Everything about People S Movement For The Liberation Of Angola totally explained
The
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola - Party of Labour (
Portuguese:
Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola - Partido do Trabalho) is an
Angolan
political party that has ruled the country since independence in
1975. The MPLA fought against
Portugal in the
war for independence from 1961 to 1975 and against
UNITA and
FNLA in the
civil war from 1975 to 2002.
Formation
In December 1956 the
Angolan Communist Party (PCA) merged with the
Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUA) to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola with
Viriato da Cruz, the President of the PCA, as Secretary General. Later other movements merged into MPLA, such as
Movement for the National Independence of Angola (MINA) and the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Angola (FDLA).
The MPLA's core base includes the
Mbundu ethnic group and the mixed-race intelligentsia of the capital city,
Luanda. It formerly had links to European and Soviet
Communist parties but is now a full-member of the
Socialist International grouping of
social democratic parties.
The armed wing of MPLA was the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA). The FAPLA later became the national armed forces of the country.
In
1960 it joined with the
PAIGC,
fraternal party in
Guinea-Bissau and
Cabo Verde, to direct combat against the
Portuguese empire in
Africa. The following year, the expanded umbrella group
CONCP replaced FRAIN, adding fellow
Marxist-Leninists FRELIMO of
Mozambique and the CLSTP, forerunner of the
MLSTP of
Sao Tome and Principe.
The
Carnation Revolution in
Lisbon,
Portugal in 1974 established a military government that promptly ceased anti-independence fighting in Angola and agreed to hand over power to a coalition of three pro-independence Angolan movements. The coalition quickly broke down and the newly independent Angola broke into a state of
civil war.
South Africa intervened militarily in favor of the conservative FNLA and UNITA,
Zaire and the
United States also heavily aided the two groups.
Cuba deployed thousands of troops in 1975 to aid the MPLA, the
Soviet Union aided both Cuba and the MPLA government during the war. In
November 1980, the MPLA had all but crushed UNITA, and the South African forces withdrew. The
United States Congress barred further U.S. military involvement in the country, fearing another
Vietnam-style quagmire.
Maintaining control over Luanda and the lucrative oil fields of the Atlantic coastline, the MPLA declared Angola's independence on
November 11,
1975, the day the Portuguese abandoned the capital. Poet and freedom fighter
Agostinho Neto became the first president upon independence, and he was succeeded by
José Eduardo dos Santos in
1979.
In
1976 MPLA adopted
Marxism-Leninism as the party ideology. It maintained close ties with the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, establishing
socialist economic policies and a
one-party state. Several thousand Cuban troops remained in the country to combat UNITA insurgents and bolster the regime's security.
In
1983 the MPLA added
Partido do Trabalho (Party of Labour) to its name.
Civil war with UNITA, which received varying degrees of support from the U.S. and South Africa in the 1980s, continued until
2002, when UNITA leader
Jonas Savimbi was killed. The two parties promptly agreed to a ceasefire, and a plan was laid out for UNITA to demobilize and become a political party.
In the
1992 elections MPLA-PT won 53.74% of the votes and 129 out of 227 members of parliament.
The MPLA-PT is currently a member of the
Socialist International.
Major mass organizations of MPLA-PT are Organização da Mulher Angolana (Angolan Women's Organization), União Nacional dos Trabalhadores Angolanos (National Union of Angolan Workers), Organização dos Pioneiros de Agostinho Neto (Organization of Pioneers of Agostinho Neto), and the Juventude do MPLA (Youth of MPLA).
Foreign support
The MPLA received military and humanitarian support primarily from the governments of
Algeria,
Bulgaria,
Cape Verde Islands,
Czechoslovakia,
the Congo,
Cuba,
Guinea-Bissau,
Morocco,
Mozambique,
Nigeria,
North Korea, the
People's Republic of China,
Romania,
São Tomé and Príncipe, the
Soviet Union,
Sudan, it actively supported the MPLA's enemies, the anti-Communist FNLA and later UNITA, during the war for independence and the civil war.
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