3 On 22 February 2002, Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, who led the UNITA rebel
move- 4 ment during the bloody armed conflict in Angola and who had
battled to take power by force since Angola's independence from Portugal
in 1975, was killed in 5 a gun battle with the Angolan Army. During the
Cold War, Savimbi was a proxy for the United States against the
then-Marxist government of Angola. But after the end of the Cold War, he
lost international support for rejecting peace efforts. He was accused
of perpetuating a bloody internal conflict to advance his own interests
6 and was exposed to international sanctions. Meanwhile, the government
of Presi- 7 dent José Eduardo dos Santos moved closer to the United
States. The 27-year-long armed conflict is believed to have killed
approximately one million people and driven four million others from
their homes, creating a humani- 8 tarian crisis. In addition, the
conflict destroyed almost all of the country's inf- structure, and
effectively disrupted every effort by the government to start the long
desired national reconstruction after independence, and the building of
prosperity for the nation's children. Savimbi was viewed as the primary
obstacle to peace, personifying the 'corrupt- 9 ing influence of
ambition, mineral wealth, and the grinding brutality of war'. His 3.
'UNITA' is the Portuguese acronym for 'National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola' (União Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola). It was founded in 1966 by the late Mr Jonas Savimbi.
