On February 22 2002, soldiers of the Angolan Armed Forces, assisted by Israeli surveillance experts,
caught up with Jonas Savimbi and killed him in the province of Moxico in central eastern Angola.
Savimbi’s death marked the end of the 27 year long Angolan Civil War in which at least half a
million people died in the conflict for the vast, diamond and oil-rich Southern African country.
Jonas Savimbi, who has been described as one of the most charismatic rebels on the continent,
had spent more than 35 years in the bush battling first for Angolan independence and then later
for personal power. Some senior officials in US President Ronald Regan’s administration touted him
as being “one of the most talented charismatic of leaders in modern African history.”
However some people saw him as a stooge of capitalism and a plaything of the racist
apartheid government as well as the United States of America. In this episode of African
biographics, we look at the life story of Jonas Savimbi, the Angolan rebel leader of UNITA.
Jonas Savimbi, was born in Munhango, Angola on the 3rd of August 1934 to Helena Mbundu Savimbi
and Lote Savimbi. He was a member of the Ovimbundu tribe,
an ethnic group that comprises about one-third of the nation’s population. Savimbi’s father,
Lote, was a railway stationmaster and part-time Protestant church worker.
The local Catholic missions in then-Portuguese-occupied
Angola were often in conflict with Lote Savimbi because of the effectiveness of his evangelism.
It is said that Lote Savimbi was so effective to such an extent that the Catholic church repeatedly
asked railroad officials to send Lote to new posts. As the family moved, young Jonas picked up
his father's compelling skills as an orator and detailed knowledge about the railroad.
This knowledge of the railroad would later serve Jonas Savimbi when as a guerrilla leader
he organized attacks on the line that was one of southern Africa's vital commercial links,
transporting copper and other ores from Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe. By cutting the railroad,
Unita effectively paralyzed Angola's economy. But more on that later
Young Jonas Savimbi attended Protestant missionary schools where he thrived academically.
He showed great determination and intelligence in getting a secondary schooling that was extremely
rare for black children at the time. Savimbi then got a scholarship to Lisbon,
in Portugal to study medicine. During his time in Portugal,
Savimbi became involved in politics and, like most Angolan students, he attracted the attention
of the Portuguese secret police. The Portuguese secret police even detained Savimbi three times.
Eventually, Jonas left the country secretly, with the aid of the Portuguese Communist party network,
and was sheltered by the French Communist party. Jonas Savimbi fell back on the
missionaries for a scholarship that enabled him to resume his studies in Switzerland.
However, he made the decision to leave the study of medicine, partly because he considered
the freeing of Angolans from Portugal as his country's most important priority.
So Jonas Svimbi transferred to the University of Lausanne
to study Political Science and Law and graduated with honors in July 1965.
In the early 1960s, Savimbi flirted with the various Angolan independence movements,
at one point joining the youth wing of the marxist party,
the Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
However, following encouragement from Kenyan nationalists such as Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta,
Savimbi joined the Union of Angolan People, the UPA, in 1961, where he was made secretary general.
The following year, UPA and the Angolan Democratic Party,
formed the National Front for the Liberation of Angola which is commonly known as the FNLA.
Savimbi became foreign minister of the new organization’s Government of the Republic of
Angola in Exile, before resigning in 1964 over disagreements with founder Holden Roberto’s
leadership style. Savimbi also accused them of tribalism and also that they were CIA agents.
By 1965 Savimbi had decided to form his own movement and seek support for it. That support
came from the People’s Republic of China. He and a few other comrades of his went to China’s Nanking
Military Academy where they obtained military training especially in guerrilla tactics.
During his stay in China, Savimbi met Mao Zedong
and other military and political leaders of the Chinese revolution.
Many years later, when Savimbi sought help from Western nations, he downplayed his stay in China
as well as his relations with the country. He was even quoted saying “From Mao and the
Communists I learned how to fight and win a guerilla war. But I also learned how not to
run an economy or a nation. The wealth of a nation is created by the initiative of individuals.”
1966 would then see Savimbi finally form his political unit, UNITA.
So UNITA was formed On March 13, 1966 inside Angola at the village of Mungai, in Moxico
Province and this was following a period of intense political mobilization from Jonas Savimbi.
The organisation then began armed actions against the Portuguese on the ground
on 25 December 1966.
UNITA became the third major political movement in Angola’s independence campaign,
besides their rivals the FNLA and the MPLA. Savimbi was a charismatic leader;
he spoke 7 languages and mobilized many people with his oratory power.
