Jonas Savimbi

Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi (; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary, politician, and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( UNITA). UNITA was one of several groups which waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974. Once independence was achieved, it then became an anti-communist group which confronted the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi had extensive contact with anti-communist activists in the United States, including Jack Abramoff and was one of the leading anti-communist voices in the world. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.

Early life

Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi was born in Munhango, Bié Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Chilesso, in the same province. Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a preacher of the Protestant ''Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola'' (Evangelical Congregational Church of Angola), founded and maintained by American missionaries. Both his parents were members of the Bieno group of the Ovimbundu, the people who later served as Savimbi's major political base..

In his early years, Savimbi was educated mainly in Protestant schools, but also attended Roman Catholic schools. At the age of 24 he received a scholarship to study in Portugal.

Instead he became associated with students from Angola and other Portuguese colonies who were preparing themselves for anti-colonial resistance and had contacts with the clandestine Portuguese Communist Party. He knew Agostinho Neto, who was at that time studying medicine and who later became president of the MPLA and Angola's first state President. Under increasing pressure from the Portuguese secret police ( PIDE), Savimbi left Portugal for Switzerland with the assistance of Portuguese and French communists and other sympathizers, and eventually wound up in Lausanne. There he was able to obtain a new scholarship from American missionaries and studied social sciences. He then went to the University of Fribourg for further studies.

While there, probably in August 1960, he met Holden Roberto, who was already a rising star in émigré circles. Roberto was a founding member of the UPA ( União das Populaçoes de Angola) and was already known for his efforts to promote Angolan independence at the United Nations. He tried to recruit Savimbi who seemed to have been undecided whether to commit himself to the cause of Angolan independence at that point in his life.

In late September 1960, Savimbi was asked to give a speech in Kampala, Uganda on behalf of the UDEAN (União Democrática dos Estudantes da Africa Negra), a student organization affiliated with the MPLA. At this meeting he met Tom Mboya who took him to Kenya to see Jomo Kenyatta. They both urged Savimbi to join the UPA. He told French interviewers "J'ai été convaincu par Kenyatta" ("I was convinced by Kenyatta"). He immediately wrote a letter to Roberto putting himself at his service, which was taken in person to New York by Mboya. Upon his return to Switzerland, Roberto telephoned him. They met in Léopoldville (Kinshasa) in December 1960, and left immediately for the United States. It was the first of many visits.

There are considerable differences in the source material about the date of Savimbi's official induction into the UPA. Fred Bridgland, who wrote a much-cited biography of Savimbi, says that Savimbi was "inducted into the UPA" on 1 February 1961. Nonetheless, he may not have officially joined the UPA until late 1961.

It certainly seems that Savimbi was not in the inner circle of UPA activists in early 1961. He took no part in planning the uprising of March 1961, nor did he participate in it.

Savimbi stayed in Léopoldville until the end of March 1961, then went to Switzerland to prepare for examinations. He may have failed, for he abandoned medical studies in Fribourg, and in December 1961 enrolled at Lausanne University in Law and International Politics.

By September 1961, Africans from the Portuguese colonies studying abroad formed the UGEAN (União Geral dos Estudantes da Africa Negra Sob Dominacão Colonial Portuguesa) at a meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Again, this organization was affiliated with the MPLA.

Holden Roberto and the UPA wanted a student organization affiliated with their party. In December 1961, Roberto chaired a meeting at Camp Green Lane near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Savimbi attended this meeting and became one of a number of organizers who created the UNEA, (União Nacional dos Estudantes Angolanos) in March 1962 at Lucerne, Switzerland. Savimbi was elected Secretary-General.

Savimbi participated in UPA activities while continuing to study in Switzerland. He traveled widely on behalf of the organization: to Yugoslavia for the first Non-Aligned Movement Summit in September 1961, with Holden Roberto, and on to New York for the United Nations meeting later that fall.

