While South Africa was becoming increasingly unpopular with its neighbors and starting a counterinsurgency war against SWAPO/PLAN in South West Africa the Portuguese colonial power in Angola was under question.
Portugal had three colonies in Africa at the time, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.
The conquest of the Angolan territory had only been finally accomplished in 1920 and 40 years later the 5 million strong local population wanted this land back and their colonial masters gone.
Eventually 5 nationalist and separatist forces would rise in various areas of the country trying to oust the Portuguese.
- UPA/FNLA (National Liberation Front of Angola)
- MPLA (People's Movement of Liberation of Angola)
- UNITA (Union for the Total Independence of Angola)
- FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda)
- RDL (Eastern Revolt)
The former Belgian Congo and northern neighbor of Angola becomes independent in 1960, as the Republic of the Congo Immediately after independence, a number of violent disturbances occur leading to the Congo Crisis.
John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as President of the United States on the 20 January 1961. His Administration starts to support the African nationalists movements, with the objective of neutralizing the increasing Soviet influence in Africa. Regarding Angola, the United States starts to give direct support to the UPA and assumes an hostile attitude against Portugal, forbidding it to use American weapons in Africa.
In 1964, Northern Rhodesia becomes independent as Zambia, under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda. From then on, Angola becomes almost surrounded by countries with regimes hostile to Portugal, the exception being South West Africa.
With SWAPO using the newly independent Zambia as its springboard into SWA. South Africa naturally feared that if Angola fell into Marxist hands the insurgency springboard would simply move closer.
Meanwhile wholesale atrocities had been committed in Angola at the commencement of the War.
On 15 March, the Union of Peoples of Angola (UPA), under the leadership of Holden Roberto, launched an incursion into northern Angola from its base in the Congo-Léopoldville (ex-Belgian Congo), leading 4000 to 5000 militants. His forces took farms, government outposts, and trading centers, killing and mutilating officials and civilians, most of them Ovimbundu "contract workers" from the Central Highlands. It was the start of the Angolan War of Independence and of the wider Portuguese Overseas War. UPA militants stormed the Angolan districts of Zaire, Uíge, Cuanza Norte and Luanda, massacring the civilian population during their advance, killing 1,000 whites and 6,000 blacks (women and children included of both white European and black African descent). Besides the killing of people, the UPA militants destructed the infrastructures they found on their way, including houses, farms, roads and bridges, creating a general chaos and panic. The terrified populations took refuge in the forests or fled to nearby regions and to Congo-Léopoldville.
The Portuguese response was as atrocious.
In the first year of the war 20,000 to 30,000 Angolan civilians were killed by Portuguese forces and between 400,000 and 500,000 refugees went to Zaïre. UPA militants joined pro-independence refugees and continued to launch attacks from across the border in Zaire, creating more refugees and terror among local communities. A UPA patrol took 21 MPLA militants prisoners and then executed them on 9 October 1961 in the Ferreira incident, sparking further violence between the two sides.The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 163, calling on Portugal to desist from repressive measures against the Angolan people.
The US was supplying weapons and ammunition to the UPA to counter the Marxist threat. The UPA later merged with the Democratic Party of Angola to form the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). Savimbi (a key name to remember) later secured Chinese support for the FNLA.
Savimbi left the FNLA in 1964 and founded UNITA.
UNITA had its main base in distant south-eastern Angolan provinces, where the Portuguese and FNLA influence were for all practical purposes very low, and where there was no guerrilla war at all. UNITA was from the beginning far better organized and disciplined than either the MPLA or the FNLA. Its fighters also showed a much better understanding of guerrilla operations.
During the late 1960s the FNLA and MPLA fought each other as much as they did the Portuguese, with MPLA forces assisting the Portuguese in finding FNLA hideouts.
By the mid 70's as the marxist belligerents the MPLA was getting funding from both China and the Soviet Union.
During the late 1960s the USSR also became involved in the war in Angola, albeit almost exclusively via the MPLA. While the FNLA received only very limited arms shipments from the USA, and the UNITA was getting hardly any support from outside the country, the Marxist MPLA developed very close relations with Moscow and was soon to start receiving significant shipments of arms via Tanzania and Zambia.
In 1969 the MPLA agreed with the USSR that in exchange for arms and supplies delivered to it the Soviets would – upon independence – be granted rights for establishing military bases in the country. Consequently, by the early 1970s, the MPLA developed into the strongest Angolan anti-colonial movement and the most powerful political party.
By Katangais, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
It was into this mess that South Africa plunged assisting the Portuguese by attacking both the MPLA and UNITA.
This was formalised into the Alcora Exercise a secret military alliance between South Africa, Portugal and Rhodesia, between 1970 and 1974.
Rhodesia and South Africa initially limited their participation to shipments of arms and supplies. However, by 1968 the South Africans began providing Alouette III helicopters with crews to the Portuguese Air Force (FAP), and finally several companies of South African Defence Forces (SADF) infantry who were deployed in southern and central Angola.
Finally, there were reports that a number of Rhodesian pilots were recruited to fly FAP helicopters. However, when the first Portuguese unit was equipped with Aerospatiale Puma helicopters, in 1969, its crews were almost exclusively South Africans. Rhodesian pilots were considered too valuable by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force (RRAF) to be deployed in support of the Portuguese.
Changes in government in Portugal in April 1974 via the Carnation Revolution resulted in governmental changes in policy for Angola. The Alvor Agreement, signed January 1975, would grant Angola independence from Portugal on November 11 1975.
This signaled the end of the Angolan War of independence but the beginning of the Angolan Civil War as the nationalist and independence movements now more viciously turned on each other, fighting over the prize.
South Africa was left with no more Portuguese secret alliance and an Angola ready to welcome SWAPO and PLAN. It's Portuguese buffer to the north had fallen and Mozambique to the east with it.
Quoted parts from relevant Wikipedia pages
Other posts in this series
The piece of the cold war nobody told you about - Africa's forgotten war
The air battles
The SA Fighter Aircraft
The SA Bomber Aircraft
The conflicts deep roots and start
Regional Tensions