Jonas Savimbi
(Munhango, 1934-Moxico, 2002) Angolan revolutionary.Jonas Savimbi was born in Munhango, Bie province, on August 3, 1934.His father, Loth Malheiro Savimbi, of the majority Ovimbundu tribe, was station chief of the Benguela railway and pastor of the Evangelical Church, when Angola was a Portuguese colony.
He went to school in Dondi and to the school of the Marist Brothers in Silva Pôrto.In 1958 he arrived in Lisbon, where he studied high school.He was arrested by the PIDE (secret police) and spent fifteen days in jail.He fled Portugal in 1960 to settle in Lausanne (Switzerland), where he studied at the Faculty of Law.
Opponent to the government of the metropolis
He joined the Union of the Angolan People (UPA), led by Holden Roberto, the first guerrilla group against the metropolis, transformed into the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) after merging with the Democratic Party.Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of the Republic of Angola in Exile (GRAE), in 1964 he broke with the FNLA, which he assumed had been infiltrated by the CIA, and moved to Moscow.But his Muscovite pilgrimage was not fruitful.
Jonas Savimbi
In 1965 Savimbi and eleven of his companions arrived in China, where they received military training.Jonas returned clandestinely to Angola and in March 1966 created the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), of which he was elected president.Arrested by the Zambian authorities, he went into exile in Cairo in 1967 and returned to his country in July 1968 to continue the fight.However, his enemies assured that his military campaigns were fictitious and published documents in which he was linked to the secret services of Lisbon.
The end of colonialism and the MPLA
After the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship (1974), Savimbi and the other two guerrilla leaders, Agostinho Neto and Holden Roberto, signed with the President of Portugal the Alvor Agreements (January 15, 1975) for the independence of Angola and the establishment of a democratic regime.But the situation on the ground was very favorable to the Marxist-inspired Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which seized power in Luanda with Soviet and Cuban support.
Frustrated in his aspirations, Savimbi withdrew in his native fiefdom, emulating the "long march" of Mao Tse-tung, and with the spur of the United States and South Africa he began military operations against the communist petrodictorship, as he rebuked the Luanda regime.The fighting broke out in March 1976, inscribed in the matrix of the cold war, the aftermath of a typical conflict of decolonization between local elites who fought for the conquest of power and refused to share it.UNITA established its headquarters in Jamba and received US military aid, including Stinger missiles, through Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo).
MPLA opponent
Savimbi was received into the White House in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, who decorated him as a Freedom Fighter for facing the 50,000 Cuban soldiers who supported the Angolan government, but who withdrew as Soviet arms supplies ceased, in exchange for South Africa granting independence to Namibia, according to a UN-sponsored agreement (New York, December 1988).
The decline of the cold war, the erosion of South African apartheid and the opening up of the Luanda regime created conditions conducive to negotiation between the government and the guerrillas, under the auspices of the Zairean president, Mobutu Sese Seko.The peace accords, signed by Savimbi and Neto in Lisbon on May 31, 1991, allowed the holding of general elections on September 29 and 30, 1992.Given the overwhelming victory of the MPLA in the first round, accepted by the UN , UNITA rejected the results, and its leader fled Luanda, denounced the fraud and resumed fighting from Huambo.
The disaster at the polls was the great failure of Savimbi, who could not transform the military relationship of forces into a political victory.Confident of himself and of his ethno-nationalist vision of history, which prompted him to consider Mestizos of the MPLA as a minority with foreign support, but without an electoral base, achieved some successes as a military leader, but never managed to mobilize the majority ethnic group, of which it was considered the legitimate representative, in a political movement.His electoral campaign had racist overtones, with constant references to the color of the skin and the mestizo nomenclature.
From the civil war to the government pact
The civil war became more fierce.The peace negotiations in Côte d'Ivoire led to a new fiasco in 1993.The UN imposed an arms and oil embargo against UNITA and US President Bill Clinton recognized the Luanda government, weakening the guerrilla position and forcing Savimbi to take over the Lusaka peace agreement (November 20, 1994), although he did not personally sign it.UNITA verbally accepted the disarmament of its troops and participated with eleven ministers in a government of national union (1996), but its leader rejected the vice presidency of the republic and remained in his stronghold in Huambo.
Faced with the ferocity of the fighting, the UN created by consensus the Observation Mission in Angola (MONUA), on June 30, 1997, which tried to establish a truce.Four months later, after several skirmishes, delays and recriminations, the UN sanctioned UNITA for not respecting the peace accords and decreed an arms embargo.In August of the same year, the guerrillas stopped collaborating with the countries in charge of ensuring the peace process.
With UNITA to the death
Internationally isolated, Savimbi became an increasingly authoritarian outlaw, accused of perpetuating a bloody contest inflamed by oil and diamond trafficking.The government broke off the dialogue and promoted a resolution of the Angolan Parliament (January 27, 1999) declaring the guerrilla leader a "war criminal."
On July 24, Luanda issued a search and arrest warrant for "crimes of armed rebellion, sabotage, and killings," at the same time that the army launched an offensive against the insurgents.But the head of UNITA, persuaded that it had a historical right to govern, maintained his intransigence, despite the million deaths caused in 25 years and the four million displaced.
He rejected a general amnesty (November 2000) and demanded direct negotiations with President José Eduardo dos Santos, but in June 2001 he recognized that the war was going badly for his troops.His fate was cast when, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W.Bush extended the sanctions imposed in 1998 against UNITA.Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) judged that the population was in a state of "humanitarian catastrophe", with more than 80% below the poverty level.
Savimbi died in combat against government forces on February 22, 2002 in the province of Moxico, in the southeast of the country.The following day, his body was publicly displayed in the town of Lacuçe, where he was buried.An Angolan army officer, when showing Savimbi's body to the international press, claimed that he had died "with weapons in hand", after a manhunt lasting several weeks, when he tried to flee to Zambia, 1,300 kilometers from Luanda.
The main lieutenants of the guerrilla leader, Generals Lukamba Gato, Dembo and Alcides Sakala, managed to escape the ambush of the government forces.Abandoned by his former allies and acolytes, the hero of freedom was buried as an outcast, perhaps for not having understood the changes in the world and his own country, a victim of his paranoia, without having reconciled with his people.After announcing his death, President Dos Santos, his arch enemy, flew to Washington to be received by Bush.
Savimbi called himself a doctor by his followers, although there is no record at the University of Lausanne that he obtained this academic title.His official biography assures that he studied two medical courses in Lisbon, a career he abandoned to dedicate himself to the anti-colonial struggle.
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