Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi (Portuguese: [ˈʒɔnɐʃ ˈsavĩbi]; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary, politician, and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Once independence was achieved, it then became an anti-communist group which confronted the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War.

Roberto was a founding member of the UPA (União das Populaçoes de Angola) and was already known for his efforts to promote Angolan independence at the United Nations.

In late September 1960, Savimbi was asked to give a speech in Kampala, Uganda on behalf of the UDEAN (União Democrática dos Estudantes da Africa Negra), a student organization affiliated with the MPLA.

Savimbi attended this meeting and became one of a number of organizers who created the UNEA, (União Nacional dos Estudantes Angolanos) in March 1962 at Lucerne, Switzerland.

He 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.

Trained in China during the 1960s, Savimbi was a highly successful guerrilla fighter schooled in classic Maoist approaches to warfare, including baiting his enemies with multiple military fronts, some of which attacked and some of which consciously retreated.

Like the People's Liberation Army of Mao Zedong, Savimbi mobilized important, although ethnically confined segments of the rural peasantry – overwhelmingly Ovimbundu – as part of his military tactics.

[15] As the MPLA was supported by the Soviet bloc since 1974, and declared itself Marxist-Leninist in 1977, Savimbi renounced his earlier Maoist leanings and contacts with China, presenting himself on the international scene as a protagonist of anti-communism.

[16] 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 Savimbi beginning in 1985,[17][18][19][20][21][22] Jack Abramoff and other U.S. conservatives organized the Democratic International in Savimbi's base in Jamba, in Cuando Cubango Province in southeastern Angola.

Heritage foreign policy analyst Michael Johns and other conservatives visited regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine camps in Jamba and provided the rebel leader with ongoing political and military guidance in his war against the Angolan government.

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

[26] In visits to foreign diplomats and in speeches before American audiences, he often cited classical Western political and social philosophy, ultimately becoming one of the most vocal anti-communists of the Third World.

As U.S. support began to flow liberally and leading U.S. conservatives championed his cause, Savimbi won major strategic advantages in the late 1980s, and again in the early 1990s, after having taken part unsuccessfully in the general elections of 1992.

As a consequence, Moscow and Havana began to reevaluate their engagement in Angola, as Soviet and Cuban fatalities mounted and Savimbi's ground control increased.

[28] By 1989, UNITA held total control of several limited areas, but was able to develop significant guerrilla operations everywhere in Angola, with the exception of the coastal cities and Namibe Province.

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

The injuries did not prevent him from again returning to Washington, where he met with his American supporters and President Bush in an effort to further increase US military assistance to UNITA.

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

On 2 November 1992 in Luanda, Chitunda and Pena's convoy was attacked by government forces and they were both pulled from their car and shot dead.

[34][35][36][37] Alleging governmental electoral fraud and questioning the government's commitment to peace, Savimbi withdrew from the run-off election and resumed fighting, mostly with foreign funds.

[1] According to Bridgland in his book The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent, in an earlier incident termed 'Red September', Savimbi oversaw the torture and killing of dozens of people, including many of his own officers, their wives and children, in a witchcraft ritual.

[39] After surviving more than six assassination attempts, and having been reported dead at least 17 times, Savimbi was killed on 22 February 2002, in a battle with Angolan government troops along riverbanks in the province of Moxico, his birthplace.

But Dembo had sustained wounds in the same attack that killed Savimbi, and he died from them three days later and was succeeded by Paulo Lukamba Gato.