25 June 2002
interview
Johannesburg — The veteran British journalist, Fred Bridgland, became well known in the 1980s for his biography of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and his writings about Unita, the movement that Savimbi led. When Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa hit the bookshops, some readers called Bridgland an apologist for Savimbi, a label Bridgland has always rejected.
Critics accused the writer of extolling the virtues and charisma of the Unita leader, charging that Bridgland seemed to endorse the Unita founder as a credible alternative to a corrupt, left-wing government in the capital Luanda. But Bridgland played another role as well. When reports began to emerge of Savimbi's torture and killings of his own close associates, Bridgland began revealing these atrocities in his writings.
Since Savimbi was killed by Angolan government troops in February, fighting has ceased and peace seems to be at hand, following a peace agreement between the two belligerents signed on April 4.
Bridgland remains close to the story, having recently been appointed Africa correspondent of the Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph of London, based in Johannesburg. In this retrospective interview with Ofeibea Quist-Arcton of allAfrica.com, he reviews the life of the man whose life he chronicled for several decades.
Fred Bridgland, were you an apologist for Jonas Savimbi, as many people called you, or were you Savimbi's biographer?
Savimbi's biographer, not an apologist for Savimbi -- far from it.
Many would say that, certainly in your first book, you were touting for a man who became a monster.
Yes, I think some people would say that, but I think I can make an easy defence of that. I think the strategic analysis of my book on Savimbi stands up to this day. I think, I know that when I discovered what was going on internally in Unita, I was the first to reveal it.
Before I wrote the book on Savimbi, I was the person who actually revealed the South African invasion of Angola.
So do you reject the accusations from those who say Fred Bridgland was an apologist for Jonas Savimbi, that you were the man who, publicly as a journalist, made Savimbi sound like good news.
I can't reject that entirely, obviously, because when I wrote the book I didn't have the subsequent information I got after 1989. But I think the point is that Unita had a case when the Angolan civil war began.
You have to remember that one of Unita's main arguments was that there should be elections in Angola. That is a generally accepted fact of life even in Africa these days.
And there were no elections in Angola for 17 years. And that was what Unita, and I emphasise Unita, fought for -- for the holding of general elections in Angola. And those were only held in 1992, 17 years after Angola became independent.
What was the draw of Jonas Savimbi?
I think anybody who had been in his presence was certainly charmed by him. He was a very charming man, he was a very witty man.
And a remarkable...
Certainly an incredible linguist. He spoke four European languages, including English although he had never lived in an English-speaking country. He was extremely well read. He was an extremely fine conversationalist and a very good listener. I had conversations with him sometimes that went on for more than 24 hours. I just found him very fascinating, very interesting.
But the legacy of Savimbi, surely, is that he will be seen as one of Africa's potential, but failed, leaders who set back perhaps a third of the continent...
Well I don't think there's any doubt at all that the legacy of Savimbi, in the post-election era, is that he is going to be condemned for the way he behaved at that time. But this is not a simple story.
I think one of the problems about the interpretation of Angola is that journalists, particularly, divide both sides into goodies and baddies. I think it's an insult to history to flatten history by interpreting it simplistically.
You had a situation where Unita arrived at the 1992 election and, already -- although people didn't know it, though I have to say I had begun to find out -- that Savimbi had begun killing his entire second-tier leadership. That had begun.
But even though he had done that, you have to remember that Savimbi and Unita almost won the presidential and parliamentary elections in Angola. It wasn't one white man who supported Savimbi and raised him to power, it was Angolan people who supported him and loved him and believed his cause was right.
Are we talking about 'Angolan' people or 'his' people, the Ovimbundu, who supported Unita?
Well, largely the Ovimbundu, but not only the Ovimbundu. I think all parties in Angola had their tribal bases. But all of them had support beyond that tribal base, but yes largely they were tribally based.
So in 1992, we had the Savimbi who wanted to be the leader of his country and the Savimbi who lost the elections, rightly or wrongly -- he says wrongly -- and then seemed only to be interested in single-mindedly becoming president of Angola. After that, he became in a way a dangerous, damaging, pillaging man who had been an instrument of South Africa, of the west, of the Cold War, didn't he?
I think he was only an instrument of himself after the 1992 elections. The fact is that a lot of his senior generals, very outstanding people -- and I do want to emphasise that there were a lot of very outstanding people in Unita, particularly in the second tier leadership after the elections -- when Savimbi insisted on going back to war, a lot of his senior generals, who had stuck with him till then, defected.
And one particular man I know, someone I 'yomped' across Angola with and watched him lead his battalion into battle - actually near the spot where Savimbi was killed - a guy called General Geraldo Nunda, he defected immediately after Savimbi went back to war. Nunda said, 'look the people are tired of war, there is no justification for this, Savimbi is now demonstrating that he is insane'.
In fact, Nunda and other generals were part of the operation that finally killed Savimbi.
So they turned their back on him and, in the end, ratted on him...
I think that's very emotional language. I think they were loyal to the original cause of Unita. They were not loyal to the cause of Savimbi. Savimbi by the end, long before the end, wanted to become an all-powerful, oligarchic, dictatorial ruler. And these people were not prepared to accept that.
And Savimbi at the end, unfortunately, was left with no men of real quality in the Unita movement. And this is possibly why his guerrilla war collapsed over the past ten years.
I met Jonas Savimbi on a number of occasions, in Paris, in Abidjan and in Unita-controlled territory in Angola for the last time in 1994. I was discussing with a fellow journalist who also interviewed him who said it is rare in Africa that people really wish someone dead, or gone, good riddance. But Savimbi had become a pest, a troublemaker, a plague, he said, a man who threw it all away...
I think that's right. I think, in the end, Savimbi was his own worst enemy. Savimbi defeated himself.
The person who gave me the crucial insight into Savimbi was his one-time foreign secretary, a good and noble man by any standards, Tito Chingunji.
Who was killed by Savimbi...
Tito was Savimbi's foreign secretary. And I was very close to Tito.
He was a very popular, handsome, brilliant young man and some say a potential rival to Savimbi for the leadership of Unita...
And my closest African friend, a very dear friend and a good man by any standards. But Tito, long before the 1992 elections, told me what was really going on inside Unita, the extent of the killings and the barbarity of the killings. And he predicted to me his own death.
For many years, I campaigned through Amnesty International and other bodies to try to save Tito's life, but I couldn't go public, because Tito had given me this information confidentially. If I had gone public with it, he would have been executed immediately.
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