Research Article: Angola: Civil War and Diamonds

A civil war has brutalized Angola, raging since the 1960s fight for independence from Portugal. Over the years, other countries, including Cuba and South Africa, have funded the rebels or fought in Angola. Currently, the government is fighting National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels.

• The FNLA is predominately Kongo and anti-communist.
• The MPLA is predominately Mbunda and Creole, or Mestiço, and communist.
• UNITA is predominately Ovimbundu and was a major anti-colonial force.
• During colonization, Creoles were more likely to speak Portuguese and be educated; Africans of the interior—predominately the other ethnic groups—were more likely to be poor and uneducated.

• During colonization, ethnic divisions were made larger through increased economic differences. Creoles were developed by Portuguese rulers as an elite and were intermediaries in the slave trade. Kongo and Ovimbundu were more frequently agricultural laborers.
• Rebels, especially UNITA, have exploited diamond resources and support from abroad to fund their fighting.
• The United Nations has banned the sale of diamonds from Angola, because money from diamond sales funds the rebels.

The United Nations Security Council sanctions committee on Angola set off a storm of controversy in March 2000 with its report implicating African presidents in helping the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels to buy weapons. The committee charged that rebels bought weapons from Eastern Europe, primarily Bulgaria, and had them shipped via other African countries in exchange for diamonds. The report charged that the rulers of Togo, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Rwanda helped ship weapons, spare parts, and fuel to Angola's rebel movement. Belgium was accused of having such lax standards at its Antwerp...
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