UNITA 1975
Source: The Workers’ Advocate [U.S.] Volume 6, Number 2, February 1, 1976;
Extracted from The Workers’ Advocate for the MIA Africa pages: by Paul Saba.
Comrades and Friends:
On behalf of UNITA and the combatant people of Angola, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to share details of our revolutionary struggle with you this afternoon. These are perhaps more intensely historic times than most. On the African continent we are now seeing the demise of the last vestiges of overt colonialism with the overthrow of the fascist regime in Portugal. But even so the time to celebrate is not yet come. We face today an even more significant task. UNITA must and indeed UNITA will ensure the people of Angola, the peasantry that made Portugal's defeat a reality, that the sacrifices they have courageously made through 15 years of armed struggle, will not be subverted either by the Soviet Union or by western imperialism or by the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. There is so much which has been said about UNITA from her enemies, so please let me take up a moment of your time to set the record straight. I would like to give you some background on the development of our struggle and the circumstances under which UNITA was born and accepted the responsibility of becoming the party of the Angolan people.
The contemporary history of revolutionary struggles supports Chairman Mao Tsetung's thesis that the establishment of rural revolutionary base areas and the encirclement of the cities from the countryside would be of crucial practical importance. UNITA, founded deep within the interior of Angola in 1966, was the first movement in Angola to correctly analyze that the peasantry would represent the backbone of the revolutionary movement although in alliance with the small percentage of civil servants and intellectuals. UNITA based its action on an objective analysis of the material condition of Angola. It is a counlry with an 85% rural population. The party program was first presented to the peasantry. Party cadres would enter the villages, live with the local population in order to grasp the real existing problems. At this stage, the party were themselves becoming familiarized with the local situations, they were in fact the students of the masses. Subsequently the party was able to produce a concrete program. And it was at this stage, once the analysis was made that the masses became students of the party cadres, manifesting the permanent relationship between the vanguard party and the people. The Angolan peasanty responded to concrete facts that affected their daily life under Portuguese colonialism - forced labour in mines and coffee plantations, high taxes, no schools. When they consciously and voluntarily accepted the means of fighting against these injustices they would form a political committee and create their own militia along the lines of self-reliance. Step by step political consciousness was created.
UNITA's decision to launch its offensive from a peasant base enabled the party to avoid the cost in human lives which many revolutionary groups paid due to their incorrect strategy of trying to launch a revolution in a rural country from' an urban base. Another significant example of correct ideological position was the establishment of UNITA's headquarters inside Angola. When asked how UNITA was able to achieve impressive territorial and political successes in so short a period and without international recognition, President Jonas Savimbi laid it to one principle: "A revolution against oppressive forces can only be successful when the civilian population supports the guerrillas and will fight with them … if you are prepared to die for your people, get together with your people, fight with them and you will solve many problems you thought were impossible to solve." It is today clear that for reasons of correct revolutionary strategy and tactics, UNITA commands the support of the overwhelming majority of Angola's people - a fact which the enemies of the total independence of Angola have gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up. Before the coup d'etat in Portugal, the imperialist press, copying accounts emanating from Moscow, dismissed UNITA as non-existent, and at one point claimed that Jonas Savimbi was not in Angola at all, but selling fish clandestinely in a little market in Livingston, Zambia. No, the accusations put out by Tass and repeated across the world are not new to UNITA. The incidious attempts to link the righteous struggle of Angola's masses to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa are also old-hat. But UNITA has. a powerful weapon which no amount of Soviet rumour-mongering or MPLA amassing Katangese, Cuban, East European and Russian mercenaries can counter - that is the will of Angola's masses. The Organisation of African Unity acted decisively for the first time in its history by sending to Angola last month a Factfinding and Reconciliation Commission to determine what was actually happening in our war-torn country. The report which has subsequently been covered up stated that after a ten-day mission throughout every corner of Angola, it is clear that four million out of a population of 6 million are in complete support of UNI A. This corroborates in toto earlier assessments taken during the transitional government that were elections to be held, UNITA would have at least 65% support, MPLA possibly 20% and FNLA 15%.
