Father of Angola's independence, Holden Roberto, dies

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LUANDA, Angola, Aug 4 (AFP): Holden Roberto, 84, one of the fathers of Angola's independence and a staunch opponent of President Eduardo Dos Santos to the very end, has died of cardiac arrest, his party announced Friday.
"Our historic leader, Alvaro Holden Roberto, died Thursday... at his (Luanda) residence. We call on all militants to remain calm to enable us to pay homage to our leader," the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) vice president Gola Kabkbangu told the news agency.
No date has been fixed yet for his funeral, he said.
Angola's main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), said it regretted "having missed an opportunity to pay due homage to Holden Roberto while he was alive."
Roberto as a "pre-eminent figure in Angola's nationalist movement", the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola party's secretary general Julao Paulo, said.
Born on January 12, 1923 at Mbanza Congo in northern Angola, Roberto played a stellar role in helping free his country from centuries of oppressive Portuguese rule.
Roberto's family relocated to the former Belgian Congo where he worked in the finance ministry of the colonial administration.
His life took a turn when he visited his native land in 1951 and saw Portuguese officials heaving abuse on an old man, spurring him to launch a career in politics.
He formed the country's first nationalist movement "The Union of Angola's Populations" linked to his ethnic Bakongo group but transformed it into the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the 1960s.
He launched an incursion into Angola on March 15, 1961 and his forces overran farms, government outposts, and trading centres, killing with impunity. Remembering the incident, Roberto said: "This time the slaves did not cower. They massacred everything."
A close friend of some African independence stalwarts as Patrice Lumumba of the Congo and Zambia's founder president Kenneth Kaunda, Roberto also established a political alliance with former Zairean strongman Mobutu Sese Seko by divorcing his wife to marry Mobutu's sister-in-law.
In April 1975, Roberto and the leaders of two other political parties, signed peace accords with Portugal that led to Angola's independence the same year.
But fighting immediately erupted and the FNLA -- backed by the United States, France and Zaire fought the MPLA, supported by the erstwhile Soviet bloc.
Angola was then devastated by a 27-year civil war in which some 500,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
After Cuba sent forces to support the MPLA, the FNLA was decisively defeated and in 1976 abandoned its armed struggle.
Roberto went into exile, notably in France and Zaire, but when he returned to Angola 15 years later, he remained involved in politics despite his failing health.