Angola, Namibia and Tanganyika: settler wars and negotiated independence (History HL)

Not every African country walked to independence through negotiation and elections. Angola was a Portuguese colony, and Portugal — ruled by the dictator Salazar — refused to decolonise at all. So Angolan nationalists had to fight a long guerrilla war before they could even get to the negotiating table.

The war began in 1961 and lasted until 1974. But it was never a single, united movement. Three rival groups fought Portugal and, increasingly, each other:

Why three movements, not one: Angola's nationalism split along ethnic and ideological lines. Each movement had a regional/ethnic base, and Cold War superpowers poured in weapons and money, turning a colonial liberation war into a Cold War proxy fight.

The turning point came from outside Angola entirely. In April 1974 the Carnation Revolution overthrew the dictatorship in Portugal itself. The new Portuguese government had no appetite for expensive colonial wars, so it agreed to withdraw and grant independence.

Independence, 1975 — but war continues: Angola became independent on 11 November 1975. But because Portugal left without brokering a real power-sharing deal, the three rival movements simply turned their guns on each other. The MPLA seized the capital, Luanda, and declared itself the government, but a brutal civil war between MPLA and UNITA then dragged on for nearly three decades (to 2002) — far longer than the liberation war itself.

This matters for Paper 3: Angola shows that getting rid of the colonial power did not automatically mean peace. Independence could be the start of a new conflict, not the end of an old one.

South-West Africa is the most extreme example in this whole topic of just how long an independence struggle could take. The territory had been a German colony, then was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate after 1919 — and South Africa simply refused to give it up, even after the United Nations ended the mandate.

Link Angola and Namibia together: These two aren't separate stories — examiners reward students who show the connections. Cuban troops that helped the MPLA in Angola also helped block South African forces near Namibia. Angola's independence in 1975 gave SWAPO a base to operate from. A settled Angola/Namibia border was part of what finally forced South Africa to negotiate in 1988.

So why did South Africa finally agree to leave in the late 1980s? Three pressures combined: the military and financial cost of the border war was mounting; international pressure and sanctions on apartheid South Africa were intensifying; and the Cold War itself was ending, so the superpowers had less reason to keep funding a regional proxy war.

Tanganyika (mainland Tanzania) is the sharp contrast to Angola and Namibia — proof that not every African independence story was a long armed struggle. Under British trusteeship after the First World War, Tanganyika moved to independence in barely six years of organised political campaigning, with almost no violence.

Why Tanganyika stayed peaceful: Three factors: no large European settler population (unlike Kenya or the Rhodesias) meant less resistance to Black-majority rule; TANU built broad, multi-ethnic support rather than a narrow ethnic base; and Britain saw Tanganyika as a trusteeship territory it was internationally obliged to prepare for self-rule, not a permanent settler colony.

TANU won an overwhelming majority in the 1958–60 elections, and Britain agreed to a rapid timetable. Tanganyika became independent on 9 December 1961, with Nyerere as prime minister (later president). In 1964 it united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania.

One factor explains most of the difference: Whether the ruling power was willing to negotiate shaped everything else. Britain in Tanganyika chose gradual transfer; Portugal and apartheid South Africa refused, forcing armed struggle.