Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan political and military leader. He founded and led the
National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.
UNITA first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–74, then
confronted the rival People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola during the decolonization
conflict, 1974–75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling MPLA in the Angolan
Civil War until his death in a clash with government troops in 2002.
Early life Savimbi was born on August 3, 1934, in Munhango,
Moxico Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Bié 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, 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. There
he finished his secondary studies, with the exception of the subject "political organization"
that was compulsory during the regime established by António de Oliveira Salazar, so that he
was unable to start studying medicine as originally intended.
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 went on to become president of the MPLA and Angola's first state President.
Under increasing pressure from the Portuguese secret police, Savimbi left Portugal for Switzerland
with the assistance of Portuguese and French communists and other sympathizers, and eventually
wound up in Lausanne. Here he was able to obtain a new scholarship from American missionaries
and studied social sciences. He then went on to the University at 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 and was already known for his efforts to promote Angolan independence
at the United Nations. He tried to recruit Savimbi who seems to have been undecided whether
to commit himself to the cause of Angolan independence at this point in his life.
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 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 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 powerful 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
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 a sub-plot to the Cold
War, with both Moscow and Washington viewing the conflict as important to the global balance
of power. In 1985, with the backing of the Reagan administration,
Jack Abramoff and other U.S. conservatives organized the Democratic International in
Savimbi's base in Jamba, in Cuando Cubango Province in southeastern Angola. The meeting
included several of the anti-communist guerrilla leaders of the Third World, including Savimbi,
Nicaraguan Contra leader Adolfo Calero, and Abdul Rahim Wardak, then leader of Afghan
mujahideen who later became as Afghanistan's Defense Minister.
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. The African-American Texas State
Representative Clay Smothers of Dallas was a strong Savimbi supporter.
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, which greatly intensified and prolonged the conflict. 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 was filled with gratitude and praise
for the Heritage Foundation's work on UNITA's behalf. "When we come to the Heritage Foundation",
Savimbi said during a June 30, 1988 speech at the foundation, "it is like coming back
home. We know that our success here in Washington in repealing the Clark Amendment and obtaining
American assistance for our cause is very much associated with your efforts. This foundation
has been a source of great support. The UNITA leadership knows this, and it is also known
in Angola."
Complementing his military skills, Savimbi also impressed many with his intellectual
qualities. He spoke seven languages fluently – four European, three African. 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. Some dismiss this intellectualism as nothing
more than careful handling by his politically shrewd American supporters, who sought to
present Savimbi as a clear alternative to Angola's communist government. But others
saw it as genuine and a product of the guerrilla leader's intelligence. 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." 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 began to reevaluate their
engagement in Angola, as Soviet and Cuban fatalities mounted and Savimbi's ground control
increased. By 1989, UNITA held total control of several
limited areas, but was able to develop significant guerrilla operations everywhere in Angola,
with the exception of the coastal cities and Namibe Province. At the height of his military
success, in 1989 and 1990, Savimbi was beginning to launch attacks on government and military
targets in and around the country's capital, Luanda. Observers felt that the strategic
balance in Angola had shifted and that Savimbi was positioning UNITA for a possible military
victory. Signaling the concern that the Soviet Union
was placing on Savimbi's advance in Angola, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev raised the
Angolan war with Reagan during numerous U.S.-Soviet summits. In addition to meeting with Reagan,
Savimbi also met with Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, who promised Savimbi "all
appropriate and effective assistance." 1990s
In January 1990 and again in February 1990, Savimbi was wounded in armed conflict with
Angolan government troops. The injuries did not prevent him from again returning to Washington,
where he met with his American supporters and President Bush in an effort to further
increase US military assistance to UNITA. Savimbi's supporters warned that continued
Soviet support for the MPLA was threatening broader global collaboration between Gorbachev
and the US. In February 1992, Antonio da Costa Fernandes
and Nzau Puna defected from UNITA, declaring publicly that Savimbi was not interested in
a political test, but on preparing another war. Under military pressure from UNITA, the
Angolan government negotiated a cease-fire with Savimbi, and Savimbi ran for president
in the national elections of 1992. Foreign monitors claimed the election to be fair.
But because neither Savimbi nor Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos obtained the 50 percent
necessary to prevail, a run-off election was scheduled.
In late October 1992, Savimbi dispatched UNITA Vice President Jeremias Chitunda and UNITA
senior advisor Elias Salupeto Pena to Luanda to negotiate the details of the run-off election.
