External Factors in UNITA’s Armed Struggle

Competition and Collaboration (1966–1974)

Abstract

This article focuses on the anticolonial solidarity networks established by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) during the National Liberation War (1966-1974) and examines the movement’s rhetoric about its “total isolation” from external support, arguing that UNITA’s isolation was in fact relative, even if comparatively greater than the capacity of other Angolan nationalist organizations to create and maintain consistent lines of external support. The paper’s argument that UNITA’’s isolation was relative is supported by empirical analysis of the multipurpose resources mobilized by the movement in materially and financially sustaining its armed struggle. The analysis is based on qualitative triangulation of various archival sources and informational pamphlets published by UNITA itself.