ABSTRACT
Angola is often cited as a classic case of natural resources sustaining a conflict (Hodges 2001). Angola’s protracted civil war (1975–2002) was mainly financed through the wholesale extraction of oil and diamonds. The armed struggle for liberation from Portuguese rule started in 1961, but resistance had begun earlier due to the wide-scale expropriation by the colonial regime of another key resource, land. As in other southern Africa countries, the demand for land rights became a pillar of the independence movement. The four decades of armed conflict were characterized by land expropriation, forced removals, resettlement, and the massive internal displacement of rural and urban populations.