In a very short time, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the UPA. It was he who encouraged the PDA (Partido Democrático de Angola) to join in a united front with the UPA, creating the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola) and when these parties formed the GRAE (Govêrno Revolucionário de Angola no Exílio) on April 3, 1962, Savimbi became Foreign Minister of this organization.

In 1993 he fathered Nazar, which was born in Belgium.

Military career

Savimbi sought a leadership position in the MPLA by joining the MPLA Youth in the early 1960s. He was rebuffed by the MPLA, and joined forces with the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in 1964. The same year, he conceived UNITA with Antonio da Costa Fernandes. Savimbi went to China for help and was promised arms and military training. Upon returning to Angola in 1966, he launched UNITA and began his career as an anti-Portuguese guerrilla fighter. He also fought the FNLA and MPLA, as the three resistance movements tried to position themselves to lead a post-colonial Angola. Portugal later released PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, a Portuguese security agency) archives revealing that Savimbi had signed a collaboration pact with Portuguese colonial authorities to fight the MPLA.

Following Angola's independence in 1975, Savimbi gradually drew the attention of Chinese and, ultimately, American policymakers and intellectuals. Trained in China during the 1960s, Savimbi was a highly successful guerrilla fighter schooled in classic Maoist approaches to warfare, including baiting his enemies with multiple military fronts, some of which attacked and some of which consciously retreated. Like the People's Liberation Army of Mao Zedong, Savimbi mobilized important, although ethnically confined segments of the rural peasantry – overwhelmingly Ovimbundu – as part of his military tactics. From a military strategy standpoint, he can be considered one of the most effective guerrilla leaders of the 20th century.

Civil war

As the MPLA was supported by the Soviet bloc since 1974, and declared itself Marxist-Leninist in 1977, Savimbi renounced his earlier Maoist leanings and contacts with China, presenting himself on the international scene as a protagonist of anti-communism. The war between the MPLA and UNITA, whatever its internal reasons and dynamics, thus became part of the Cold War, with both Moscow and Washington viewing the conflict as important to the global balance of power..

United States support

In 1985, with the backing of the Reagan administration and through the lobbying efforts of Paul Manafort and his firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly which was paid $600,000 each year from Savimbi beginning in 1985, Jack Abramoff and other U.S. conservatives organized the Democratic International in Savimbi's base in Jamba, in Cuando Cubango Province in southeastern Angola. Savimbi was strongly supported by the influential, conservative Heritage Foundation. Heritage foreign policy analyst Michael Johns and other conservatives visited regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine camps in Jamba and provided the rebel leader with ongoing political and military guidance in his war against the Angolan government.

Savimbi's U.S.-based supporters ultimately proved successful in convincing the Central Intelligence Agency to channel covert weapons and recruit guerrillas for Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government. During a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1986, Reagan invited Savimbi to meet with him at the White House. Following the meeting, Reagan spoke of UNITA winning "a victory that electrifies the world.".

Two years later, with the Angolan Civil War intensifying, Savimbi returned to Washington, where he praised the Heritage Foundation's work on UNITA's behalf.

Military and political efforts

Complementing his military skills, Savimbi also impressed many with his intellectual qualities. He spoke seven languages fluently including Portuguese, French, and English. In visits to foreign diplomats and in speeches before American audiences, he often cited classical Western political and social philosophy, ultimately becoming one of the most vocal anti-communists of the Third World..

Savimbi's biography describes him as "an incredible linguist. He spoke four European languages, including English although he had never lived in an English-speaking country. He was extremely well read. He was an extremely fine conversationalist and a very good listener." Savimbi also accused his political opponents of witchcraft. These contrasting images of Savimbi would play out throughout his life, with his enemies calling him a power-hungry warmonger, and his American and other allies calling him a critical figure in the West's bid to win the Cold War.

As U.S. support began to flow liberally and leading U.S. conservatives championed his cause, Savimbi won major strategic advantages in the late 1980s, and again in the early 1990s, after having taken part unsuccessfully in the general elections of 1992. As a consequence, Moscow and Havana

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases