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Savimbi and South Africa: No Casual Affair

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Savimbi and South Africa: No Casual Affair Savimbi and South Africa: No Casual Affair Jonas Savimbi, South Africa's tool for war in Angola. South African President P.W. Botha provides major backing for Savimbi. FACf: • Jonas Savimbi and his group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) is supported mainly by racist apartheid South Africa which provides major military support. • Savimbisaid (( ••• I cansee theExecutivePresidentofSouthAfricaas myfriend ••• I considerhimas my friend." CBS's tt60 Minutes," January 26, 1986. • The Organization of African Unity (OAU) and all leaders of the southern African Frontline States opposeanyU .8. aidto UNITAandSavimbi.TheOAD hascalledSavimbi t(a knownagentofAparthcid SouthAfrica ••• responsiblefor thewantonkillingofcivilians ••• "TheOAUadds, tt ••• AnyAmerican covertorovertinvolvementin ••• Angola••• willbe considereda hostileactagainst theOAD..." OAU Declaration, ddis A a a, uly &2 , 9 5. • Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Reverend Allan Boesak, Reverend Beyers Naude, the National Education Crisis Committee, the United Democratic Front (UDF), and other major anti-apartheid leadersandorganizationsinsideSouthAfricahavestronglycondemnedU.S.supportforJonasSavimbi. • Key religious leaders inside Angola, such as General Secretary Jose Belo Chipenda of the Angolan Council of Evangelical Churches and Bishop Emilio de Carvalho of the United Methodist Church of Angola (UMCA), oppose UNITA and have called upon the U.s. to support Angola's struggle for self-determinationandagainstSouthAfrica. In 1984,theUMCAcharacterizedanyaidtoUNITAas (t••• blatant intervention in [Angola's] sovereignty ••• " • In 1986TheEuropeanParliamentinStrasbourgdeniedSavimbianopportunitytoaddressitandpassed a resolutiondescribingUNITA as a tterroristorganization' andcondemningU.s.supportfor thegroup. • Every nation in the world, except the United States and South Africa, has extended diplomatic recognition to the People's Republic of Angola. • u.s. aid to UNITA is aid to South Africa's war against the Angolan people. A publication of the Washington Office on Africa Educational Fund For more than a decade, South Africa has been waging an undeclared war against Angola. Using the Who is Jonas Savimbi? illegally occupied territory of Namibia, South African troops have continually bombed and invaded Angola, Jonas Savimbi was born in 1934 at Munhongo, a small killing tens of thousands of civilians, destroying economic town on the Benguela railroad in eastern Angola. He targets and social services, provoking famine and causing attended high school in southern Angola. Going toPortugal one of the highest child death rates in the world. for university in 1958 and on to Switzerland in 1960, Savimbi joined other students and exiles in criticizing The major instrument of this South African war, Portuguese colonialism. In 1961, shortly before guerrilla apart from direct invasion, has been Jonas Savimbi, warfare broke out in Angola, he joined the movement who heads a rebel group called the National Union for headed by Holden Roberto wldch was later Called the theTotalIndependenceofAngola(UNITA). UNITA National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). is the South African..-backed Hcontra" group fighting to Savimbi became Foreign Minister of the FNLA while overthrow the government of Angola. South Africa pro..­ vides UNITA with weapons, funding, bases, training and finishing his undergraduate studies in Switzerland (his claim logistical support. TheU.S. governmentsupports the war against Angola by supplying military aid and political recognition to the UNITA and the Portugues UNITA rebels. The Reagan Administration says it is fighting for freedom when it backs groups like theH nttas" UNITA began as an anti..-colonial guerrilla movement. in Nicaragua or Angola. In reality, this ttReagan Doc­ But it soon proved weaker than the rival MPLA. The trine" has involved the U.s. directly in the apartheid Portuguese military worked out a covert scheme government's war against the Angolan people. U.S. codenamed uOperation Timber," to use UNITA foreign policy is being determined by the incorrect per..­ against the stronger MPLA. Savimbi agreed to this ception that the conflict in southern Africa is an HEast..­ secret alliance. West" struggle. Cold War slogans cannot hide the fact Initially, UNITA gained popular support, infiltrating thatworkingwithSouthAfrica'swarmachineunder­ guerrillas into eastern Angola through newly independent mines self-determination in southern Africa. The Zambia. Butits extravagant promises andill..