43 Facts About Jonas Savimbi

Jonas Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.

Jonas Malheiro Sidonio Sakaita Savimbi was born in Munhango, Bie Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Chilesso, in the same province.

Jonas Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a preacher of the Protestant Igreja Evangelica Congregacional de Angola, founded and maintained by American missionaries.

Jonas Savimbi knew Agostinho Neto, who was at that time studying medicine and who later became president of the MPLA and Angola's first state President.

Under increasing pressure from the Portuguese secret police, Jonas Savimbi left Portugal for Switzerland with the assistance of Portuguese and French communists and other sympathizers, and eventually wound up in Lausanne.

Jonas Savimbi then went to the University of Fribourg for further studies.

Jonas Savimbi tried to recruit Savimbi who seemed to have been undecided whether to commit himself to the cause of Angolan independence at that point in his life.

In late September 1960, Jonas Savimbi was asked to give a speech in Kampala, Uganda on behalf of the UDEAN, a student organization affiliated with the MPLA.

Jonas Savimbi told French interviewers "J'ai ete convaincu par Kenyatta".

Jonas Savimbi immediately wrote a letter to Roberto putting himself at his service, which was taken in person to New York by Mboya.

Jonas Savimbi took no part in planning the uprising of March 1961, nor did he participate in it.

Jonas Savimbi stayed in Leopoldville until the end of March 1961, then went to Switzerland to prepare for examinations.

Jonas Savimbi may have failed, for he abandoned medical studies in Fribourg, and in December 1961 enrolled at Lausanne University in Law and International Politics.

Jonas Savimbi attended this meeting and became one of a number of organizers who created the UNEA, in March 1962 at Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jonas Savimbi participated in UPA activities while continuing to study in Switzerland.

Jonas Savimbi traveled widely on behalf of the organization: to Yugoslavia for the first Non-Aligned Movement Summit in September 1961, with Holden Roberto, and on to New York for the United Nations meeting later that fall.

Jonas Savimbi sought a leadership position in the MPLA by joining the MPLA Youth in the early 1960s.

Jonas Savimbi was rebuffed by the MPLA, and joined forces with the National Liberation Front of Angola in 1964.

Jonas Savimbi went to China for help and was promised arms and military training.

Jonas Savimbi fought the FNLA and MPLA, as the three resistance movements tried to position themselves to lead a post-colonial Angola.

Portugal later released PIDE archives revealing that Jonas Savimbi had signed a collaboration pact with Portuguese colonial authorities to fight the MPLA.

In 1985, with the backing of the Reagan administration and through the lobbying efforts of Paul Manafort and his firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly which was paid $600,000 each year from Jonas Savimbi beginning in 1985, Jack Abramoff and other US conservatives organized the Democratic International in Jonas Savimbi's base in Jamba, in Cuando Cubango Province in southeastern Angola.

Jonas Savimbi was strongly supported by the influential, conservative Heritage Foundation.

Jonas Savimbi's US-based supporters ultimately proved successful in convincing the Central Intelligence Agency to channel covert weapons and recruit guerrillas for Jonas Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government.

Two years later, with the Angolan Civil War intensifying, Jonas Savimbi returned to Washington, where he praised the Heritage Foundation's work on UNITA's behalf.

Jonas Savimbi spoke seven languages fluently including Portuguese, French, and English.

Jonas Savimbi spoke four European languages, including English although he had never lived in an English-speaking country.

Jonas Savimbi was an extremely fine conversationalist and a very good listener.

At the height of his military success, in 1989 and 1990, Jonas Savimbi was beginning to launch attacks on government and military targets in and around the country's capital, Luanda.

Observers felt that the strategic balance in Angola had shifted and that Jonas Savimbi was positioning UNITA for a possible military victory.

In January 1990 and again in February 1990, Jonas Savimbi was wounded in armed conflict with Angolan government troops.

Jonas Savimbi's supporters warned that continued Soviet support for the MPLA was threatening broader global collaboration between Gorbachev and the US.

In February 1992, Antonio da Costa Fernandes and Nzau Puna defected from UNITA, declaring publicly that Jonas Savimbi was not interested in a political test, but on preparing another war.

In late October 1992, Jonas Savimbi dispatched UNITA Vice President Jeremias Chitunda and UNITA senior advisor Elias Salupeto Pena to Luanda to negotiate the details of the run-off election.

Jonas Savimbi declined the vice-presidency that was offered to him and again renewed fighting in 1998.

Jonas Savimbi reportedly purged those within UNITA whom he saw as threats to his leadership or as questioning his strategic course.

Jonas Savimbi denied his involvement in the Chingunji killing and blamed it on UNITA dissidents.

Jonas Savimbi was interred in Luena Main Cemetery in Luena, Moxico Province.

Jonas Savimbi's body was exhumed and reburied publicly in 2019.

Jonas Savimbi was succeeded by Antonio Dembo, who assumed UNITA's leadership on an interim basis in February 2002.

Jonas Savimbi was survived by "several wives and dozens of children", the latter numbering at least 25.

Jonas Savimbi is a minor character in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, a video game that was released in 2012.

Three of Jonas Savimbi's children took issue with Jonas Savimbi's representation in the game, claiming that he was portrayed as a "big halfwit who wanted to kill everybody".