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A publication of ihe African Studies Program of The Center for Strategic and International Studies

No. 8 • February 18, 1983 The Politics of Survival: UNITA in by John A. Marcum In early 1976, the remnants of an ill-trained peasant that march he "can be assisted by pragmatic, but army retreated into the vast wilderness of southeast cautious, contact with South , so be it." Tan­ Angola. Its rivals, spearheaded by a Soviet-armed zania's President Julius Nyerere, among other African Cuban expeditionary force, drove the army's several political opinion leaders, perceives Savimbi as a thousand disheveled soldiers into the sanctuary of a political opportunist who betrayed Africa when he sparsely peopled savannah from which they had secretively aligned UNITA with . earlier waged a protracted, small-scale guerrilla war Savimbi was born in 1934 at a railway village in against Portuguese colonial rule. There, most Angola's central highlands where his father served as observers expected the army slowly to disintegrate. stationmaster. His parents, described by a United Over time, however, the world heard just often Church missionary as being of "exceedingly humble, enough of ambush and sabotage by rusticated in­ primitive, pagan background," had been converted to surgents of the Uniiio Nacional para a lndependencia Protestant Christianity in their youth. As a lay Total de Angola (UNITA) to know that they survived preacher, his father, Lote Savimbi, founded a series of as a political and military force. In 1983, seven years small churches and schools along the Benguela after defeat in the 1975-76 war, UNITA leaders and railroad. Local Catholic priests repeatedly pressured guerrillas not only survive as a reality to be reckoned colonial authorities to have Lote Savimbi transferred. with inside Angola. They have become a significant The government complied, but each time it moved factor in the complicated quest for an internationally him, local supporters rallied to keep his church and sanctioned political settlement in . school alive, "The end result was that all up and What is this UNITA that refused to die and instead down the line there was a string of strong churches continues to challenge the rule of its victorious rival, and elementary schools." (Missionary letter by John the Movimento Popular de Liberta~iio de Angola A. Reuling, March 2, 1959). This spirit of religious in­ (MPLA)? An anti-communist "Cinderella" force for na­ dependence in the face of repressive authority had a tional liberation? A tribalist, racist movement whose formative impact on . He, like other Faustian leadership sold its soul to South Africa? To Angolan youngsters whose education began at United answer these and less tendentious questions, it may Church, Methodist, and Baptist mission schools, was help to look behind partisan debate to the origins, influenced by those who preached and practiced an character, and history of UNIT A. imported social gospel. One result was a dispropor­ tionate number of Protestants within the leadership The Savimbi Factor ranks of Angolan nationalist movements that In the eyes of many, UNITA is synonymous with its developed in the 1950s and 1960s. leader, Jonas Malheiro Savimbi. It is Savimbi's After finishing Portuguese-run secondary school at tenacity, Savimbi's ambition, Savimbi's "the very top of his class," Jonas Savimbi is reported that define the movement. However, opinion concern­ by missionary sources to have confronted strong ing his leadership differs widely. The editor of the pressure to join the local in return for Sunday Times, Tertius Myburgh, scholarship aid. He refused. Reinforcing this portrayal characterized the Savimbi he travelled to the Angola of Savimbi as a person of principled independence bush to interview in mid-1982 as a "gifted, brave, and from childhood on, UNITA publicists have stressed unshakeably dedicated man," a "sturdily independent his "stubbornness in the face of injustice," citing how, spirit" on a "long march to the presidency of an even as a youth, he had the courage to challenge "a Angola free of Cuban-Soviet domination." And if on team of Portuguese settlers" that was "twisting the

