Corruption in Angola they really are. Angola's colonial era ended with the Angolan War of Independence against Portugal occurred between 1970 and 1975. Independence did not produce a unified Angola, however; the country plunged into years of civil war between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). 30 years of war would produce historical legacies that combine to allow for the persistence of a highly corrupt government system. The Angolan civil war was fought between the pro-western UNITA and the communist MPLA and had the characteristics typical of a
Angola–Soviet Union relations United States, the People's Republic of China and the Mobutu government in Zaïre. The United States, South Africa, and several other African nations also supported Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), whose ethnic and regional base lies in the Ovimbundu heartland of central Angola. The government of the Soviet Union, well aware of South African activity in southern Angola, flew Cuban soldiers into Luanda one week before November 11, 1975, the date on which Angolan nationalists had agreed to declare independence. While Cuban officers led the mission and provided the bulk of the troop force,