In both of these situations, the rebel groups fought successful united campaigns against the Portuguese and were on the verge of victory at the time of independence.  By contrast, no single nationalist movement in Angola was able to unite the various rebel factions in the struggle against Portugal for independence, and the three major groups that came to dominate the fourteen-year liberation war often fought each other as much as the Portuguese. The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) was initially formed in the late 1950s by a young group of Angolans studying in Lisbon and Paris, including Lúcio Lara, Agostinho Neto, Mário de Andrade, and José Eduardo dos Santos (Neto’s successor and the current president of Angola). 