On November 2, 1992 in Luanda, Chitunda and Pena's convoy was attacked by government forces
and they were both pulled from their car and shot dead. Their bodies were taken by government
authorities and never seen again. The MPLA offensive against UNITA and the FNLA has come
to be known as the Halloween Massacre where over 10,000 of their voters were massacred
nationwide by MPLA forces. Alleging governmental electoral fraud and
questioning the government's commitment to peace, Savimbi withdrew from the run-off election
and resumed fighting, mostly with foreign funds. UNITA again quickly advanced militarily,
encircling the nation's capital of Luanda. One of Savimbi's largest sources of financial
support was the De Beers corporation, which bought between $500 and $800 million worth
of illegally mined diamonds in 1992–93. In 1994, UNITA signed a new peace accord.
Savimbi declined the vice-presidency that was offered to him and again renewed fighting
in 1998. Savimbi also reportedly purged some of those within UNITA whom he may have seen
as threats to his leadership or as questioning his strategic course. Savimbi's foreign secretary
Tito Chingunji and his family were murdered in 1991 after Savimbi suspected that Chingunji
had been in secret, unapproved negotiations with the Angolan government during Chingunji's
various diplomatic assignments in Europe and the United States. Savimbi denied his involvement
in the Chingunji killing and blamed it on UNITA dissidents.
Death After surviving more than a dozen assassination
attempts, and having been reported dead at least 15 times, Savimbi was killed on February
22, 2002, in a battle with Angolan government troops along riverbanks in the province of
Moxico, his birthplace. In the firefight, Savimbi sustained 15 gunshot wounds to his
head, throat, upper body and legs. While Savimbi returned fire, his wounds proved fatal almost
immediately. Savimbi’s somewhat mystical reputation for
eluding the Angolan military and their Soviet and Cuban military advisors led many Angolans
to question the validity of reports of his 2002 death. Not until pictures of his bloodied
and bullet-ridden body appeared on Angolan state television, and the United States State
Department subsequently confirmed it, did the reports of Savimbi’s death in combat
gain credence in the country. Savimbi was interred in Luena Main Cemetery in Luena,
Moxico Province. On January 3, 2008, Savimbi’s tomb was vandalised and four members of the
youth wing of the MPLA were charged and arrested. Legacy
Savimbi was succeeded by António Dembo, who assumed UNITA’s leadership on an interim
basis in February 2002. But Dembo had sustained wounds in the same attack that killed Savimbi,
and he died from them ten days later and was succeeded by Paulo Lukamba. Six weeks after
Savimbi's death, a ceasefire between UNITA and the MPLA was signed, but Angola remains
deeply divided politically between MPLA and UNITA supporters. Parliamentary elections
in September 2008 resulted in an overwhelming majority for the MPLA, but their legitimacy
was questioned by international observers. In the years since Savimbi's death, his legacy
has been a source of debate. "The mistake that Savimbi made, the historical, big mistake
he made, was to reject and go back to war," Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at
London-based Chatham House research institute said in February 2012. University of Oxford
Africa expert Paula Roque says Savimbi was "a very charismatic man, a man that exuded
power and leadership. We can't forget that for a large segment of the population, UNITA
represented something." He was survived by "several wives and dozens
of children," the latter numbering at least 25.
In popular culture Savimbi is a minor character in Call of Duty:
Black Ops II, a video game released in 2012. Savimbi and the player take part of a fictional
battle against the MPLA in 1986. He is voiced by Robert Wisdom.
See also Blood diamond
Kimberley Process Certification Scheme Books
The War Against Soviet Colonialism: The Strategy and Tactics of Anti-Communist Resistance,
Policy Review 35, Winter 1986 . Further reading
Bridgland, Fred, Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-42218-1 .
Chilcote, Ronald H, Emerging nationalism in Portuguese Africa, Hoover Institutions publications,
Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, ISBN 0-8179-1971-6 .
Messiant, Christine, Les Églises et la dernière guerre en Angola. Les voies difficiles de
l'engagement pour une paix juste [The Churches and the last war in Angola: the difficult
paths of engagement for a fair peace], Social sciences & missions: 75–117 .
Notes
References
External links Biographical Entry at BlackPast.org
Jonas Savimbi at the Notable Names Database. "White House Statement on the President's
Meeting with Jonas Savimbi", June 30, 1988. "Genocide of Christians in Angola, UN and
the resistance of UNITA" at the Wayback Machine, 2000.
"Angola Rebels Demand Death Probe", BBC News, February 28, 2002.
Speeches and essays "The Coming Winds of Democracy in Angola",
Jonas Savimbi speech to the Heritage Foundation, October 5, 1989.
Policy Review vol. 35, contains Savimbi's 1986 essay "The War Against Soviet Colonialism".
Video French interview of Jonas Savimbi, 1978.
Jonas Savimbi speaks in Angolan capital of Luanda, 1991 on YouTube.