Angola

When I was thinking about what country to write about, Angola was the first country that came to my mind. I thought about it because Angola is a Portuguese speaker country and it was colonized by Portugal as Brazil.

In 1483 Vasco da Gama first dropped anchor in Luanda. The land now known as Angola was, at the time, inhabited by a number of small tribes living in loosely defined kingdoms that lacked the organization and administrative cohesiveness of 15th-c­entury Europe. The Portuguese had no real desire in the country, but later on the interests of Portugal changed and Luanda was founded as the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1575 by Paulo Dias de Novais.

When the Portuguese found the new colony, Brazil, Angola became a major source of slaves for Portugal's New World colony of Brazil. For the next 300 years Portugal’s African colonies had only two real functions: a strategic base on the route around the Cape of Good Hope, and a collecting center for one of the largest forced human migrations in history. Angola suffered from one of the most backward forms of colonialist rule.

After World War 2 spontaneous clashes became frequent between various African communities and colonial administration due to African resistance to colonial rule. The Angola independence was not peaceful. The country had to fight 14 years to get its independence. First the three main groups in line with the various tribal affiliations beat the colonialism and then they were fighting each other in a civil war. Finally in 1974 the armed forces overthrew the Fascist regime in Portugal started talking Angola independence and in 1975 Angola was granted independence from Portugal.

Angola has enormous reserves of oil, gas and diamonds, as well as considerable hydroelectric potential, varied agricultural land, good rainfall and considerable marine resources. The main mineral resources are petroleum, diamonds, iron ore, phosphates, copper, feldspar, gold, bauxite and uranium. Angolan government is a republic, nominally a multiparty democracy with a strong presidential system.

I hope one day i can go to Angola, because I think this country must have a lot in commom with my country, plus i wont have to worry about the language.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/angola/history http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107280.html?pageno=2 http://www.iss.co.za/af/profiles/Angola/NatRes.html