Roberto, Holden Alvaro

▪ 2008

      Angolan independence leader

born Jan. 12, 1923, São Salvador [now M'banza Congo], Angola

died Aug. 2, 2007, Luanda, Angola

founded Angola's first nationalist movement in 1956 and five years later led the first attack on colonial settlers in Angola. Roberto's Union of Angolan Peoples (UPA) drew its main support from his Bakongo ethnic group. In 1962 he transformed the UPA into the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), which operated mainly from Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In 1975 Roberto and the leaders of the other two independence movements in Angola reached an agreement with Portugal and signed a peace treaty that led to the country's independence. Fighting immediately broke out between the three factions, however, and the FNLA, backed by several Western countries, was decisively defeated in 1976 by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba. Roberto spent the next 15 years in exile, returning to Angola in 1991 to play a marginal role in politics.

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