Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi (Portuguese: [ˈʒɔnɐʃ ˈsavĩbi]; 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, also known as 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, also known as the MPLA, during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.
Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi was born on 3 August 1934 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 Protestant preacher at Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola (Evangelical Congregational Church of Angola), which was founded and maintained by American missionaries. Both his parents were members of the Bieno, an Ovimbundu group. The Ovimbundu later served as Savimbi's largest political base of support in Angola.
In his early years, Savimbi was educated mainly in Protestant schools, but also attended Roman Catholic schools. At age 24, he was awarded a scholarship from the United Church of Christ to study medicine at the University of Lisbon. In Portugal, he became associated with students from Angola and other Portuguese colonies who were then preparing themselves for resistance to Portuguese colonialism in Angola. Some of these contacts, including Agostinho Neto, who Savimbi knew, had contacts with the Portuguese Communist Party, which was then outlawed. Neto, who was studying medicine with Savimbi in Portugal, later became president of the MPLA and Angola's first president after the end of colonial rule in Angola.
Facing growing pressure from the Portuguese secret police, known as PIDE, Portuguese and French communists aided Savimbi in escaping Portugal for Lausanne, Switzerland, where he secured a new scholarship awarded by American missionaries. Savimbi began studying social sciences and then enrolled in the University of Fribourg for further studies.
At the University of Fribourg, probably in August 1960, he met Holden Roberto, who was already a rising star in Angolan émigré circles. Roberto was a founding member of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), and supported Angolan independence at the United Nations. In the early 1960s, Roberto attempted to recruit Savimbi into the FNLA, but Savimbi was then undecided whether he wished to commit his life to the cause of Angolan independence.
In late September 1960, Savimbi was invited to give a speech in Kampala, Uganda on behalf of the União Democrática dos Estudantes da Africa Negra (UDEAN), a student organization affiliated with the MPLA. At this meeting, he met Tom Mboya, who took Savimbi to Kenya to meet with Jomo Kenyatta. Mboya and Kenyatta both urged Savimbi to join the UPA. Following the meeting, Savimbi told French media, "J'ai été convaincu par Kenyatta" ("I was convinced by Kenyatta"). Savimbi immediately wrote Roberto offering his service, and Mboya and Savimbi then both visited New York City.
In December 1960, following Savimbi's return to Switzerland, Roberto telephoned him and invited him to meet in Léopoldville in present-day Kinshasa. Savimbi then departed on his first of many visits to the United States. In 1961, Savimbi joined the UPA.
Savimbi remained in exile in Léopoldville until the end of March 1961, and then went to Switzerland to prepare for examinations. In December 1961, he transferred from the University of Fribourg to Lausanne University, where he studied law and international politics. In 1965, Savimbi was awarded a Ph.D. from Lausanne University.
Opposition to Portuguese colonialism
In September 1961, African students from Portuguese colonies studying abroad formed União Geral dos Estudantes da Africa Negra Sob Dominacão Colonial Portuguesa (UGEAN) during a meeting in Rabat, Morocco. UGEAN maintained an affiliation with the MPLA.
While continuing to study in Switzerland, Savimbi maintained an active leadership position in União Nacional dos Estudantes Angolanos (UNEA). In September 1961, he traveled to Yugoslavia for the first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, and he and Holden Roberto then visited the United Nations in New York City that autumn.
In December 1961, Roberto chaired a meeting at Camp Green Lane in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which Savimbi attended. Following this meeting, in March 1962 in Lucerne, Switzerland, Savimbi became one of several founding organizers and was elected secretary-general of UNEA.
Savimbi was also a member of UPA's executive committee, in which he encouraged the Partido Democrático de Angola (PDA) to join UNEA in a united front with the UPA, which led to the founding of the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), which then formed Governo Revolucionário de Angola no Exílio (GREA) on April 3, 1962, in which Savimbi served as foreign minister.
In the early 1960s, seeking a leadership position in the MPLA, Savimbi joined 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, Savimbi 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. In 2008, PIDE, Portugal's secret police, released documents revealing that, prior to Angola's independence in 1975, Savimbi signed a collaboration pact with the agency to fight the MPLA.
Following the Angolan War of Independence in 1975, Savimbi began gradually drawing the attention of Chinese and, ultimately, American policymakers and intellectuals. In the 1960s, Savimbi received military training in China, and began developing as 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 ethnic segments of the rural peasantry, especially among Angola's Ovimbundu tribe, which proved a central component of his military tactics. From a military strategy standpoint, he is considered one of the most effective guerrilla leaders of the 20th century.
The Angolan Civil War emerged as a central proxy war in the Cold War. Beginning in 1974, the MPLA was supported by the Soviet Union. Three years later, in 1977, the MPLA declared itself Marxist-Leninist. Savimbi, on the other hand, subsequently renounced his earlier Maoist leanings and contacts with China, and presented himself globally as an anti-communist.
In 1985, with the backing of the Reagan administration and aided by lobbying efforts from Paul Manafort and his firm, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which was paid $600,000 annually 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."