Word: savimbi
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...some form of normality. According to reports from returnees who have resettled in various parts of the country, Angolan President Agostinho Neto's Cuban-backed government has finally prevailed over two rival revolutionary groups: Hoiden Roberto's National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.) and Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Apparently willing to forgive and forget, Neto's government hopes that the returnees, many of whom are technicians, professionals and skilled workers, can help rebuild the devastated country. Says Luanda's ambassador to Lisbon, Adriano Sebastiao...
Neto's most dangerous opposition is in the south, where UNITA not only fights on but even seems to be gaining a little under the bearded Savimbi, 43, a onetime philosophy student at Switzerland's University of Lausanne. He commands a ragtag army of 5,000 regulars and 12,000 auxiliary bushfighters that includes women and boys barely in their teens. Supported by the Ovimbundu tribe, which makes up about 40% of Angola's population of 6.2 million, Savimbi's forces now control a third of the country. They have gained an advantage by staging successful hit-and-run raids...
...Savimbi is well armed and reasonably well financed. Help comes directly from South Africa, which considers UNITA a potential ally in its struggle against the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), the Angola-based rebel group that seeks to take over Namibia. Ovimbundu refugees, as a result, are allowed into Namibia to escape the fighting, as are some UNITA guerrillas. One wounded fighter recently showed up at a South African border camp, where he accepted a field bandage for his leg and a meal of corn mash and gravy. Leaving for the combat zone, he cockily echoed a line...
...parts from abroad through Zaïre. According to In Search of Enemies, a newly published expose by former CIA Agent John Stockwell (TIME, May 22), the agency flew $25 million worth of arms to the F.N.L.A. and UNITA through Zaïre. After Congress cut off such assistance in 1975, Savimbi was temporarily in trouble. Lately, however, UNITA has been getting funds from other sources, including $18 million reportedly provided by a coalition of wealthy Angolan Portuguese living in Brazilian exile, along with French, Iranian and Arab sources interested in bringing down Neto's Marxist government...
...Savimbi's increasing success in the bush has forced Neto to launch a major offensive against him, using both M.P.L.A. and Cuban troops. Despite the government's superior firepower the offensive has been going poorly. There is dissension between the two attacking groups: the Angolans sneeringly call the Cubans "town dwellers" who are afraid to go into the bush, particularly at night. Angolan prisoners captured by UNITA tell of M.P.L.A. mutinies and heavy casualties among the Cubans...