Having previously served as the foreign minister with the FNLA, Savimbi left the organization for a number of reasons and formed UNITA out of the Ovimbundu of the south. Though ostensibly an independence movement, UNITA seldom fought the Portuguese and was mostly engaged against the MPLA. Some allege that UNITA was given authority over Ovimbunduland by the Portuguese in exchange for fighting the MPLA. Portuguese documents reveal that over the course of the liberation war, nearly two-thirds of all military engagements against the Portuguese involved the MPLA and over a third the FNLA, while less than 5% involved UNITA. Outside of the country UNITA received support from the United States and South Africa.
	The infighting between and within the three nationalist movements reduced their effectiveness against the Portuguese, and by 1974 little progress had been made to overthrow the colonial government. From a military perspective the Portuguese had enjoyed a relatively successful war, employing anti-guerilla tactics and heavily recruiting Africans, including a group of Katangese rebels who were exiled in Angola after unsuccessfully trying to create an independent state in southeast Zaire in the late-60s. By the end of the liberation war three times as many African soldiers served in the Portuguese military as in the various guerilla armies. Revolutionary events in Portugal itself would however change the situation in Angola.
	In 1974 a left-leaning military coup overthrew the government of Marcello Caetano, ending the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) that had ruled Portugal since 1932. The unpopular colonial wars played a large role in the coup, and the new government pledged to withdraw Portuguese troops from the colonies and grant them independence. In Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, which had unified nationalist movements, this process was relatively straightforward, with the Portuguese colonial authorities handing power over to FRELIMO and PAIGC, respectively. The fragmented state of nationalism in Angola complicated the situation and meant that a framework for régime change had to be created. 
	In January of 1975 Neto, Roberto, and Savimbi met in Alvor, a suburb of Lisbon, and signed a power-sharing agreement that set November 11 as the date of independence and calling for elections before this date. The peace after the Alvor accords did not last long and violence between the three groups quickly broke out. On the streets of Luanda MPLA and FNLA partisans fought for control of the capital and both sides were responsible for massacring unarmed recruits of the opposite factions. Within the MPLA self-defense committees of the podar popular (people’s power) movement had formed in the previous year to counter violent riots by whites. Led by Nito Alves, the podar popular committees began to commit atrocities of their own and threatened the MPLA leadership with their radicalism. Faced with violence in the streets of Luanda and particularly in the northern areas controlled by the FNLA, whites, mestiços, and assimilados fled the country in large numbers—nearly 250,000 left during a six-month long airlift starting in May of 1975.
