The painful legacy of Angola’s civil war
Angola's civil war began as its colonial master Portugal left in 1975, leaving rival independence movements to battle it out. In the midst of the Cold War, the West African country became the battleground of a proxy conflict between the communist bloc and that of the United States and its allies. On one side was Agostinho Neto's MPLA, supported by the USSR and Cuba, and on the other was Jonas Savimbi's UNITA, supported by South Africa, the US and the UK.


