The US-Sponsored Assault on the Portuguese of Angola
In 1961, at the outset of the decades-long and convoluted series of struggles over Angola’s political future, the first group to seriously challenge Portuguese colonial authority was Holden Roberto’s Union of Peoples of Angola (UPA), a recipient of aid from the United States. “The war started with dollars,” Portugal’s Captain Ricardo Alcada told South African journalist Al J. Venter a few years later. “The Americans thought that by backing Holden Roberto they would chase the Portuguese out of Angola within months,” Alcada explained [1]. “They had no option,” he continued: “They had to counter the communist influence in Congo-Brazza across the river so they chose the likeliest candidate for ‘Mr. Overnight Pro-America’ among the sanguinary rabble they found wandering about downtown Kinshasa.” [2] “The Americans realize their mistake now, but they are still allowing money into the Congo from a number of organizations,” he further enumerated: “Numerous church and social groups in the Uni