ABSTRACT
On November 11, 1975, Angola held what may be the strangest independence day in African history. As Portuguese Admiral Leonel Cardoso lowered his country’s flag over the capital city of Luanda, artillery could be heard in the background. While the left-wing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, its Portuguese acronym) took the reins of power, a rival group, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was marching on the city. Meanwhile, in the southern provincial capital of Huambo, a third liberation force, the South African-assisted Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), was conducting its own independence celebration and getting ready to launch a military drive on the capital hundreds of miles to the north.
