Angol The Causes Of The Civil War In Angola

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Angola is seventh largest country located in Africa, it gained independence in 1975 when the Portuguese withdraw from Angola. Angola is a country with different ethnics and is rich in natural resources. However, civil war lasted for 27 years. What is civil war? Civil war is a war between the citizens of the same country. As Angola was still in the transition state for being an independent country, the combination of the long lasting ethnic tensions and international pressures rendered Angola's hard earned independence problematic. Civil war started as the different movement in Angola fought for control of Angola when no movement was chosen as the government when the Portuguese left. In this essay, I will be analyzing and weighting the causes …show more content…
Angola is rich in diamond, oil, iron ore and manganese and copper deposits. With oil being one of its biggest economic contributors, making up 90% of its exports, providing countries such as USA and China with oil. The two major liberation movements, MPLA and UNITA fought not only for power, but for natural resources as well. While both movements use these natural resources to help in the fundings of their political and economical interests, the rest of the citizens in Angola lived in poverty. Due to the rich natural resources available in Angola, UNITA uses these natural resources in bring USA to its side, in helping UNITA in the war against MPLA. UNITA was able to capture several diamond mines in Angola, mainly near areas of Lunda Sul and Lunda Norte province. UNITA use these resources as the main funding for arms and campaigns against MPLA during the civil war. With the natural resources as one of the main fundings for the civil war, both parties were determined in exploiting Angola's diamond and oil resources. UNITA gained about 2/3 of Angola, including natural resources in 1992, and UNITA uses these resources in buying the aid from USA. Due to this, the country's natural resources became an aggravating cause for the 27-year long civil war in

Two Phases And Causes Of The Angolan Conflict In Africa

Furthermore, the leaders of MPLA mostly came from privileged socio-economic backgrounds, mostly of Portuguese descendants, which the Ovimbundus bore hatred against. This shows how the ethnic tensions within the different ethnic groups escalated over time, and as they were unwilling to trust each other and hence they each wanted to lead Angola without the other ethnic group co-leading it together. Although agreements were signed for them to lead the country together, each ethnic group eventually wanted their ethnic group to be the ultimate leader, hence leading to the civil war. The civil war served as a platform for both the major ethnic groups to battle out the grudges that they held against each other, or battle for the leadership position in their country so that they could manipulate the country's governing system to the way they want it to be, hence I feel that the ethnic tensions that existed between the different ethnic groups was the root cause of the Angolan…

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The Angolan parties, by contrast, not only had plentiful resources to continue the war, but also much to lose in case of an electoral defeat. Angola, is potentially one of the richest countries in Africa due to its abundant natural resources, in particular oil and diamonds, which had strengthened the governments and opposition UNITA's ability to raise funds for its civil war. Angola's mineral riches were a twofold problem for the peace process by the UN. Firstly, the conflict parties had the resources to fight a war, even without or with less external aid than during the Cold War, where USA and USSR where funding UNITA and MPLA respectively. Second, for both parties, there was a lot at stake during the elections.…

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Two Root Causes Of The Angolan Civil War

The country of Angola has vast amounts of resources which would be used to fund the war and the group’s state sponsored terror campaign. Angola is the fourth largest diamond producer in the world an important fact when talking about the civil war. Angola produces around 15% of the world’s diamond market. There are three major factions in the civil war and they are the following UNITA, MAPLA, and FNLA. All three of these groups represents a ethnic group in the country and shows the effect of tribalism…

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Since the early 20th century De Beers Corporation has had a monopoly on the world’s diamond supply. This monopoly has essentially enabled them to set the price for diamonds as they made up the largest market share, thus at their peak they controlled up to 80% of the worlds rough diamond supply. Through their tactic of restricting the supply of diamonds, the De Beer Corporation has made diamonds, into a luxury good. Over the past 100 years they have consolidated their vast share of the market through essentially buying out all opposition they faced. Monopolies are illegal because they give a lot of power to an individual supplier giving them an unfair share of market power and price making ability.…

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Causes Of Conflict In Angola

There was correlation between the competition to control natural resources, massive corruption, and civil wars. Foreign investment and war, researchers observe that governments in Angola that have large resource bases tend to do a poor job of building efficient state institutions. This is because governments that gain most of their revenues from sales of minerals are freed from the immediate pressure of levying taxes among citizens. Foreign investors played a major role in the conflict by pumping in revenue to bolster a besieged government helping it to master the fiscal performance that will attract loans from creditors. Paul Collier recognises that poor states that are very dependent on natural resource exports are the most vulnerable to civil wars as applicable to Angola’s war.…

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What may appear as instant success rather came about through years of premeditated planning. The WIC had been slowly acquiring Portuguese forts along the African coast for decades. Initially they attempted to acquire Fort Mina, the most coveted fort, in 1606 from the Portuguese. The WIC understood that if their cooperation with the Portuguese ended, they would need leverage on the African continent. However, it would be two decades and thousands of men lost before Colonel Hans Coine in 1637 finally captured Fort Mina (to be renamed Fort Elmina) from Portugal.…

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The oil-producing countries throughout the world competed for top oil producer to monopolize the market before OPEC, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, put contingencies on the market (O 'Neill, Tom, 2007). Shell Oil Company drilled for oil in Nigeria in 1956, land untouched by machinery and vast quantities of oil deposit, began drilling intensively competing for top oil producer in the world. In summary, the Shell Oil Company influenced the collapse of the Ogoni culture by finding vast oil deposits and increasing the ability to reach top oil producer of the world (Unknown, Stakeholder Democracy Network,…

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These wars were mainly based on freedom for the South, but the second war was also a fight over natural resources. Between the North and the South lie significant oil fields and thus significant foreign interests. Most of the oil fields at this time were privatized to western interests, these made many local tribal groups rise up because the oil profit was going overseas and not to the…

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Angol The Causes Of The Civil War In Angola

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