Daniel Chipenda

Who was Daniel Chipenda?

Daniel Chipenda fought in the Angolan War of Independence, serving as the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola's field commander in the Eastern Front before founding and leading the Eastern Revolt, a faction of the MPLA. He later joined the National Liberation Front of Angola, but left, rejoined the MPLA, and left again in July 1992. He was an Ocimbundu.

Chipenda, then a member of the MPLA, established the Eastern Front, significantly expanding the MPLA's reach, in May 1966. When the EF collapsed, Chipenda and MPLA leader Agostinho Neto each blamed the other. In 1972 the Soviet Union allied with Chipenda's faction, giving him aid. Following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, the President of the MPLA, organized an MPLA congress in Lusaka. Neto and Chipenda attended with 165 delegates respectively and Mário Pinto de Andrade's Active Revolt faction had 70 delegates present. After several days of negotiations Neto's faction quit the congress, so that the MPLA remained split into three factions . Chipenda left the MPLA, although he arguably left it before the coup in Portugal, founding the Eastern Revolt with 1,500 former MPLA followers. He opposed the MPLA's leadership which he accused to be "creole" and was wary of the Soviet Union, despite its support.