founding the Eastern Revolt with 1,500 former MPLA followers. He opposed the MPLA's mestizo-leadership and was wary of the Soviet Union, despite its support.

In 1973 the Soviet Union invited Neto to Moscow and told him Chipenda planned to assassinate him. Although Chipenda joined the FNLA in September 1974 the Eastern Revolt's existence continued and RDL forces fought against the MPLA in February 1975.

Casualties

So the independence movements had a strength of 18,000 yet there losses were 50,000? WTF --121.72.206.223 (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well observed. In fact, all numbers related to the independence movements, without exception, are just (more or less educated...) guesses, and generally not even plausible. Aflis (talk) 15:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Beginning and End

Beginning: the date of 4/2/61, given in official MPLA historiography, cann no longer be maintained. There was the uprising in the Baixa de Cassanje, there was the UPA uprising in the Northwest, and there was this still somewhat mysterious action in Luanda for which the MPLA claims paternity. Thus there were 3 beginnings, each one independent of the others. See John Marcum's vol I. - End: The colonial war (=war against the Portuguese) stopped immediately after the Carnation Revolution, because the Portuguese stoped fighting. After that it was infighting among the movements. See Franz-Wilhelm Heimer, The decolonization conflict in Angola. -- Aflis (talk) 23:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Result

Based on actua data provided by both MPLA and UNITA former members and Portuguese War Department, I'm hereby editing the result of the Angolan War of Independence. The reference is provided and may be provable through visualization of the documentary. PR.PT (talk) 13:04, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

The basic political results of that war are well known and documented. So what are the results you propose to address? -- Aflis (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I propose a change in the result, claiming an unanimous agreement for the military victory of the Portuguese forces in Angola (by the end of 1974, there were only 400 active MPLA/UNITA/UPA guerrilla members, even though the war continued until the Alvor Agreements, so that the Portuguese military could secure the evacuation process of thousands of Portuguese civilians from the colony). Both MPLA and Portuguese former Intelligence members state that the war in Angola was "reduced to policing actions" in the main cities, such as New Lisbon (or Nova Lisboa, present day Huambo) and the region capital, Luanda.

Concluding, even though the Carnation Revolution coup was decisive in order to grant all colonies a decent independence status (or at least an attempt to grant independence, because Portugal did not gathered the conditions to execute a stable process of full autonomy powers, for obvious reasons), there was in fact a military victory by the Portuguese forces, mostly due to the close support from South Africa during the whole Colonial War (which indirectly explains the high difficulties the Portuguese had in the struggle for the control of the Guinean territory, closely supported by neighboring Guinea-Conakry). PR.PT (talk) 23:29, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Dates

I reverted the dates indicated by user: Jmj713 because (a) Giving a precise date for the beginning of the war would mean a choice between two events, the UPA attacks in the North and the riots in Luanda (which the MPLA wrongly claims to have organized). As both events, though in different ways, triggered the war off, the only way out is to just indicate the year - 1961. (b) The war ended after the April 1974 coup d'état in Portugal, when the new Portuguese regime decided to stop all military actions in the (then) colonies. -- Aflis (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think I messed up the dates during my research and put the wrong ones in the infobox. The end would have to be November 11, 1975, as per the Alvor Agreement. The start would have to be February 3, 1961, as Baixa de Cassanje revolt is claimed to be "the first battle of the Angolan War of Independence". Jmj713 (talk) 04:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The War of Independence ended in 1974, because the Portuguese stopped all military action and announced the would grant independence. The conflict in 1974/75 was not about conquering independence, but about which of the anti-colonial movements would conquer supremacy in independent Angola. We have thus to, carefully, distinguish the war of independence from the decolonization conflict! -- Aflis (talk) 13:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Belligerents incomplete?

In the foreign influence section (specifically the USA part of it), it said that originally it supported the UPA (which merged into FNLA). But later it said that FNLA got help from china, thus the (as quoted from that part of article) " USA granted the company Aero Associates, from Tucson, Arizona, the permission to sell seven Douglas B-26 Invader bombers to Portugal in early 1965 ". Doesn't this mean the USA later supported the Portuguese, thus meaning the USA should also be in the Portugal part of the belligerent in the info chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edpark717 (talk • contribs) 03:59, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Who wrote this?

I'm just reading the overviews of the main sections, and want to congratulate the writer. Much of this is beautifully written. I spend a lot of my wiki editing time smoothing out the "chop and change" passages where people drop facts in from different sources, which often have different styles. This is up there with the best work we've done anywhere on Wikipedia. Short. Unbiased. Flows like a river. Billyshiverstick (talk) 06:58, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Contradictory sources regarding Israeli support

It seems we have one source that states Israel provided aid to the FNLA and MPLA during the 60s, while another states Israel staunchly supported Portugal. The issue needs to be resolved here to avoid an edit war. Antonio1968x (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect, we have several sources that state that Israel provided aid to the guerrillas. Anyone who actually read the article would have seen that that information has been here and sourced for several years until someone decided to ignore it and insert it under the supporters of Portugal. No idea why removing it is now a big issue but this is very obvious WP:DISRUPTIVE, WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT and WP:UNDUE, and possibly a case of sockpuppeting. The sources that say so are accessible for everyone to read, while the ones that say the opposite are not. Anyone who wishes to contest it can start by providing a link to sources for users to read, otherwise it's disruptive editing. Wareno (talk) 02:33, 8 December 2023 (UTC)