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Unita and Ethnic Nationalism in Angola
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
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Over the last decade or so scholars in the social sciences have been reassessing works on the rise of nationalism in Africa published in the 1960s and early 1970s. These earlier studies, written during the euphoria following independence and the spread of liberation ideology, regarded the transfer of power to the African élite as signalling the end of subjugation to European control and the emergence of modern African states.1 This revision focused on the post-colonial state and its rôle as a mediator between competing groups for power and the allocation of resources.2 Since then, the trend has generated a revival in understanding ethnicity which is again seen as a major force in most of the crises which have troubled Africa.
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References
Page 47 note 1 See, for example, Armstrong, John A., Nations Before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982).Google Scholar For an appreciation of the ethnic factor, see Olorunsola, Victor A. (ed.), The Politics of Cultural Sub-Nationalism in Africa (New York, 1972).Google Scholar
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Page 49 note 2 These documents were published in Afrique Asie (Paris), 3–2107 1974,Google Scholar and in Expresso (Lisbon), 17, 24, and 30 11 1979.Google Scholar The author has seen copies of the originals, kindly provided by Minter, William, who is working on an annotated English translation. These agreements are also mentioned in the memoirs of Portuguese officers involved, including Costa Gomes, Sobre Portugal (Lisbon, 1979) 32–3.Google Scholar
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Page 53 note 3 Chingunji interview.
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Page 54 note 3 Bridgland, op. cit. p. 93, based on reports in various newspapers by Sitte.
Page 55 note 1 Chingunji interview.
Page 55 note 2 ibid.
Page 55 note 3 ibid.
Page 55 note 4 Bridgland, op. cit. p. 125.
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Page 56 note 6 Chingunji interview. A glimpse of life in those villages can be had from the published notes of Leon Dash, the correspondent for The Washington Post who visited them in 1973.
Page 57 note 1 Chingunji interview. Also, Bergerol, Jane, in Financial Times (London), 14 06 1975.Google Scholar
Page 57 note 2 Chingunji interview.
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Page 57 note 4 Financial Times, 29 January 1976.
Page 57 note 5 Daily Telegraph (London), 10 02 1976.Google Scholar
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Page 59 note 1 Chingunji interview; and Bridgland, op. cit. p. 250, also based on interviews with Savimbi and Chingunji.
Page 59 note 2 The Guardian, 1 August 1980.
Page 59 note 3 The author saw these reports in the Angolan news media while residing in Luanda as cooperante cientifica from August 1979 to August 1980.
Page 59 note 4 Bridgland, op. cit. p. 347, presents this information as part of the ‘Unita case’. The M.P.L.A. claims that Unita was responsible for the social disruption, and that the number of refugees was exaggerated.Google Scholar See also Africa Report (Ne Brunswick), 03–04 1988, p. 42.Google Scholar
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Page 60 note 2 Chingunji interview.
Page 60 note 3 Schuster, Lynda, The Christian Science Monitor (Boston), 26 08 1988.Google Scholar
Page 61 note 1 Chingunji interview.
Page 61 note 2 The forced relocation of population is confirmed in the eyewitness account of the attack on Cangonga in 1983 in Bridgland, op. cit. pp. 377–8.
Page 61 note 3 Author's interview with a former missionary nurse in Angola, Mary Dewar, New York, May 1987.
Page 61 note 4 Chingunji interview.
Page 62 note 1 Unita, ‘The Platform for National Reconciliation in Angola and Final Declaration of the VI Ordinary Congress of Unita’, Jamba, 31 08 1986. Participation was described in the Chingunji interview.Google Scholar
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Page 63 note 2 Savimbi, Jonas to the U.S. Congress, ‘A Message from Savimbi’, 3 03 1987, in Kwacha News (Washington, D.C.), 03–04 1987, p. 4; and Chingunji interview.Google Scholar
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Page 64 note 1 Senate Resolution 174, Congressional Record (Washington, D.C.), 03 1987.Google Scholar
Page 64 note 2 Public Law 171, in ibid.
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Page 64 note 4 Broomfield, William S. et al. to Reagan, Ronald, 12 May 1988; copy in author's possession.Google Scholar
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Page 65 note 2 ibid. 14 December 1988.
Page 65 note 3 The New York Times, 11 January 1989.
Page 65 note 4 The Washington Post, 1 and 3 September 1988.
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