He claimed UNITA would be multi-ethnic and committed to Angolan unity and tradition-based
consensus decision-making as opposed to the MPLA’s centralized top-down leadership style.
He and his forces, with bases of operation in the east and south of the country, began raiding
important sites like the Benguela Railroad, which was a strategic line for the Portuguese.
However, apparently unknown to others in the top UNITA leadership,
Savimbi's ambition and calculation for the future had brought him into secret contract with
the Portuguese military by the early 1970s. So in this regard UNITA became more involved in fighting
their rival the MPLA than in a serious challenge to the Portuguese soldiers.
Many years later, tetters from the Portuguese secret police archive
between Savimbi and Portuguese authorities were revealed in a French magazine in 1974
and dealt a serious blow to Savimbi's credibility as a nationalist leader.
As time progressed, the Portuguese government found itself besieged within
Angola and ostracized internationally for its continued hold on the nation.
After the Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown in a military coup in 1974,
Savimbi emerged from the guerrilla war to conclude a cease-fire with the new Portuguese leaders.
So Savimbi also signed an agreement with the two other Angolan liberation parties
in 1975. These were known as the Alvor Accords and they granted Angola independence.
Savimbi signed these accords along with Agostinho Neto of the MPLA and Holden Roberto of the FNLA.
In signing these agreements there was the hope that the three groups might come together and lead
their fellow citizens in a peaceful transition to independence. This was not to be, however.
Angola became independent on Nov. 11, 1975. Nonetheless the rivalry between the major
insurgent factions continued and quickly evolved into Angola’s bloody 27 year civil war.
So after the disintegration of the Alvor accords, a quick and bitter power struggle
ensued, as the MPLA declared itself the new government of Angola.
When Savimbi and his UNITA party protested,
the MPLA called in Cuban troops and used Soviet-manufactured weapons to maintain power.
Soon Savimbi was on the run and he retreated to his base in Huambo in the central highlands. Then,
in March 1976, under the MPLA government attack, Savimbi began the “long march” to the south,
mirroring the Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s heroic feat.
Despite the assault on Unita, Savimbi was not so easily beaten. He attracted and conscripted a new
army, pointing out to his followers that Angola had only traded domination by the Portuguese
for domination by the Soviet Union. This rhetoric as well as the Soviet support
for the MPLA attracted the attention of the Apartheid government in South Africa
where the minority-run white government feared Soviet incursions in Africa.
So with the help of South African weapons, soldiers, and training, Savimbi was able to
organize a powerful and effective guerilla force. He established his new base at Jamba
near the Namibian border under the protection of the South African military shield.
So the Angolan civil war progressed and time after time, the Angolan government, with its Cuban
reinforcements and Soviet war machinery, tried to annihilate Savimbi’s army. But like I said,
this was not an easy task. By the mid-1980s, Savimbi’s UNITA forces held vast stretches of
territory, from which they harassed government installations, railroads, and supply lines.
In all of this, Savimbi became a tool for US and South African interests
which wanted to prevent the MPLA from controlling such a wealthy and strategic African country.
An agent of the United States CIA by the name John Stockwell was in charge of bringing together
an opposition to the MPLA that could be funded and supplied out of the US embassy in Kinshasa,
the capital of the DRC. John Stockwell was dismayed by the incompetence of Unita, but, given
the weakness of the FNLA, which was already being backed by the US, he decided to build up UNITA
into the anti-communist alternative to the MPLA. So in 1975, at the behest of Henry Kissinger,
$24.7m of covert military assistance was approved for Unita.
During the war, vast portions of land in the countryside
were cut off from agriculture by mine-fields.
Mine victims and malnourished children swamped the hospitals in these areas.
Tens of thousands of boys and girls were kidnapped by UNITA troops
and marched to UNITA-controlled areas in the south around Savimbi's capital at Jamba.
It is reported that UNITA carried out a reign of terror consisting of appalling acts such as the
public burning of women said to be witches. Inside UNITA, Savimbi maintained an iron rule by
using his obvious charisma and by eliminating any potential leadership contenders. Many of Savimbi's
close associates who challenged him were either imprisoned or killed on his orders.
During the war, Savimbi frequently traveled abroad in search of support for his cause
and his efforts in Washington proved particularly rewarding. His intelligence and charisma made him
easy to sell to international audiences as the democratic leader Africa needed.
