Guerrillas of Angola | Early Period of the anti-Colonial Nationalist Insurgency | October 1961

October 1961. Footage of Angolan guerrillas in training during the early phase of the anti-colonial struggle. The guerrillas were largely active in the northern part of the country around the cotton and coffee plantations run by Portuguese colonials. At the the time, the Governor of Luanda had announced the ceasing of armed forces action and that the insurgency was being countered solely by military police. The colonial authorities claimed that less than 25 per cent of coffee crops had been lost by guerrilla activity which was “disjointed“. Source: Reuters News Archive. NB. The anti-Portuguese insurrection began in March 1961 when guerrillas of the Union of Peoples of Angola (UPA) led by Holden Roberto infiltrated the northern part of the country from bases in Congo-Leopoldville (which later became Congo-Kinshasa and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). They destroyed infrastructure and killed officials and civilians inclusing the Ovimbundu (contract workers) in the plantations. The colonial authorities responded by deploying military units such as the Caçadores, infantry troops of the Portuguese Army, and paratroops. After surving a coup d’etat in April which was motivated by the situation in Angola, the Portuguese leader and founder of the authoritarian Estado Novo, António de Oliveira Salazar, Salazar made a television broadcast to reassure his nation of the national resolve to maintain control in its colony, using the famous phrase “Para Angola, rapidamente e em força“: “To Angola, rapidly and in force“. During the first year of the war, an estimated 20,000-30,000 Angolan civilians were killed by Portuguese forces and between 400,000 and 500,000 refugees fled to Congo-Leopoldville. The UPA merged with the Democratic Party of Angola (PDA) to form the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) which stood in opposition to another Black Nationalist organisation known as the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The anti-Portuguese struggle endured until 1975, when although militarily in control of much of the country’s territory, the Portuguese withdrew from Angola. This had been prompted by the military coup of 1974 in which left-wing soldiers overthrew the Estado Novo and made a commitment to decolonise Portugal’s African territories. A civil war between the Black Nationalist guerrillas thereby ensued during which Angola was turned into a Cold War-era theatre of war between US and Soviet-backed proxies. The MPLA led by Augustino Neto (backed by Cuba and the USSR) vied for supremacy with UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi (backed by Apartheid-era South Africa and the US) with the MPLA emerging as the dominant force in control of the central government.