Portuguese-speaking African countries Portuguese-speaking African countries The Portuguese-speaking African countries (also referred to as Lusophone Africa) consist of six African countries in which the Portuguese language is an official language: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and, since 2011, Equatorial Guinea. The six countries are former colonies of the Portuguese Empire. From 1778 until independence, Equatorial Guinea was also a colony of the Spanish Empire. In 1992, the five Lusophone African countries formed an interstate organisation called PALOP, a colloquial acronym that translates to African Countries of Portuguese Official Language (). The PALOP countries have signed official agreements with Portugal,
Cuban intervention in Angola the requested financial assistance (100,000US$) it received from Yugoslavia. Portugal's sudden retreat from Angola and Mozambique in 1975 ended a history of South African military and intelligence cooperation with Portugal against the Angolan and Namibian independence movements dating back to the 1960s, later formalized in a secret alliance codenamed Alcora Exercise. It also ended economic cooperation with regard to the Cunene hydro-project at the Angolan-Namibian border, which South Africa had financed. South African involvement in Angola, subsumed under what it called the South African Border War, started in 1966 when the conflict with the Namibian independence movement, South West Africa