With the newly elected United States president Ronald Reagan vowing to “roll-back” communism
globally, Savimbi successfully courted increased United States backing for his cause.
He visited the United States in 1981 and again in 1986, at which time he was received in the
Oval Office by President Reagan himself. There he was accorded VIP treatment by the
Reagan administration, as he represented UNITA as a movement fighting against Communism. However,
some influential US politicians felt uncomfortable supporting Savimbi, noting that the apartheid
South African government was supplying UNITA while occupying the neighboring nation of Namibia.
Nevertheless, the administration of Ronald Regan gave Savimbi more than $15 million
in aid as well as the weapons he needed to counter Soviet aircraft and missiles.
The battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the turning point in this long struggle. This battle led
to a decline in Savimbi’s military position and influence. Meanwhile the MPLA had fully stamped
it’s authority in the country as the legitimate government of Angola. This was also followed by
the withdrawal of the South Africans, which was followed by independence for Namibia in 1990.
So after a period of bitter armed conflict and civil war throughout most of the 1980s, that had
been heightened by the Cold War struggle, initial efforts at reconciliation began. In June 1989,
at the Gbadolite summit, organized by President Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, Savimbi and Jose
dos Santos, who was now head of the MPLA and president of Angola, met for the first time.
Eventually, on May 31, 1991, the rival leaders signed the Bicesse Peace Accord in front of all
the key international organizations. September of 1991 would see Jonas Savimbi return to Luanda,
the capital of Angola, for his first visit after sixteen years of independence.
During this period of peace and reconciliation, Jonas Savimbi agreed to take part in elections
that were to be supervised by the United Nations in September 1992. But when UNITA lost and Savimbi
himself failed to win the presidency, he returned to the bush to set off the most destructive year
of warfare in the whole civil war. This was between October 1992 and October 1993.
In this phase of the war, the violence spread to areas of the country that had previously been
untouched. The MPLA retaliated with indiscriminate killing of UNITA supporters and civilians
from the Ovimbundu ethnic group. MPLA supporters living in the UNITA-controlled
regions in the central highlands fled to the coastal regions, fearing retribution.
The UNITA and the MPLA forces also began planting mines in contested rural regions,
causing additional civilian casualties. In fact the Angolan war created 77 000 amputees.
When the cold war ended and the United States withdrew support to Savimbi, he equipped his army
primarily with the proceeds from diamond sales until the United Nations barred such trading.
Savimbi bought logistical access through Zambia from his diamond revenues, and purchased arms from
Ukraine and elsewhere to re-equip his forces. This period of fighting was only quelled by the
signing of the Lusaka Protocol in 1994, which included a cease-fire and program
for demobilization and disarmament and the deployment of a bigger United
Nations peacekeeping mission. On 20 November 1994, Savimbi signed
a peace treaty to bring this second phase of the civil war to an end. But in reality,
Savimbi never accepted the Lusaka agreement. He pretended to go along with it out of necessity.
Only in 1995 did Savimbi agree to meet President Jose dos Santos, and the National Assembly then
created two vice-presidencies, one of which was offered to Savimbi.
Even so he continued to hold out, sometimes escalating the bush war. Eventually, Dos
Santos and Savimbi agreed to a unity government and the merging of troops into a national army.
He would however decline his position in the unity government and decided not to attend the
inauguration ceremony. Full-scale fighting resumed in 1998 and as
early as January of 1999, Savimbi gave no sign of abandoning his bush army
nor accepting the changes which had taken place in Angola since the 1992 elections.
The Angolan civil war continued into 2001, by which time both the government and the
Southern African Development Community, SADC had branded Savimbi a war criminal.
Only Savimbi’s death, while fighting government forces in Moxico on 22 February 2002,
finally signaled the collapse of UNITA and the real possibility of
establishing a genuine peace in Angola. In this instance, soldiers of the Angolan Armed
Forces, assisted by Israeli surveillance experts, had tracked down Savimbi in this province of
Moxico and shot him dead. He was hurriedly buried in a cemetery in the central town of Luena.
17 years later in 2019, his remains were exhumed in January of that year.
This was with the intention to give him a dignified funeral and burial as well
as an attempt to heal the country of Angola. Jonas Savimbi was reburied in May of 2019.
Let me know in the comments section below what your thoughts are on the life and legacy
of Jonas Savimbi, the Angolan rebel leader.
Don’t forget to like and share the video if you enjoyed it. Thank you all for tuning in,
this has been Tatenda for African Biographics, until next time. Cheers , have a good one.