ABSTRACT
The end of the Angolan civil war, not far short of thirty years after it began, can be seen either as a sudden unpredicted event, or as the culmination of a process that had been underway for at least a decade. Which of these interpretations is favoured depends largely on the significance given to the death of the leader of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola, Jonas Savimbi, in February 2002. His killing can be seen either as the essential indeed the only precondition for peace or, alternatively, as merely a side-effect of UNITAs inevitable defeat at the hands of the forces of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. A combination of ethno-territorial circumstance and the underlying sympathies of the Portuguese transitional administration had left the MPLA in control of the capital Luanda when the last colonial forces made their hasty getaway in November 1975.
