Baptist Convention of Angola the northern provinces of Angola (particularly the province of Zaire), the Baptist Convention of Angola has maintained a distinctive multi-ethnic character with an active ministry functioning in ten of the eighteen Angolan provinces since the time of Portuguese colonization. After the war for independence ended in 1975, the Convention had a period of natural stagnation owing to the civil war that dominated the next three decades. In part this stagnation was due to the forced abandonment of the country by the missionary forces from America, Portugal, Denmark and Brazil who, up to that point had led the evangelistic spread of
1970s in Angola independence of the Republic of Cabinda from Paris. The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) forged an alliance on November 23, proclaiming their own coalition government based in Huambo with Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi as co-presidents and José Ndelé and Johnny Pinnock Eduardo as co-Prime Ministers. The South African government told Savimbi and Roberto in early November that the South African Defence Force (SADF) would soon end operations in Angola despite the coalition's failure to capture Luanda and therefore secure international recognition at independence. Savimbi, desperate to avoid