Editor: Helen Kitchen, Director of African Studies CSIS AFRICA NOTES • Suite 400 • 1800 K Street, NW Editorial Assistant: M. Frost Gordon Washington, DC 20006 • (202) 887-0219 2 ...... rules" during a village football match. clancy that would establish them as the sole contender Savimbi continued to quarrel with Portuguese auth­ for power in an independent Angola. In order to sur­ ority when, after the United Church sent him to vive during this difficult period, Savimbi may have in 1958 to study medicine, the political police collaborated occasionally with the Portuguese, who (PIDE) pressed him to inform on other Angolan viewed the MPLA as the more formidable threat. He students. He refused and, at the outset of 1961, also tried repeatedly to form an alliance with the shortly before anti-colonial broke out in Frente Nacional de Liberta~iio de Angola (FNLA) of Angola, fled to . There, in June 1965, , whom he had renounced in 1964 as following an interlude of political activity in Africa, he a pro-American tribalist. Rebuffed in these efforts, he completed, not a medical degree as some reports and his movement persisted, with little outside notice would have it, but a licence in political and legal or help, in a lonely bush insurgency. sciences at the University of . With the military coup that toppled the Lisbon First as an associate of the (Congo )-based government of in 1974, the door to Bakongo leader, Holden Roberto (1961-1964), and political decolonization in Angola seemed to open. then as head of his own movement (1966 on), Savim­ Savimbi, who had always preferred and excelled in bi entered the realm of exile politics. Characterized by political as opposed to military strategy, seized the intrigue, self-delusion, frustration, and factional con­ chance to win politically what lack of external support flict, exile politics requires of its actors special gifts of had made impossible militarily. With prospectively guile, resilience, and luck. Savimbi's survival attests profitable wisdom, he suggested the need for a period to an uncommon endowment of all three. Along the of political education to prepare Angolans for free way, he has surmounted many setbacks. elections prior to independence and set out to organize Take, for example, the disaster of 1967, when he broad political support. was leading UNITA from an exile base in . In Jonas Savimbi has long displayed a talent for August of .that year, his guerrillas attacked and discerning and telling people what they want to hear. disrupted traffic on Angola's Benguela railroad, which As early as 1962, he wrote to American friends coupl­ carried significant amounts of Zaire's and landlocked ing pleas for financial aid with a pledge to help push Zambia's mineral exports to the sea and world communism out of Africa. In 1974-75 he proved to be markets. He assured Zambian authorities that he had . a spellbinding orator, effectively tailoring his remarks sent orders to his men inside Angola not to cut the to his audience. On the one hand, Savimbi soothed railroad, but that the orders had arrived too late. the &nxieties of Portuguese Angolans with assurances However, a combination of factors-pressure from the that he considered all those who had settled, let alone Portuguese government, pressure from Tanganyika been born, in Angola to be bona fide Angolans. On Concessions Ltd. (which owned the railroad), exploita­ the other hand,. he promised black Angolans a new tion of the situation by the rival MPLA, and suspicions order under majority rule, free from domination by that had been aroused by UNITA's cooperation with Portuguese-educated whites and mesti~os. In 1975, Le local opponents of Zambian President Kenneth Kaun­ Monde's Gilbert Comte wrote: "Intelligent, intuitive, da in carrying out organizational efforts among and gifted with great personal charm, [Savimbi of­ Angolan refugees-led the Zambian government to ar­ fered] the anxious multitudes the reassuring words rest and expel him. From a back alley headquarters in they so [wanted] to hear." the Zambian capital, UNITA issued a rueful communi­ Despite Savimbi's evident moderation, political que: "Dr. Jonas Savimbi has fallen victim of his hard popularity, and Western leanings, the work in Angola. . . This does not mean that UNITA is played a key role in blocking UNIT A's bid for political dead. [His] absence .. .is a temporal setback to the power in the 1975-76 period. In January 1975, when party and the revolution as a whole, but the work he Angola was teetering on the edge of civil war, the started will gain momentum and prosper against the Ford Administration elected to authorize a covert wishes of Portuguese imperialists and their financiers. grant of $300,000 to Holden Roberto's FNLA-whose Dr. Jonas Savimbi's absence will be felt by all peace­ strategy relied predominantly on high-risk military ac­ loving people of the world." tion. In its subsequent failure to lend diplomatic sup­ His absence ·was indeed sorely felt by his followers. port to either Portuguese or collective African But UNITA did not die. A year later (1968), with the (Organization of African Unity) efforts to restrain ex­ help of Namibian nationalists of the South West ternal intervention (either Soviet or South African), Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), Savimbi suc­ promote reconciliation among Angolans, and assure cessfully slipped back through