Portuguese Colonial War and other Western powers, as most analysts and the Nixon administration had concluded that Portuguese military success on the battlefield would resolve any political divisions within Portugal concerning the conduct of the war in Portuguese Africa, providing the conditions for US investment there. Most concerned was the apartheid government of South Africa, which launched a deep border incursion operation into Angola to attack guerrilla-controlled areas of the country following the coup. On 3 January 1961 Angolan peasants in the region of Baixa de Cassanje, Malanje, boycotted the Cotonang Company's cotton fields where they worked, demanding better working conditions and higher
History of West Africa African socialism, whereas Houphouët-Boigny and Liberia's William Tubman remained suspicious of it. 1983 saw the rise of socialist Thomas Sankara, often titled the "Che Guevara of Africa", to power in Burkina Faso. Since independence, West Africa has suffered from the same problems as much of the African continent, particularly dictatorships, political corruption and military coups. At the time of his death in 2005, for example, Togo's Étienne Eyadéma was among the world's longest-ruling dictators. Inter-country conflicts have been few, with Mali and Burkina Faso's nearly bloodless Agacher Strip War being a rare exception. The region of West Africa has seen