Holden Roberto

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Holden Roberto (1973)

Holden Álvaro Roberto (born January 12, 1923 in São Salvador do Congo, today's M'banza Congo , Angola , † August 2, 2007 in Luanda ) was an Angolan politician and guerrilla leader. He founded the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) in 1962 and headed it until 1999.

Family and youth

As the son of García Diasiwa Roberto and his wife Joana Lala Nekaka, he and his family moved to Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo ) in 1925 . In 1940 he graduated from a Baptist mission school . He then worked for eight years for the Belgian Ministry of Finance in Léopoldville, Bukavu and Stanleyville . In 1951 he traveled to Angola, where he witnessed Portuguese officials abusing an old man. This event made him want to become a politician.

Career as a politician

With Barros Necaca he founded the União das Populações do Norte de Angola on July 14, 1956 , later renamed União das Populações de Angola (UPA). As President of UPNA, he represented Angola at the All-African Peoples Congress of Ghana in December 1958 in Accra , Ghana , in which he secretly participated.

There he met Patrice Lumumba , the future Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Kenneth Kaunda , the future President of Zambia , and the nationalist Tom Mboya from Kenya . He obtained a passport from Guinea and attended the United Nations .

Jonas Savimbi , who later became the leader of UNITA , joined the UPA in February 1961 after being urged to do so by Mboya and the Prime Minister of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta . In the second half of 1961 Roberto became the Secretary General of the UPA at Jonas Savimbi.

The US government's National Security Council (NSC) supported Roberto in the 1950s, receiving $ 6,000 annually until 1962. When he was providing information for US intelligence, the NSC increased the annual payment to $ 10,000.

Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA)

After visiting the UN, he returned to Kinshasa and set up a militia in Congo Central . From there he triggers an uprising in north-west Angola on March 15, 1961, which was carried out by the local Bakongo . These raided white-run coffee plantations, government outposts and trading posts, killing everyone they met. At least 1,000 whites and a much larger number of Ovimbundu contract workers were killed.

Roberto met US President John F. Kennedy on April 25, 1961. When he asked for help from the government in Ghana that same year , President Kwame Nkrumah refused on the grounds that he was already being paid by the US government.

Roberto joined the UPA with the Partido Democrático de Angola in March 1962 to form the FNLA. Shortly afterwards, on March 27, he built the "Angolan Revolutionary Government in Exile" ( Governo Revolucionário Angolano no Exílio , GRAE) and appointed Savimbi as Foreign Minister. Roberto formed a political alliance with the President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko , in connection with which he divorced and married Mobutu's sister-in-law.

The Prime Minister of China, Zhou Enlai , invited Roberto to visit the People's Republic in 1964. When Moise Tshombe , the president of Katanga , announced that he would not be allowed to return to the Congo after visiting China, he canceled the visit. Jonas Savimbi, a member of the FNLA leadership group belonging to the Ovimbundu, resigned from this movement in 1964 and founded UNITA in 1966 , as Roberto refused to lead the Angolan struggle for independence outside the settlement area of ​​the Bakongo.

Roberto visited Israel in the 1960s and received support from the Israeli government from 1963 to 1969. Because of doubts about its revolutionary orientation, the “Liberation Committee” of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) withdrew its trust and support in July 1968 from Holden's government in exile.

Roberto and Agostinho Neto followed similar policies for an independent Angola, but both received international support from different quarters. Neto, who combined his nationalist course with left-wing rhetoric, could count on a certain amount of help from the Soviet Union , Sweden and various African countries. Roberto, on the other hand, received support from the USA and other countries. Roberto opposed Neto's plan to unite the Angolan resistance groups against Portugal because he feared the MPLA would take over the FNLA. The FNLA obstructed the MPLA wherever it could; She captured MPLA members on various occasions and deported them to Kinshasa, where they were killed.

In 1972, under pressure from the OAU, the FNLA, UNITA and MPLA formed a united front, but when Angola gained independence, this alliance broke up again in 1975. Together, FNLA and UNITA tried to oust the MPLA from the transitional government. While the MPLA was ruling in Luanda, the FNLA and UNITA formed a counter-government in Huambo and launched an offensive against the capital. In 1976 the MPLA proposed the FNLA before Luanda, so that the FNLA withdrew to Zaire and (unlike UNITA) sank into insignificance.

In 1991 the FNLA and the MPLA agreed the Bicesse Agreement , which u. a. Roberto made the return to Angola possible. When he ran for the presidency, he received only 2.1 percent of the vote. The FNLA won five seats in parliament but refused to join the government.

Roberto died on August 2, 2007 at the age of 84 after a heart attack at his home in Luanda.

Roberto was a descendant of the monarchs of the Kingdom of the Congo.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f James, W. Martin. Historical Dictionary of Angola , 2004. Pages 141-142.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Hamann, Hilton. Days of the Generals , 2001. Page 13.
  3. ↑ For detailed references on Roberto's political trajectory see John Marcum, The Angolan Revolution , 2 vol., Cambridge / Mass. & London: MIT Press, 1969 and 1978
  4. ^ Rensburg, Abraham Paul Janse Van. Contemporary Leaders of Africa , 1975. Page 303.
  5. ^ HW Wilson Company. Current Biography , 1991. Page 499.
  6. ↑ a b c Walker, John Frederick. A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola , 2004. Page 146-148.
  7. ↑ a b Tvedten, Inge. Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction , 1997. Page 31.
  8. ↑ Edgerton, Robert Breckenridge. Africa's Armies: From Honor to Infamy , 2002. Page 72.
  9. ↑ Walker, John Frederick. A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola , 2004. Page 143.
  10. ^ Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: From Malcolm and Martin to Lenin, Mao and Che , 2002. Page 217.
  11. ↑ Davis, John Aubrey. Southern Africa in Transition, American Society of African Culture , 1966. Page 170.
  12. ↑ Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja and Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein. The Crisis in Zaire , 1986. Page 194.
  13. ^ Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms and Why , 1988. Page 64.
  14. ^ Figueiredo, António de. Portugal and Its Empire: The Truth , 1961. Page 130.
  15. ↑ Prof. Dr. Gustav Fochler-Hauke ​​(Ed.): Fischer Weltalmanach 1969. Page 321. Frankfurt am Main 1968
  16. ↑ FNLA's Historic Leader Dies ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Angola Press. August 2, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.angolapress-angop.ao
  17. ^ David Lamb, The Africans , p. 178

Reference literature

  • John Marcum, The Angolan Revolution , 2 volumes (1950–1962 and 1962–1976), Cambridge / Mass. & London, MIT Press, 1969 and 1978
personal data
SURNAME Roberto, Holden
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roberto, Holden Álvaro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Angolan politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Sao Salvador , Angola
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 2007
Place of death Luanda