Zambia into Angola. neutrally supervised elections, the United States Once inside, he renounced exile and, on the rebound, forfeited its opportunity to facilitate a peaceful transi­ undertook to lead an internally-based insurgency of at­ tion to independence. trition against Portuguese colonial rule. After the MPLA took control of the reins of the cen­ In due course, Savimbi's forces were challenged by tral government in 1976, Holden Roberto fled back to rival anti-colonial guerrillas. Equipped with Soviet exile in Zaire (and ultimately ). Savi mbi re­ arms, the MPLA infiltrated from Zambia into eastern turned to the against-the-odds bush war of the pre­ Angola. S uperior weaponry and training gave these independence period, continuing a long-term strategy MPLA units a distinct military advantage. They sought designed to prove that the participation of UNITA is to parlay this advantage into a revolutionary ascen- essential to any government that hopes to rule a CSIS Africa Notes, February 18, 1983 ...... 3

peaceful Angola. Logistical support from South Africa, racist. One reason why UNIT A, from its creation, ( money from , and modest help from displayed sharp distrust of the MPLA's commitment to other states such as and , nourished multiracialism may have been that 's harsh his resistance. Finally, it was as David fighting the colonial policies belied and discredited an official doc­ Goliath of Soviet-Cuban "imperialism" that he was trine of color-blind multiracialism that failed to mask discovered and lionized in the United States. Notably the reality of white domination. Viewing the world in conservative political circles that had shunned him through prisms of educational and economic disad­ and his cause during the days of anti-colonial in­ vantage, "Unitists" dismissed MPLA multiracialism as surgency, he became the anti-communist hope for ex­ a rationale that would enable mesti~os and whites pulsion of Soviet, and restoration of Western, in­ within its leadership ranks to assure their own form of fluence in Angola. elitist rule. UNITA tended, instead, to adopt a Could there be a UNITA without Savimbi? Certainly pragmatic form of Afrocentric populism, which was at the movement has capable second-tier leaders, and once aggregative and demagogic. Thus, when it seem­ the basis for its political support extends to interests ed as though Angola's more than 300,000 resident and grievances that do not rely solely on Savimbi's Portuguese would be participating in the creation of capacity to mobilize and command support. Yet an independent state (1974-75), UNITA actively UNITA's durability has rested in some measure on the recruited white membership. But in the same time sheer power of .the Savimbi myth, his remarkable period its spokesmen told the American editor of capacity to survive. It is impossihle to know whether Black World (October 1974 issue) that whites would anyone else could effectively move up to fill the void be accepted as "visitors-nevermore as leaders" and that his loss would entail. that black American settlers would be welcomed in in­ dependent Angola. Tribalist or Racist? Perceiving their own social experience in terms of In 1976, the year that the MPLA regime was accepted racial exploitation, UNITA leaders espoused Pan­ into the OAU and the as the African solidarity, which they extended to include legitimate government of Angola, a significant number black Americans. In 1973, representatives from a of young central highlanders left their schools and black American liberation support group hiked deep families to follow UNITA into the wilderness. These into Angola to attend a UNITA congress which oblig­ politically conscious young people, mostly Ovimbun­ ingly proclaimed "its militant and active solidarity du, constituted a cadre of potential regional leader­ with the African brothers and sisters in the Americas ship, and their flight was thus a serious deprivation who are heroically fighting against imperialist oppres­ for the victorious MPLA. But did this exodus not con­ sion." UNITA named one of its military units the firm the essentially ethnic character of UNITA? Is Black Panthers. UNITA not really a "tribalist" instrument of the Ovim­ In 1976, last-minute efforts to recruit black bundu community that comprises up to 40 percent of Americans to help stave off defeat by the MPLA (The Angola's populatioo? Washington Post, January 27, 1976) came to naught. Nothing about UNITA is really that simple. In 1965, Both before and since, however, UNITA's public rela­ just prior to its founding, Savimbi wrote to the United tions in the United States have been handled by Church Board for World Ministries setting forth the Florence Tate and Associates of Washington, D.C. need for a new political movement to enlist the people Florence Tate described herself in a 1976 interview as of central and southern Angola (, Chokwe, someone who for "n_early 20 years has played an ac­ Ganguela, Ovambo) into the nationalist struggle. . tive role in the civil rights, Black Power, and Pan­ From the outset, the southern two-thirds of the coun­ African socialist movements in the United States" and try constituted UNITA's regional base. During the who knew "at first hand the lengths to which the U.S. brief period (1974-75) when UNITA could freely will go to discredit and destroy that which it deems organize in northern areas, however, it was also able undesirable and cannot control." "Any U.S.