Jonas Malheiro Savimbi

Some of them are threatening to go home to Angola whose army wants them to re-enlist in the fight against Jonas Savimbi and UNITA; the Angolan army may yet remove Kabila’s reserve of 6 000 ex-gendarmes now in Viana camp close to Luanda...

This is happening in Angola (where Jonas Savimbi's UNITA is taking advantage of the FAA's commitments north of the border to step up operations in Lunda Norte Uige and the Central Highlands) and Zimbabwe where growing social discontent at rising prices and unemployment is focusing opposition to President Robert Mugabe's government...

Men with both military acumen and charisma have not prospered in the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola led by the charismatic and militarily successful Jonas Savimbi...

After the return to hostilities between President José Eduardo dos Santos' government and Jonas Savimbi's rebels it is fairly clear that the government wants the UN to close down its monitoring mission in the country...

Yet already the RCD harries Kabila's troops from new safe havens in areas of Angola's Uige and Zaire provinces controlled by Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola...

It is seeking to isolate Jonas Savimbi and his movement's military wing (AC Vol 39 Nos 10 & 16) and to forge a new malleable UNITA in the capital under the leadership of Hotels and Tourism Minister Jorge Valentim...

Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola is sometimes reported to have recently recaptured most of the diamond-mining areas from which it had been ousted by government troops...

By 26 August Kabila could count on varying degrees of support from: • Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe was the strongest supporter of military backing for Kinshasa and was equally keen to assert his regional leadership credentials at a time of acute domestic unpopularity; Zimbabwe was a major arms supplier to Kabila before and after he gained power and has growing business interests in Congo; • Angola: fearful that Congo's instability will help Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola forces it was persuaded by Mugabe to help shore up Kabila as a means of securing the Congo-Angola border and cutting UNITA supply lines; on the back of Angola's involvement we hear that South Africa's Executive Outcomes are also working with Kabila with one report suggesting they might organise a cross-border attack into rebel-held territory in Eastern Congo from Central African Republic; • Namibia: helped persuade Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos to join the pro-Kabila alliance; is giving logistical support but few if any troops; • Kenya: Daniel arap Moi's government has pledged diplomatic support for Kabila and hasn't ruled out military help; Moi instinctively distrusts any cause backed by Uganda's Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's General Paul Kagame; • Mozambique: facilitated disguised transhipments of Chinese arms for Congo through Beira corridor to Zimbabwe and on to Lubumbashi; • Tanzania: unease among some ministers about growing Tutsi influence military and diplomatic in the region but is also keen to maintain congenial relations with neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda; it hurriedly withdrew on 24 August some 600 troops and 200 policemen it had sent to Congo for training; • Congo-Brazzaville: has pledged total commitment to Luanda (whose troops help keep President Denis Sassou Nguesso in power) and by extension to Luanda's allies...

Jonas Savimbi is on the presidential campaign trail again...

Ilunga has good contacts with the ‘former Katangese gendarmes' who have served alongside the Angolan army so the Angolan government can rely on his hostility to Jonas Savimbi and the rebels of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola...