aid (Microsoft 5). All three had armed forces but none of them achieved much advancement until the revolution in Portugal in 1974. After this revolution on the homefront, Portugal's colonies began to fall apart. With all of its problems, Portugal finally gave Angola its independence (Collelo 40).With Angola gaining its independence in 1975, the MLPA announced that it would establish a new government and the territory that it gained would be called the People's Republic of Angola. The FNLA and the UNITA, both followed and declared their own territory as the Democratic People's Republic of Angola. By January of 1976, with the help of the Soviet Union and Cuba, it had become very clear that the MLPA had dominated as the new military power. The FNLA was now defeated and the United States could no longer offer assistance to UNITA and the FNLA after the Senate passed the Clark Amendment which "prohibited all direct and indirect military and paramilitary assistance to ant Angolan group" (Collelo 41)."Angola's economy has suffered severe setbacks since independence" (Microsoft 3). After the war of independence and the internal fighting between the nationalists groups, the economy was falling apart. "In August of 1976, more than eighty percent of the agricultural plantations had been abandoned by their Portuguese owners; only 284 out of 692 factories continued to operate; more than 30,000 medium-level and high-level managers, technicians, and skilled workers had left the country; and 2,500 enterprises had been closed (seventy five percent of which had been abandoned by their owners). Furthermore, only 8,000 vehicles remained out of 153,000 registered, dozens of bridges had been destroyed, the trading network was disrupted, administrative services did not exist, and files and studies were missing" (Collelo 115). "As a result, the government intervened, nationalizing most businesses and farms abandoned by the Portuguese (Collelo 115). ...