-born to attract support within MPLA (Mbundu)- and FNLA African" with political experience, she argued, knows (Bakongo)- oriented communities. And in 1976, it was that U.S. policy toward Angola is based upon a accompanied in its retreat back to the bush by a globalist or "superpower view" of U.S. (not Angolan) multiethnic leadership. Savimbi's principal lieutenant interests. Because it does not act with genuine (since 1968), Miguel N'Zau Puna, comes from the knowledge of what other people want for themselves, northern, oil-rich enclave of Cabinda. In addition to she concluded, the United States may intervene veteran Ovimbundu guerrillas such as Chinese-trained disastrously in support of an unpopular regime in Viet­ Commander Jose Samuel Chiwale, UNITA's military nam, then fail to assist a popularly supported UNITA leadership has included significant representation from in Angola. It will fail to understand that Angola is other ethnic areas-e.g., French-educated Antonio potentially "Russia's Vietnam" (, Vakulukuta (Ovambo) in the far south, and UNITA's January 11, 1976). An angry UNITA document of the former organizer in Zambia, Smart Chata (Chokwe), same period entitled "Left/ Right Counterfeit in in the east. In short, though UNITA, unlike the Angola" similarly concluded: "The West found it safer MPLA, accepts ethnicity as a valid political variable, and cheaper to deal with a predictable minority and it is, itself, multiethnic. dependent party like MPLA because it could influence UNITA's critics sometimes portray the movement as MPLA through its detente partner, Russia, more effec- CSIS Africa Notes, February 18, 1983 4 ......

tively than it could influence a broad democratic front, Natural Affinities a mass party like UNITA that would remain unpredic­ and Unnatural Expediencies table and unmanageable as long as it drew its Economic doctrine represents but one of many areas strength from popular support rather than a in which UNITA's original inclinations or intentions superpower." seem to have been at least temporarily modified, Seen from the perspective of UNITA's black na­ deflected, or compromised in response to perceived tionalism, the Soviets and represent an exten­ political necessity. Of special relevance to the search sion of white rule. After their deportation from Angola for diplomatic solutions for the turmoil in Angola and in 1977, the last two missionaries of the United Namibia are UNITA's fluctuating relationships with Church of Canada described racial and political at­ Namibia's SWAPO and South Africa. titudes prevailing in the central district of Bie: "People SWAPO's traditional political base lies in the were always noticing that UNITA's platform is for Ovambo community, which straddles the Angola­ complete independence and not neo-colonialism from Namibia boundary. Since access to Ovamboland from either the East or West. A completely African society SWAPO's exile headquarters in Zambia lies across and government. Whites can stay providing they are southeast Angola, geography has provided a basis for willing to be under a Black government. This at­ UNITA-SWAPO collaboration. For a full decade, this tracted support for UNITA. People felt that the collaboration was close and extensive. It started in Cubans running over them were just another white 1965 at Dar es Salaam, where Savimbi established people taking the place of the Portuguese. Some said such intimate relations with SWAPO leaders that he that if they had to have a foreign power in there they used their post office box as his own address. That might as well have kept the Portuguese." same year an initial cadre of 12 UNITA guerrillas began training with SWAPO at a military base in Capitalist or Socialist? China. Describing the decade of collaboration that Although wishfully depicted by some Americans as a followed, a UNITA spokesman later wrote: "During pro-Western champion of free enterprise, Jonas this time, SWAPO was able to reach Namibian ter­ Savimbi has consistently declared himself an exponent ritory to fight the South African racists by transiting of African socialism. Asked in late 1975 by American UNITA-held territory. UNITA provided