Economy of Angola the skills and knowledge needed to run the country and maintain its well-developed infrastructure. The Angolan government created Sonangol, a state-run oil company, in 1976. Two years later Sonangol received the rights to oil exploration and production in all of Angola. After independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola was ravaged by a horrific civil war between 1975 and 2002. United Nations Angola Verification Mission III and MONUA spent USD1.5 billion overseeing implementation of the Lusaka Protocol, a 1994 peace accord that ultimately failed to end the civil war. The protocol prohibited UNITA from buying foreign arms, a provision the United
History of Angola nationalist's demands for independence, thereby provoking the armed conflict that started in 1961 when guerrillas attacked colonial assets in cross-border operations in northeastern Angola The war came to be known as the Colonial War. In this struggle, the principal protagonists were the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), founded in 1956, the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola), which appeared in 1961, and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), founded in 1966. After many years of conflict, the nation gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon,