Figure 1.-- This photo was taken in Luanda, the capital of Angola during 2007. It is a good example of the great contrasts in the Angolan society.

Angola is on of the major countries of southern Africa. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive and for 5 century it was a Portuguese colony and heavily affected by the slave trade. A low-level independence movement developed, but Portugal made nor real effort to prepare Angola for independence. Angola actually achieved independent in 1975 after a revolution in Portugal. After independence there was a civil war between the Mouvement pour la libération de l'Angola/Angola Liberation Movement (MPLA) and the Union nationale pour l'indépendance totale de l'Angola/National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The conflict involved a power struggle, Cold War politics, tribal rivalries and other issues. The two movements struggle for control of the country and that struugle got involved in the Cold War and devloped into a debilitating civil war (1975-2002). The country was devestted by the war. Angola is riclhy endowed in valuable natural resources (including diamonds and oil) . Even so, most of the Angolan people are very poor. We have some information on Angolan schools. Education was very limited in Angola during the Portuguese Colnial period and the indepence struggle and following Civil war impeded the developmenbt of an education system. There has been some progress in recent years.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing national pages:
[Return to the Main African page]
[Angola] [Democratic Republic of the Congo] [Lessotho] [Madagascar] [Mali] ]South Africa] [Uganda]
[Australia] [Belgium] [England] [France] [Germany] [Ireland] [Italy] [Japan] [Korea] [Mexico] [New Zealand] [Scotland] [United States]

Created: 11:04 PM 6/26/2007
Last updated: 3:30 AM 6/12/2009