Jonas Savimbi and Antonio da Costa Fernandes founded UNITA on 13 March 1966 in Muangai in Moxico province in Portuguese Angola (during the Estado Novo regime).

[7] After the Portuguese withdrawal from Angola in 1974–75 and the end of their colonial rule, the MPLA and UNITA splintered, and civil war began as the movements clashed militarily and ideologically.

Backed by Soviet and Cuban money, weapons and troops, the MPLA defeated the FNLA militarily and forced them largely into exile.

[13] UNITA also was nearly destroyed in November 1975, but it managed to survive and set up a second government, the Democratic People's Republic of Angola, in the provincial capital of Huambo.

He received considerable guidance from The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative research institute in Washington, D.C. that maintained strong relations with both the Reagan administration and the U.S. Congress.

Michael Johns, the Heritage Foundation's leading expert on Africa and Third World Affairs issues, visited Savimbi in his clandestine southern Angolan base camps, offering the UNITA leader both tactical military and political advice.

Critics, on the other hand, responded that the support given to UNITA, the contras, and the Afghan mujahideen was inflaming regional conflicts at great expense to these nations.

[30] As the war began to include both military and diplomatic components, Johns and leading U.S. conservatives urged Savimbi to make a ceasefire contingent on the MPLA's agreement to "free and fair elections.

Meanwhile, an agreement was reached that provided for the removal of foreign troops from Angola in exchange for the independence of Namibia from South Africa.

In Angola, however, Savimbi told Johns and conservative leader Howard Phillips that he had not felt adequately consulted on the negotiations or agreement and was in opposition to it.

[32] Following the 1991 Bicesse Accords, signed in Lisbon, United Nations-brokered elections were held, with both Savimbi and dos Santos running for president in 1992.

Failing to win an overall majority in the first round of balloting, and then questioning the election's legitimacy, Savimbi and UNITA returned to armed conflict.

[7] After failed talks in 1993 to end the conflict, another agreement, the Lusaka Protocol, was implemented in 1994 to form a government of national unity.

[36][37] In October 1999, UNITA alleged that the FAA Embraer EMB 312 Tucanos used during Operation Restore were crewed by Brazilian pilots on contract to the Angolan government.

UNITA subsequently declared "that anything within the Angolan national territory, identified as Brazil's interest, is... considered a target and will not be spared" from their attacks.

In November 2019, Isaias Samakuva resigned as president and was replaced by Adalberto Costa Júnior with Arlete Leona Chimbinda as the new vice-president.

Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Casey, National Security Advisor Richard Allen, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig, on 6 March met with UNITA leaders in Washington, D.C. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walker met with Savimbi in March in Rabat, Morocco.

Although the Clark Amendment forbid U.S. involvement in the civil war, Secretary Haig told Savimbi in December 1981 that the U.S. would continue to provide assistance to UNITA.