Angola–Cuba Declaration of 1984 which was called the Colonial War. The principal protagonists included the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), founded in 1956, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which appeared in 1961, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), founded in 1966. After many years of conflict that weakened all of the insurgent parties, Angola gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon, Portugal, which overthrew the Portuguese régime headed by Marcelo Caetano. Portugal's new revolutionary leaders began in 1974 a process of political change at home
1950s in Angola of Northern Angola, which advocated the independence of the traditional Kingdom of Kongo, in 1954. Portuguese police arrested Agostinho Neto of the MPLA and future President of Angola (1975–1979), in 1952 and again in 1955 for his involvement in the Portuguese Communist Party. He returned to Angola in 1959 and police arrested him again in 1960. Portuguese authorities arrested over 100 MPLA members in 1959. The Portuguese discovered petroleum in Angola in 1955. Production began in the Cuanza basin in the 1950s, in the Congo basin in the 1960s, and in the exclave of Cabinda in 1968. The Belgian company