Angola: Political Parties Material

Manifestos, speeches, constitutions, leaflets, newspapers, convention reports and communiques issued by the Angolan Revolutionary government in exile (GRAE), the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola.

In the course of the 1960s three major guerrilla organisations emerged in opposition to Portuguese rule over Angola. The MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola) had its headquarters in Zambia and was Marxist in outlook whilst the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola) was based in the Congo. The other group, founded in 1966 under the leadership of Jonas Savimbi, was UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola). Materials from all of these parties are held here, relating primarily to their roles in the liberation struggle (before the 1974 coup in Portugal hastened its departure from its colonies), but also dealing with their part in the civil wars and repeated foreign interventions which have subsequently dogged Angola.

Alphabetically by party, and then in rough chronological order.

Open to all for research purposes; access is free for anyone in higher education.

Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Records at item level on library catalogue (SASCAT)

Description compiled by Daniel Millum, Political Archives Project Officer at the Institutes of Commonwealth and Latin American Studies.

Copies can usually be obtained - apply to library staff.

The Commonwealth Political Parties Materials collection was begun in 1960-61, with special emphasis being placed then, as now, on "primary material such as party constitutions, policy statements, convention reports and election manifestos." (ICS, Twelfth Annual Report 1960-1961). Since then, the main method of gathering material has been to appeal directly to political parties throughout the Commonwealth, though contributions from Institute members and staff following visits to relevant countries have been significant. More recently material has been collected by means of downloading documents from the websites of the major bodies.

Further accruals are expected, some in electronic form.

See also Political Party, Trades Unions and Pressure Group Materials for other Commonwealth countries and related material in the library's main classified sequence, all held at the ICS.