Popular support, especially massive popular support such as what UNITA has been shown, is a rewarding response of the Angolan people to UNITA's guidance in the colonial struggle. But such support also imposes upon UNITA an obligation to unconditionally defend the interests of this people's majority. Throughout the period of the transitional government, UNITA made every effort to do just that, especially when the fighting broke out between MPLA and FNLA. By early March, 1975 the mutual antagonism between MPLA and FNLA had begun to manifest itself in armed confrontations on the streets of Luanda, marking the beginning of the wanton killing of 20,000 Angolans, UNITA tried in vain to stop the escalation of this conflict from January to August 1975. But by then it became clear that those with no popular base among the people, had everything to lose with elections. Even in Luanda, MPLA'S BIRTHPLACE AND STRONGHOLD, President Savimbi was joyously reteived by a wildly cheering crowd of 250,000, waving UNITA flags and banners. Comparable crowds greeting Comrade Saliimbi and other UNITA leaders were occurring in other villages, towns and cities all over Angola during this same period. It thus became crystal clear to MPLA and ominously clear to the Soviet Union which all along has held imperialistic andneo-colonialist designs on Angola, that in any free and open elections held in Angola, UNITA would win, hands down. MPLA subsequently began to attack UNITA offices all over the country, killing not only UNITA militants, but also more civilians. On June 4, even as the Nakuru unity meeting organised by UNITA was getting underway, UNITA's office in Luanda was virtually destroyed by an MPLA armed attack in which men, women, and children were murdered; on June 10 a similar attack occurred in Gabela in the province of Cuanzo-Norte; on June 30, in Cassambai, on July 15, in Henrique de Car~ valho, July 22, Kalabo; and July 30, Lukusse. Finally, MPLA's war acts against UNITA climaxed in the August 5 firing upon President Savimbi's plane in the southern city of Silva Porto. We took the shooting upon our President's plane as the sign that UNITA must however regretfully, declare war on MPLA and enter the fighting. To do less would have been a betrayal of the masses of Angolans who see UNITA's revolutionary prirrciples and deeds as the hope of justice, and substantive progress in our country. At the time UNITA entered the civil war in August, MPLA was already heavily armed by the Soviet Union, and thousands of Cuban infantrymen were already seen fighting with the MPLA forces, they were equipped with tons of Russian AK-47 automatic rifles, Kalashnikov sniper rifles, Tokarev pistols, SAM-7 heatseeking missiles, wire-guided missiles, 122mm rockets and rocket launchers, amphibious tanks, etc.
UNITA was therefore driven into war with two basic goals: a) to protect its popular base against ruthless attacks, harassment and humiliation by MPLA's armed gangs; and b) maintain enough strength for effective promotion of dialogues for an eventual political solution.
The present situation has now been further complicated by South Africa's invasion of Southern Angola in July, 1975. Both UNITA and MPlA troops attempted to repel this invasion, and both were militarily defeated in the Cunene. Later MPLA tried to use this tragic instance of yet more foreign intervention, to accuse UNITA of fighting with South Africa. Their argument was made even more ludicrous by the reality that guerillas from SWAPO, the Namibian independence movement were in fact operating with UNITA against South Africa, and not MPLA as they had tried to convince the world.
On the home front, though, even during this tragic period of civil war, the vital process of national reconstruction is carried on. Education is now a right and medical care the obligation of the state to the people. The schools are ill-equipped although exceptionally well attended. The academic curriculum is complemented by a solid political course.
Children are taught for example that the history of Angola and that of Africa is not made by imperialist kings, queens, princes and prime ministers but by the people themselves. The masses of the people are then the only real motive force behind historical development. They are taught in short dialectics and historical materialism, in a very lucid way, and in such a way that they are able to understand and situate themselves in the historical context of the armed struggle and the reality of their war against capitalist. Exploitation and imperialism. In the evenings the soldiers lay down their arms and instruct the adults. In every province there are likewise medical clinics which is one of the services which the people in the liberated areas welcome the most.
I should like to say that in closing UNITA has been especially heartened to see the extensive coverage given our struggle in the People's Canada Daily News. Our movement has had to suffer the incredible lies and distortions of the western news media compounded by the incidious propaganda of the Soviet Union. UNITA fought its battles against the Portuguese on the terrain of Angola and never enjoyed the external metropolitan sidewalk cafe, bar, and coffee house associations with European journalists. These people are now found mindlessly parrotting and propagating MPLA-Soviet propaganda that has been digested by them over a period of years with these kinds of contacts and associations. Even now European reporters mainly continue to file their stories from Luanda where they only have access to the desperate distortions MPLA feeds them.
UNITA's vision for the new Angola demands as a prerequisite, the country's total independence from all forms of foreign exploitation. It demands that the country be developed following the principles of scientific socialism, creatively applied to the particular needs of Angola's people. It asserts that the pace of genuine revolutionary change can proceed no faster than the elevation of the Angolan woman to her rightful position as comrade at all levels of constructive human endeavour.
For UNITA there may indeed be even rougher days to come. But the support of our people is our greatest strength. UNITA is the party of the people.
AND THE PEOPlE SHALL NOT FAIL!
LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE!
LONG LIVE UNITA!
LONG LIVE THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION!
Thank you.