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The United States bears some blame for Angola’s brutal civil war because Savimbi was long the darling of American right-wing, conservative politicians and the CIA. Some fifteen years ago, President Ronald Reagan invited Savimbi to the White House and hailed him a “freedom fighter” for his efforts to oust dos Santos and the leftist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)--the party that has ruled Angola since its independence in 1975.
Savimbi first took to the bush in the early 1960s as Angolans began organizing against 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule. Billed as an anticommunist during the height of the cold war, Savimbi was actually no more than a power-hungry opportunist who changed his colors to suit the tastes of his particular financial backers. His enigmatic character confounded a great number of powerful people over the years. In 1999, for instance, one former U.S. diplomat told me in an informal conversation just how unsettling Savimbi’s personality could be. This official, who had met the rebel leader over 25 times while he was in hiding, conceded each time he felt that he was in the presence of “pure evil.” He explained that Savimbi was “so charming, intelligent, articulate, and dangerous” that he frequently had to spend return flights to Luanda “deprogramming African-American delegations who were charmed into thinking that Savimbi’s vision for Angola was the right one.”
Roberto soon fell by the wayside, but Savimbi, as Washington’s favorite, received in the early 1980s over $15 million in covert military aid from the Reagan administration, and, in the late 1980s, another $15 million from the Bush Sr. administration. This thrust the U.S. into an unsavory alignment with white-ruled South Africa, which not only supplied UNITA with money, arms, and material, but also frequently deployed troops into Angola and launched air strikes on MPLA positions. The U.S. was repeatedly warned against aligning with South Africa and backing UNITA. In a January 1986 statement, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) said, “Mr. Savimbi is a known agent of apartheid South Africa, and has been responsible for the wanton killing of civilians, the destruction of economic infrastructure of the country, and the destabilization of the legitimate Government of the People’s Republic of Angola. Any American involvement in the internal affairs of Angola ... will be considered a hostile act against the OAU.”
Savimbi's Washington allies
Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government became a sub-plot to the Cold War, with both Moscow and Washington viewing the conflict as important to the global balance of power. In 1986, for instance, Savimbi was invited by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to the White House. Reagan spoke of UNITA winning "a victory that electrifies the world...."
Equally important, Savimbi also was strongly supported by the extremely influential Heritage Foundation. Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst Michael Johns and other conservatives visited regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine camps in southern Angola 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 to Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government, which greatly intensified the conflict.
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