food, refuge, journalist Robin Wright to describe his politics, and training-particularly for SWAPO soldiers who Savimbi responded that he was neither communist had received Soviet training which did not prepare nor capitalist. Socialism-democratic, not "extremist" them for successful guerrilla warfare." In response, socialism-is the "only answer" for Angola, he said, South African helicopters transported their own and for the country's new leaders ought not to become Portuguese assault forces in attacks against both "exploiters of the people." As for foreign investors, Angolan and SWAPO guerrillas across a broad zone Savimbi declared himself against nationalization but of southeast Angola. for tough bargaining and contracts so as to insure a In 1973, the leader of the MPLA, Dr. Agostinho proper share of corporate profits for the public treasury. Neto, complained ~o Zambia that SWAPO was ship­ As the principal architect of UNITA doctrine, ping arms and Zambian travel documents to UNITA Savimbi has persistently called for a cooperative under the false pretext that UNITA controlled the socialist society able to accommodate Angola's "vital passage" of southeast Angola. The UNITA­ \ African cultural heritage and create a new "liberated SWAPO alliance managed to survive pressure from man." As recently as December 1982 (see CSIS Africa the , which was supporting SWAPO and Notes, No. 7, January 25, 1983, pages 3-4), he told a the MPLA (but not UNITA) with arms. Sharing ethno­ group of Western correspondents that he is "not a populist affinities that distanced them from the left­ capitalist" because he does not intend to exploit his wing multiracialism of the MPLA, UNITA and people. On the other hand, a recently distributed SWAPO continued to cooperate even after the Por­ UNITA document, National Economic Reconstruction · tuguese coup of 1974. Ovambo youths, who slipped in Angola: The Challenge and the Approach, avoids northward across the Angolan border to join SWAPO, the word "socialist" and dwells instead on the merits were fed and sheltered by UNITA. And according to of "realistic socio-economic analysis" as compared to UNITA sources, when Savimbi and his colleagues "the sloganeering, Marxist rhetoric and poor perfor­ moved into urban areas to campaign (1974-75), they mance of East European 'cooperantes'" who have also shared vehicles, medical supplies, office facilities, brought only "economic disaster." The document goes and weapons with SWAPO, thereby enabling the lat­ on to describe both public and private enterprise as ter to step up political and military activities against appropriate and suggests that: "In order to encourage South Africa. Collaboration even persisted for a while Angolan nationals to undertake business initiatives [a after South Africa intervened in Angola, but came to UNITA] government would set up appropriate an end, according to UNITA, in 1976 after Cuban technical, financial, and research assistance programs forces drove south into areas of SWAPO activity, and for small and medium enterprises." Whether this the Namibians were obliged by their own national in­ statement represents a shift away from earlier com­ terests to lead the Cubans to UNITA camps and to mitments or merely an avoidance of words offensive to work with the MPLA. Americans, UNITA's economics might be more safely It is possible to read the evidence somewhat dif­ described as nationalist and .pragmatic than as socialist. ferently. Already in late 1974, UNITA's representative CSIS Africa Notes, February 18, 1983 ...... 5

in seemed to be putting some distance bet­ choosing instead to look elsewhere for means to en­ ween the two groups by implying to The Star (Johan­ sure him and his supporters survival as an indepen­ nesburg) that it was up to Namibians to fight for their dent political force. More acceptable was China's offer own independence, leaving Angola free to establish of military trainjng and some arms in return for relations with South Africa based on mutual "respect rhetorical celebration of Maoist achievements and and noninterference." In mid-1975, as it became evi­ Soviet failures. dent that power in Angola would be taken by force of Savimbi and his colleagues would prefer to govern arms rather than an electoral contest all neutral Angola alone. But they have periodically sought a observers picked UNITA to win, a sense of despera­ common front or entente with the MPLA from the tion seized UNITA leadership. time UNIT A was officially founded in 1966. When the As he watched Soviet arms and Cuban instructors MPLA finally exhibited interest in a two-party alliance building the MPLA into a certain winner, Jonas (against the FNLA) during bilateral talks at Lisbon in Savimbi turned to South Africa. He was quoted in the August 1975, the United States reportedly interceded