The Guerilla and the Journalist: Exploring the Murderous Legacy of Jonas Savimbi

Title: The Guerilla and the Journalist
Subtitle: Exploring the Murderous Legacy of Jonas Savimbi
Author: Fred Bridgland
Genre: War memoirs
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers South Africa
Imprint: Delta Books
Johannesburg-Cape Town, South Africa 2022
ISBN 9781928248125 / ISBN 978-1-92-824812-5
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 320 pages, some b/w photos, 1 map

About: The Guerilla and the Journalist: Exploring the Murderous Legacy of Jonas Savimbi

Fred Bridgland reported on the Angolan civil war and the Border War from the 1970s. In 1975, he revealed the secret invasion of Angola by the South African Defence Force SDAF in support of the UNITA rebel forces. Their leader Jonas Savimbi was known for his charisma, charm and brio, he convinced millions of his fellow countrymen and also international statesmen that he was Angola's and the West's best hope for democratic rule. More than 30 years after writing a sympathetic biography of Savimbi, Fred Bridgland sets the record straight. Based on new evidence that has come to light, he reveals the rebel leader's murderous legacy. In the 1970s and 1980s, when Angola was a hotbed of the Cold War, few people would have believed that Jonas Savimbi was a manipulative and paranoid tyrant willing to kill anyone he viewed as a threat to his power. Tito Chingunji, the foreign secretary of the UNITA movement, risked his life to help the author to tell the true story of what was going on behind the scenes. This is an account of the intense friendship that developed between the two men, the adventures they shared and the terrifying challenges they faced as they revealed Jonas Savimbi's true face.

Content: The Guerilla and the Journalist: Exploring the Murderous Legacy of Jonas Savimbi

Map of Angola
Prologue: Cuban blitzkrieg
How it began (1975-1976)
Jonas Savimbi
A military coup in Portugal (1974-1975)
Some surprise help for UNITA (1975)
International scoop (November 1975)
South Africa and the US pull back (1976)
The young Cuban who never fired a shot (1976)
The Long March (1976)
All external support for Savimbi collapses (1976)
Fighting back (1976-1980)
Mavinga (1981)
Soviet prisoners (1981)
Our aircraft crashes (1981)
Consequences (1981)
UNITA and the South African thrust north (1981-1983)
Cangonga and the Benguela Railway (1983)
Remarkable guerrillas (1983)
I can only tell you the things that happened as I saw them, and what the rest was about only Africa knows' (1983)
British captives (1983-1984)
'Only peace will allow us finally to realise who we are' (1983-1986)
Cubas top defector (1987)
Peace agreements (1988)
A shock game-changing revelation (1988)
The murder of Jorge Sangumba (1980)
Witch burnings and other atrocities (1983 onwards)
Rumble in the django (1988)
Death threats (1988-1989)
Show trial (1988)
Dark times (1989)
Tito is alive, says Savimbi (1992)
Tito is dead (1991)
Death by chameleon (1992)
The peace collapses and war resumes (1992-1993)
Savimbi: the end (2002)
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
About the author