Frente Leste

Frente Leste (Portuguese for Eastern Front) was the name of the theater of Portuguese Armed Forces' anti-guerrilla operations in the East of Angola (by then a Portuguese overseas territory), during the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974). After the success of the Portuguese military in the Eastern front by 1973, it started to be known as the Eastern Zone, since guerrilla warfare episodes were nonexistent. Through economic and social promotion campaigns, including the construction of healthcare, education, sanitation, transport and security infrastructure, the construction of new villages, the training of new black military units like the Flechas, and the foreign units known as the Fiéis (former gendarmes from Zaire) and the Leais (refugees from Zambia), the Portuguese operations in the late stage of the anti-guerrilla war in Portuguese Angola, eradicated all the main sources of conflict in the territory.

From 1966 to 1970, the pro-independence guerrilla movement People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), expanded their limited insurgency operations to the East of Angola. This vast countryside area was far way from the main urban centers and close to foreign countries were the guerrillas were able to take shelter. The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a smaller pro-independence guerrilla organization established in the East, supported the MPLA. Until 1970, the combined guerrilla forces of MPLA and UNITA in the East Front were successful in pressuring Portuguese Armed Forces (FAP) in the area to the point that the guerrillas were able to cross the Cuanza River and could threat the territory of Bié which had an important urban center in the agricultural, commercial and industrial town of Silva Porto. In 1970, the Chief-Commander of the Armed Forces of Angola, another guerrilla movement, decided to reinforce the Eastern Front by relocating troops and armament from the North to the East. In 1971, the FAP started a counter-insurgency military campaign, that although provoking a number of civilian collateral damages in its first stage, effectively expelled the three guerrilla movements operating in the East of Angola to beyond the frontiers of the territory. The last guerrillas lost hundreds of soldiers and left tons of equipment behind, disbanding chaotically to the neighboring foreign countries in the region or in some cases, joining or surrendering to the Portuguese authorities. In order to gain the confidence of the local rural populations, and create conditions for their permanent and productive settlement in the region, the FAP organized massive vaccination campaigns, medical check-ups, water, sanitation and alimentary infrastructure. 45% of Eastern Angola population were under 15 years old and less than 10% of those children had gone to school. The FAP built schools and enforced policies to stimulating the admittance of the local child in those schools.

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