-planned military greatest threat to peace and the largest obstacle to tactics soon disillusioned many followers. By attacking the economicdevelopmentandmajorityruleinsouthern Benguela railroad, Savimbi also alienated the government of Africa is APARTHEID. Zambia, which expelled him in 1967. Savimbi is very effective at public relations. He presents In the same years the MPLA was building up its own UNITA as a genuine African nationalist movement and guerrilla organization in eastern Angola. The MPLA's claims that the majority ofAngolans supporthim. By telling military operations and political work with the local Western audiences that the real problemin southernAfrica is notPretoria butMoscow, he touches chords calculated to loosen Washington's pursestrings. His military ties with South Africa, he says, are merely an unfortunate necessity. In his quest for personal power, Savimbi has used a wide variety of slogans: blaclc nationalist, Maoist, and anti..­ communist. But he has survived as a regional warlord primarily because he has ma3e himse f usefu to orces opposed to self-determination in Africa: first the Portuguese colonialists, then the South African apartheid regime. From a covert military alliance in 1971 with the Portu..­ guese colonialists he was supposedly fighting, Savimbi turned to SouthAfrica as the Portuguese withdrew in 1975. For Angolans and others around the world, this decade-long alliance has discredited Savimbi and exposed him as a traitor of the African liberation struggle.The image projected by Savimbi andhis publicists grossly distorts the historical record as well as the present Angolan situation. The people of the United States need to take a closer look and demand that the U.S. government stop sending Savimbi taxpayers' money to kill An­ golans. Dave Cook/Washingwn Post to a doctorate is a later public relations invention). The Agostinho Neto, unless he be given a top poSItiOn FNLA had backing from governments in the Congo (the immediately. He attacked the prominence in the MPLA of country to the north of Angola, now called Zaire) and Kimbundu,speaking people from the Angola capital, received funding from the CIA. Luanda, and criticized its acceptance of mesticos (of mixed The FNLA carried on a low,key war against the Portu, race) and whites. After leaving the FNLA, he asked for guese. But it also executed guerrillas of the rival Popular Soviet assistance to form another liberation movement. Movement for the Liberation ofAngola (MPLA), and was After Moscow refused him aid, he also denounced the divided by tensions between Roberto's followers (mainly MPLA for its socialist views and backing from the Soviet Kikongo,speaking) and the southern and eastern ethnic Union. Searching the world for patrons, he eventually groups Savimbi claimed to represent. found support in China and adopted Maoist rhetoric. In July 1964, Savimbi left the FNLA. He criticized In 1966, with followers in eastern Angola, Savimbi Roberto for his tribal favoritism, inefficiency and his ties founded his own organization-UNITA. with the CIA. Buthe refused offers to jointhe MPLA under population were more effective than UNITA' ,and it won the letters were genuine. Sitte defends the alliance, citing more support than Savimbi even in his home area. Savimbi's ((premonition" that the MPLA would be the Portuguese military documents show it was the MPLA that enemy after the Portuguese left (Fritz Sitte, Flug in die posed a serious threat to the colonial troops. (Facts & Angola,Hoelle, Graz: VerlagStyria, 1981, pp. 137, 151). As Reports, Amsterdam, August 18, 1973.) a result ofthe accord, Savimbi gained a protected zone near By 1971,according toGeneralCostaGomes,Portu... the Lungue,Bungo River, justsouth ofthe Benguela railway, guese commander in Angola 1970... 1972, Savimbi as well as ammunition to use against the MPLA. had signed a secret accord with the Portuguese Atthesametime as Savimbiwas collaboratingwith military, agreeing to cooperate against the MPLA the Portuguese, he and his lieutenants promoted (Costa Gomes, Sobre Portugal, Lisbon, 1979, p. 32; also themselves around the world as the most militant of interview with Costa Gomes by David Martin and Phyllis Angolannationalists.They courted the left in Europe and Johnson in April 1984). When the Paris,based magazine America with ultra,revolutionary rhetoric. To black Amer, AfriqueAsie Guly 8, 1974) published letters documenting icans they presented themselves as the authentic black the agreement, Savimbi dismissed them as forgeries. Fritz nationalist movement and pictured the MPLA as dominated Sitte, a pro,Savimbi Austrian journalist, has admitted that by whites and mesticos. ANGOLA, onthe west coast ofAfrica, is a countryalmost twice the size ofTexas with a populationofnine million people. Angola was oneofthe areas mostdevastated by the slave trade, after thePortuguese settled onthecoast500years ago. At the beginning of this century, Portugal also conquered the African peoples ofthe interior ofAngola.
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