Justin Pearce

Stellenbosch University | SUN · Department of History

Angola from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s hosted guerrillas fighting for the liberation of other southern African states, as well as Cuban and Soviet military advisors and civilian professionals. As the study of Cold War–era liberation struggles has developed from nation-centred narratives towards both global and local perspectives, the intern...

The fractious history of Mozambique’s anti-colonial movement remains politically charged, just as in other post-colonial states where opposition movements have challenged the ruling party’s exclusive claim to the legacy of national liberation. This article examines the debates over the legacy of the former Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelim...

Twenty years after the Mozambican war ended, a return to arms from 2013 by the opposition movement Renamo served to revitalize support for the party in the 2014 election, and put pressure on the Frelimo government to consider demands for constitutional change. Building on existing research on post-war politics and on recent economic change, this ar...

The endurance and indeed the growing electoral support manifested by the Angolan opposition party UNITA since its defeat as an armed movement in 2002 defies generally gloomy prognoses both for opposition parties in dominant party systems and for defeated rebel movements that recast themselves as political parties. This article examines social servi...

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira , Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola since the civil war. London: Hurst (pb £25 – 978 1 84904 284 0). 2015, 291 pp. - Volume 87 Issue 1 - Justin Pearce

International rivalry in the Cold War has dominated scholarship on the post-independence war in Angola, but little research has been done on how foreign support for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) had an impact on political mobilisation inside Angola. This...

International rivalry in the Cold War has dominated scholarship on the post-independence war in Angola, but little research has been done on how foreign support for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) had an impact on political mobilisation inside Angola. This...

Angola's rulers are faced with the rise of a generation that does not accept the political logic of the war, whereby dissent equaled treason.

Lara Pawson's In the Name of the People: Angola's Forgotten Massacre is the first book in English to deal with the events surrounding the 27 May 1977 in Angola, when a former government minister, Nito Alves, led a protest, or a revolt, against the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government. Unknown numbers of people were killed...

This book examines the internal politics of the war that divided Angola for more than a quarter-century after independence. In contrast to earlier studies, its emphasis is on Angolan people's relationship to the rival political forces that prevented the development of a united nation. Pearce's argument is based on original interviews with farmers a...

This article considers the politics of memory and memorialisation in Angola today in the light of existing scholarship on this theme elsewhere in southern Africa. I examine young anti-government activists' preoccupation with history, and argue that this can be understood only with reference to the MPLA government's own renewed concern with history...

This article explores political mobilization, legitimacy, and identity in the Angolan Central Highlands from the anti-colonial struggle of the 1960s until the end of the civil war in 2002. It examines how the rival movements, MPLA and UNITA, competed for support, and considers the nature of the relationships between political-military elites and th...

Unita in search of « its people » This article analyses the difficulties faced by Unita as it prepares for elections in the Planalto Central, the region where the party gained a majority of votes in the 1992 election. As a rebel movement, Unita secured support from « its people » through coercion and patronage ; having lost its coercive power and m...