The tale of Angola’s civil war

How Angola’s legendary rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, turned on his friends and killed them in droves

THE LAST WORD |  Andrew M. Mwenda | A couple of months ago, while visiting Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defense Forces (CDF), I found him reading a book titled The Guerrilla and the Journalist by a British journalist, Fred Bridgland. It is about the 27-year-long civil war in Angola that pitted the Cuban and Soviet-backed MPLA government against the UNITA rebel group led by Jonas Savimbi. But most especially, it is about the former head of Savimbi’s personal security, Tito Chingunji, especially the role he later played in the diplomatic sphere.

“Chiang,” Muhoozi said to me using the nickname he gave me, “this is a book you must read.” Chiang Kai Shek is a former Chinese nationalist leader who fought communist rebels led by Chairman Mao Zedong. I call Muhoozi Chairman Mao, or simply Chairman. This nicknaming reflects the ideological differences we claim to hold – me being liberal capitalist and therefore pro-Western, him being a progressive leftist and hence pro “the people”. The problem is that his copy was filled with his markings and notes. So, he promised to send me a clean copy, which he did a few days later.

I did not read the book until last week when I was travelling to Angola. To acquaint myself with the country, I decided to carry a copy. It is my custom to learn about every country I am going to visit for the first time if I have not read about it before. Often, I look for a history book about it. For most of my life, I had despised Savimbi as a reactionary who allied with apartheid South Africa against the progressive MPLA. But, in the first half of the book, I grew somewhat sympathetic to his cause, even developing some understanding of the reasons that drove him into the hands of apartheid South Africa.

Bridgland’s book is an insightful account of the complicated tradeoffs that led Jonas Savimbi to ally with apartheid South Africa against the MPLA. Savimbi had been a friend of Chairman Mao of China, who trained him and his guerrillas in Nanjing, China. He had also met and befriended the legendary Che Guevara in 1965, who advised him to set up a rebel group to fight the Portuguese inside Angola. He therefore had a progressive background.

The armed struggles for independence in all Portuguese colonies in Africa weakened the hand of Lisbon. It fractured the army, leading to a military coup in 1974. The new military leaders granted independence to all Portuguese colonies. In Angola, the three rebel groups signed an agreement to hold elections that would form the basis of government after independence. However, the MPLA moved its forces into Luanda, declared independence and formed a government. Savimbi rejected this and began armed resistance. Cuba immediately sent in troops to back the new MPLA government. This tilted the military balance, leading to the defeat of UNITA.

Savimbi retreated to the forests in the south and began a guerrilla campaign. The Cold War rivalries led the USA to support UNITA using South Africa. Savimbi had no other way but to go into bed with the devil, the apartheid regime in Pretoria, to resist the Soviet-backed Cuban army. Angola became the epicentre of the Cold War. Along the way, Tito grew from being the head of Savimbi’s personal bodyguard into his diplomatic emissary. He was first assigned to London and later to Washington DC, becoming, in effect, UNITA’s foreign minister. He was thus central in exploiting the military success of UNITA to force the MPLA to a negotiating table.

Tito’s father, Jonatao Chingunju, had been a highly respected teacher and religious leader in Angola during the colonial period. He mentored Savimbi, helped him create UNITA, and provided the new movement its moral strength. He considered Savimbi as a son, gave all his five sons to UNITA as combatants. Tito became head of Savimbi’s personal bodyguard because of this close relationship. Four of Tito’s brothers, Samuel, David, Estavao and Paulo died in the early years of the struggle. The first two were even honored as heroes and memorized in UNITA’s mythologies alongside Che, Mao and Savimbi through songs, dance and poetry.

But as the book moves to its climax, the real Savimbi emerges. While living in Washington DC as UNITA’s foreign minister, Tito learns that it was not the MPLA that had killed his father and mother and that his four brothers did not die in combat. It was Savimbi who killed them, and later their wives and children. When he left the rebel-held areas inside Angola to go to DC as ambassador and foreign minister, Savimbi had insisted that Tito leave his wife and two kids behind. It turns out that he was using them as leverage in case Tito found out the truths about his family.

Tito knew that Savimbi was a sex-crazed psychopath with a harem of over 600 mistresses and concubines. He would sleep with young women and then hand them over to his commanders as wives. He would maintain the sexual relationship with these women to “weaken” and humiliate his commanders but also to spy on them. He would sleep with girls as young as 14. Any woman who resisted his sexual overtures would be declared a traitor or a witch and would be burnt on a bonfire. As the book nears the end, Savimbi had killed nearly all his original comrades and commanders, many of his own mistresses and concubines, and Tito with his wife and children.

The sad part is that the Europeans and especially the Americans who financed this demented, psychopathic maniac knew all his murderous and sexual proclivities. Savimbi was at one time received by President Ronald Reagan in Washington DC as a hero, even given a red-carpet welcome only reserved for heads of state and government. He wined and dined in the White House, and Reagan compared him to America’s founding father, George Washington. They must have been similar since Washington himself, like all America’s founding fathers and early presidents, owned slaves whom many raped and some, like Thomas Jefferson, even fathered children with.

Despite their hypocritical claims to human rights, the Americans and their Western European allies had no qualms arming this psychopath. They wanted to defeat the Soviets in Angola; the moral characteristics of their allies were irrelevant. So, they turned a blind eye to Savimbi’s crimes. The book is a sobering reminder that Africa’s destiny is Africa’s. Outside powers have interests, and that is all that matters to them.

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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug