ANGOLA: The Angolan rebel leader, Mr Jonas Savimbi, fought until the very end, army officials told state media yesterday as they detailed their final battle with the man who led his forces through almost 27 years of civil war.
Mr Savimbi was killed on Friday with 21 of his rebel bodyguards, all with weapons in hand, on the banks of the Luvuei River in the eastern province of Moxico, Brig-Gen Simao Carlitos Wala, told the official Jornal de Angola.
"Savimbi decided to rest. Confident, as always, he had nonetheless placed his units on alert. Too late, we already had surprised them. He fought back with gunfire, and that's why he was killed," said Gen Wala, who led the army in the battle that killed Mr Savimbi. "We nailed him seven times. He tried to resist with his gun, but then he was dead," Gen Wala told state radio.
Mr Savimbi was shot a total of 15 times - once in the throat, twice in the head, and the rest in the chest, legs and arms, state media said. Gen Wala said Mr Savimbi's battle plan had failed because he had "lost important means of communication" by radio, after an army offensive called "Kissonde," named after a violent ant.
"He only had a small ground-to- air radio. This factor blocked any chance Savimbi had to get some security from parallel units, which would have allowed him to cross a stretch of the river up at the border," Gen Wala said.
Gen Wala did not say whether Mr Savimbi had planned to cross into Zambia, but the Jornal de Angola cited army officials as saying he had planned to go to the Zambian border, where a unit of his rebels "were waiting for him to guide and defend him". Gen Wala's lengthy interviews with state media provided the most detailed account yet on the circumstances surrounding the fate of the veteran rebel leader, who died after spending most of the last 40 years in armed conflict.
The Jornal de Angola, the only newspaper printed in the nation, ran a 10-page special issue yesterday on Mr Savimbi's death.
Army soldiers waged a tough battle to penetrate deeply enough into the rebel forces to reach Mr Savimbi and the guards who surrounded him, Gen Wala said.
Mr Savimbi used his gun in a vain attempt to stave off the army attack, only 80 km from the Zambian border, Gen Wala said.
"Savimbi knew the area very well. He was like a fish in water," Gen Wala said. The army managed to target Mr Savimbi because two of his most important military leaders, known as Brig Mbule and Big Joy, had already been killed, Gen Wala said.
The two men led the elite units of the Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which were responsible for creating diversions aimed at disrupting army operations, Gen Wala said.
One of Mr Savimbi's wives, Ms Catarina Savimbi, was seriously injured in the attack and was taken to a clinic in Luena, Moxico's capital, for treatment. Savimbi was buried on Saturday in Lucusse, under a tree near where he was killed, the paper said. - (AFP)