Word: luanda
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...Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.), a Soviet-backed group which controls Luanda and is headed by Agostinho Neto...
...colonial empire in Africa comes to an end this week. In accordance with instructions from Lisbon, the last Portuguese high commissioner in Angola, Admiral Leonel Cardoso, will lower his country's red, yellow and green flag at the 16th century stone fort of Sào Miguel in Luanda, the territory's capital. Then he plans to tuck it under his arm and-much to the annoyance of Angolans-sail off with it to Lisbon on a waiting Portuguese frigate. His unwillingness to hand over the flag with the reins of power is not a last vestige...
Given the gloomy realities in Angola, that did not seem irrational. At least 10,000 people have died in the past year of fighting-more than the total for the entire 13-year guerrilla war for independence. Last week combined F.N.L.A.-UNITA units were closing in on Luanda. To the south, a 1,200-man F.N.L.A.-UNITA force under the command of M.P.L.A. Defector Daniel Chipenda and spearheaded by 150 Portuguese, South African and Rhodesian mercenaries captured the tactically critical towns of Benguela and Lobito. Though the mechanized troops are still 400 miles from Luanda, there were few obstacles left...
...supplies money and arms to the movement through the CIA, as the recent revelations about the agency show, and as the Ford administration unabashedly confesses. China backs the FNLA as well on anti-Soviet grounds, and Chinese advisors train FNLA troops. Having recently acquired French Mirages capable of bombing Luanda, the FNLA is clearly the strongest of the three factions in purely military terms...
Despite this advantage, however, the military situation remains bleak. The MPLA faces hostile forces on all sides which are generally better armed and better trained. In particular it is the approaching battle with the FNLA for Luanda which should determine Angola's fate. The question is whether popular forces relying on revolutionary social institutions can hold off the technically superior armies seeking to prevent the Angolan people from determining their own destiny. National liberation movements have been victorious elsewhere facing less favorable odds; there is no reason to think it could not happen in Angola...