Agostinho Neto: Difference between revisions

{{Villain_Infobox

|fullname = António Agostinho Neto

|alias =  

|type of villain = Communist Tyrant  

|goals = Eradicate followers of Fractionism (successful)<br>Gain Angola's independence from Portugual (successful)<br>End the Angola's civil war (failed)

|hobby =  

}}{{Quote|Because it is not possible, comrades, to work with a security that offers doubts about protection to our compatriots and resists our policy of clemency. How many people are complaining about DISA today? Fairly or unfairly ... But they complain. Not a week goes by without receiving letters from relatives saying that 'my son has disappeared'. Later, comrades, I do not know what I will answer. What am I going to say? I am responsible. When a son, a father, a grandfather, a woman, a brother-in-law, etc. disappears, I am responsible. And what am I going to say? Some who are in jail are doing very well there; it is better to be there than outside. But not all ... We need to resolve this situation.|Agostinho Neto}}

Neto met [[Che Guevara]] in 1965 and began receiving support from Cuba. He visited Havana many times, and he and [[Fidel Castro]] shared similar ideological views.

Following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal during April 1974 (which deposed Salazar's successor Marcelo Caetano), three political factions vied for Angolan power. One of the three was the MPLA, to which Neto belonged. On November 11, 1975, Angola achieved full independence from the Portuguese, and Neto became the nation's ruler. His government developed close links with the Soviet Union and other nations in the Eastern bloc and other Communist states, particularly Cuba, which aided the MPLA considerably in its war with the FNLA, [[UNITA]] and South Africa.  However, while Neto made the MPLA declare  Marxism-Leninism its official doctrine, his position was to favour a socialist, not a communist model. In support of Alves and the coup, ten armored cars from the Eighth Brigade of the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) stormed the São Paulo prison at 4 a.m, killing the director of the prison and freeing the more than 150 nitists, including 11 who had been arrested just days before. Later, the 8th Brigade took control of the radio station in Luanda and announced its coup, calling itself the MPLA Action Committee and calling on the citizens to show their support for the coup by demonstrating in front of the presidential palace. The Nitists captured Bula and Dangereaux, generals loyal to Neto, but Neto had moved his base of operations from the palace to the Ministry of Defense for fear of such an uprising. Cuban troops loyal to Neto retook the palace and marched toward the radio station. They managed to take over the radio station and went to the headquarters of the 8th Brigade, recapturing at 1:30 pm. While the Cuban force captured the palace and the radio station, the nitistas kidnapped seven leaders within the government and the army, shooting and killing six.  As a consequence, he violently repressed a movement later called Fractionism which in may 1977 attempted assasination against Neto inspired by OCA (Organização dos Comunistas de Angola). An estimated or alleged 18,000 followers of [[Nito Alves]] were killed in the aftermath of the attempted coup, over a period that lasted up to two years,although Agostinho Neto only ratified the death sentence of Nito Alves. Before his death in July 1979, President Neto dissolved the DISA due to the killings on the basis that he received letters every week from various relatives asking about their missing relatives.