Proclamation of Angola’s independence, on November 11, 1975
On the anniversary of independence, we actually remember the three proclaimed independences that would give rise to a long civil war. And “the transition that was not made as it should have been”.
On the night of November 11, 1975, Agostinho Neto proclaimed the independence of Angola in Luanda, putting an end to five centuries of Portuguese rule. The country was born divided: FNLA and UNITA also declared their own governments. Marcolino Moco remembers “three independences”. Between euphoria and fear, civil war begins. Fifty years later, activists and former fighters question whether the promise of true independence has been fulfilled.
On the night of November 11, 1975, Luanda experienced a mix of euphoria and uncertainty. At the People’s Palace, doctor and poet Agostinho Neto, leader of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), raises his voice before a tired but expectant crowd. After five centuries of Portuguese rule and fourteen years of colonial war, it solemnly proclaims the independence of People’s Republic of Angola.
Outside, a crowd of thousands of people watch, moved, as the red, black and gold flag slowly rises up the flagpole. Cuban soldiers, foreign diplomats, women and children look on with tears in their eyes. In the streets, horns, drums and shouts can be heard. “Long live Angola!”.
However, the same night that is celebrated in Luanda as liberation also marks the beginning of a new division.
Angola is born at war with itself
In the north, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, proclaims the birth of its own republic. In the center, in the cities of Huambo and Bié, Jonas Savimbi, at the head of UNITA, also announces independence.
“It was a bitter revelation, because three independences were proclaimed”, recalls Marcolino Moco, former prime minister and academic, who in 1975 was 22 years old and a member of the MPLA.
“I was in Huambo, I was from the MPLA, and UNITA proclaimed its independence there. The Portuguese identity card no longer had any value and the identity card became the UNITA card. As I didn’t have that card, I was trapped and I was immediately arrested.”
Marcolino Moco recalls being released “thanks to the influence of my father, a great traditional authority”, but shortly afterwards he was detained again.
“They took me away again, just to kill me. But these things happen… the leaders are blamed, but they are things that arise spontaneously”, recalls the young militant, who would escape death shortly before the arrival of Cuban troops in Huambo.
“I was taken to jail a few days before the liberation of Huambo by MPLA troops, supported by Cuba. I was an MPLA activist in the wrong place”, he says, highlighting the violence of the time. For Marcolino Moco, the country was born divided from the beginning.
“When the war began, Angola was divided into three. The MPLA controlled Luanda with support from Cuba and the Soviet Union; the FNLA and UNITA had Zaire, the United States and South Africa on their side. It was the Cold War entering Africa.” The academic also points to external responsibilities.
“The United States was reluctant to recognize independence. The so-called Western world had difficulty accepting unilateral independence, not proclaimed within the framework of Alvor”, he states. “The Alvor Accords were based on the utopian idea that everything would be resolved with elections, without realizing that those three liberation movements were not political parties. They were ethno-regional structures, without a common national project.”
Across the Atlantic, the world watched. In Havana, Fidel Castro guaranteed that “Cuban soldiers will remain in Angola as long as necessary to defend the freedom of the Angolan people”. In Pretoria, the Apartheid regime reacted with unrest, fearing the birth of a state allied with the African National Congress (ANC).
In Lisbon, the government that emerged from the Carnation Revolution complied with the Alvor Accords, but the Portuguese withdrawal proved to be hasty and disorderly.
“The transition did not happen as it should have”notes Marcolino Moco. “The United Nations, in article 73 of its Charter, provided for a gradual transition, which would allow local elites to be prepared to govern. But the Soviet Union forced the acceleration, to multiply allies in the United Nations. The result was that African countries became independent without being prepared, and Angola was one of the most tragic examples of this.”
The international press described the new country with concern. Le Monde headlined “Angola, new Republic born in war”, while The Guardian wrote “Independence and conflict: Angola is divided at birth”.
For many Angolans, independence was a day of contained joy. Álvaro Chicalanga Daniel, current secretary of UNITA, was just seven years old at the time.
“I remember it was a party. Everyone was euphoric, and the perspective was that we would have a better country, a country where we, the Angolans, would be masters of our own destiny.” But the dream quickly fell apart and “as we grew up, we found the opposite. The country became a territory of wars, family separations, mourning and terror. All expectations created with independence were frustrated”, he states.
His own childhood was marked by violence: “I grew up away from my parents for 16 years. I stopped seeing them at eight and never saw them again. I lost the brother who was with me in this conflict and, later, I lost twelve brothers. Those who have seen the hardships of war are in a better position to say: war, never again. Reconciliation, yes.”
In the streets of Luanda, the night of independence mixed jubilation and fear, “there was joy, but also the distant sound of artillery”, recall witnesses of the time. South African planes flew over the south of the country, while columns of Cuban armor advanced along the Catete road.
Fifty years later, the 1975 promise remains incomplete. For activist Sizaltina Cutaia, independence was “the tool through which those who fought wanted to realize their citizenship and their humanity, which had been denied to them”. However, he considers that the country has not fulfilled this promise.
“We, who were born free, thought that an independent nation should not have certain limitations. With the agricultural potential and natural resources that Angola has, it is incomprehensible that we still depend on imports to feed the people. Fifty years later, we should no longer talk about food sovereignty.”
For Portuguese researcher Vasco Martins, understanding the night of November 11, 1975 requires recognizing its two faces: that of liberation and that of violence.
“The promises of 1975 were promises of emancipation and the end of colonial exploitation, and in that sense they were fulfilled and Angolans began to decide their own destiny”, he observes. “But we must remember that November 11th was not just a party, it was also fear. Agostinho Neto’s speech was heard with the sound of bombs in the backgroundwhile Angola was invaded from the north by the FNLA and from the south by South African forces. It was a country that was born out of war”, he adds.
Half a century later, the researcher of Angolan political memory considers that this ambiguity continues to mark national identity.
“Independence was the starting point for a new form of internal rule and for the construction of an official memory of power”, he states. “The MPLA transformed the narrative of liberation and, later, of reconstruction, into a ‘second liberation struggle’. This historical reading, which associates the party with the country’s very survival, shaped the way Angola looks at the past and understands its present.”
Between memory and criticism, the reflection on what it means to be independent persists.
“Independence was a political act, but we started badly”, admits Marcolino Moco. “It was unilateral independence, the source of a 27-year war. And, at the end of the war, we returned to the idea of free and fair elections, but with protagonists who never understood each other. Today, we have a party that presents itself as the only one capable of governing. It blocked all mechanisms of alternation. When they talk about alternation, they talk about overthrowing the MPLA, and not about exercising a natural right in a democratic country.”