Windhoek Advertiser (June 12, 1975) as saying that to dissuade UNITA from such an accord. In a 1979 Angola faced problems of such nature as to preclude interview with Charles Cobb of Africa News, Savimbi it from assisting SWAPO. Impressed by South African referred to the MPLA as "patriots" who also "fought military power, convinced that NATO countries for the independence of our country" and indicated shared South Africa's determination to keep Angola that he would not even make the withdrawal of Cuban free from Soviet influence, and apparently believing troops a precondition for negotiations with the MPLA. that South Africa's policy of detente toward such But he also acknowledged that· the MPLA was unlikely states as Zambia, Zaire, and even Mozambique had to talk until, in a year or two, it had finally come to reduced the liabilities of association with Pretoria, accept that it could not militarily eliminate UNIT A. Savimbi took the plunge. According to American in­ Since then, UNITA guerrillas have extended their ac­ telligence sources, UNITA undertook to provide infor­ tivities northward into the Mbundu country of mation on the location of SWAPO bases as a quid pro Malange. quo for South African arms, instructors, and comman­ For the MPLA in 1983, it may be difficult to decide dos. For reasons that were political rather than whether a politically supple Savimbi is more military, South African forces stopped short of taking dangerous within or without. For the Soviet Union, Luanda. Then, in the face of a growing Cuban expedi­ the entry of UNIT A into the Luanda government tionary force that had been given international would, like the departure of the Cubans, constitute an (specifically African) legitimacy by the threat of South embarrassing political setback. For South Africa, a African conquest, the South African military drew role for UNITA in Luanda would vindicate the earlier back into Namibia from whence it has continued to decision to assure UNITA's survival. And for the provide UNIT A with logistical support and arms. Reagan Administration, UNITA participation in the UNITA and SWAPO guerrillas were left to fight for government would be perceived as a political gain, control over sparse cattle, food, and water resources even though American corporate investors have been in the barren south of Angola. positive in their view of the MPLA government as Despite all this, the affinities which underlay the pragmatic and honest. long operational alliance between UNITA and SWAPO As for Savimbi and UNITA, they could be expected, still persist .. UNITA sources have recently quoted if brought into the. government, to league together Savimbi as saying that relations between the two with black nationalists in the MPLA in quest of ex­ movements have moved_back from a state of panded power. If kept out, they could be expected to fratricidal war to one of distant cordiality (their fight · on, forcing the retention of Cuban or other soldiers avoid contact) and that he would expect foreign garrisons. By drawing upon stockpiled arms UNITA to have good relations with a future SWAPO and Ovimbundu support, UNITA might even survive a government in Namibia. Despite continuing reports of cutoff of South African aid in the eventuality of an UNITA-SWAPO clashes, MPLA government officials Angolan-South African ceasefire accord. Meanwhile, are reported to be concerned about the possibility that the advice of their Chinese mentors that the march to a SWAPO government might, indeed, ultimately align power may be long and tortuous remains a guiding itself with UNITA. principle for UNITA as it pursues the politics of sur­ In assessing UNITA, one must reckon with both vival into an uncharted future. political preferences and Savimbi's willingness to com­ promise, even wantonly. These are important con­ siderations in any assessment of the possible conse­ John A. Marcum is Academic Vice Chancellor of the quences of either integrating UNITA into or keeping University of California at Santa Cruz. Former presi· dent of the African Studies Association, he is the UNITA out of the government of Angola. While author of The Angolan Revolution, Volumes I (The Savimbi and his colleagues prefer Western to Eastern Anatomy of an Explosion, 1950·1962) & II (Exile associations, the record is clear that in 1964, as his Politics and Guerrilla Warfare, 1962·1976), MIT Press partnership with Roberto was fraying, he made a bid (Cambridge), 1969 and 1978. His most recent book is for Soviet personal support during a journey to Education, Race, and Social Change in South Africa seldom mentioned in UNIT A circles. Soviet (University of California Press, 1982). terms were for him to join the MPLA. He refused, CSIS Africa Notes, February 18, 1983 6

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