Angola was first settled by San hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo. In the 15th century, Portuguese colonists began trading, and a settlement was established at Luanda during the 16th century. Portugal annexed territories in the region which were ruled as a colony from 1655, and Angola was incorporated as an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. After the Angolan War of Independence, which ended in 1974 with an army mutiny and leftist coup in Lisbon, Angola achieved independence in 1975 through the Alvor Agreement. After independence, Angola entered a long period of civil war that lasted until 2002.
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Alvor Agreement in the context of People's Republic of Angola
The People's Republic of Angola (Portuguese: República Popular de Angola) was declared on 11 November 1975 by leaders of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), at the time a Marxist–Leninist organisation, as a communist state. The Angolan War of Independence from Portugal which had begun 14 years prior in 1961 ended with the Alvor Agreement, which granted independence to Angola under a transitional government that initially included groups such as the FNLA and UNITA along with the MPLA.
Disagreements between these factions resulted in civil war, which escalated following the MPLA's unilateral declaration of a people's republic in November; it competed with the rival Democratic People's Republic of Angola (UNITA), backed by South Africa and the United States, and received aid from Cuba and the Soviet Union, to which it was aligned to in the Cold War until its dissolution in 1991. The landmark Tripartite Accord of 1988 led to the withdrawal of South African and Cuban forces from Angola, and following the Bicesse Accords Angola transitioned into a multiparty democracy that was finalised with the adoption of a new constitution in 1992 while civil war between UNITA and MPLA forces continued until 2002.