Nothing Goes to Waste in Cuando-Cubango : Savimbi’s UNITA Makes Angolan Province a Land of Ingenuity

Old Land Rovers never die here. Their aluminum shells are cut and pounded into cooking utensils, and their springs are hammered by blacksmiths into ax heads. The rest is cannibalized to keep other Land Rovers going.

The corn and maize crops in the Lomba River valley stretch 20 miles to the horizon. It reminds you of Iowa.

And the screaming industrial lathes in the jungle workshops at Jamba and Likua sound like Detroit.

The crops will feed the rebel army and the large civilian population in this remote bush country, and the open-air workshops seem, to a visitor, to be building enough motorized weaponry to transform Jonas Savimbi’s guerrilla force into a relatively powerful conventional army.

State Within a State

This has become a land of ingenuity where Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has created a state within a state, a thriving mini-economy within a nationally battered one.

There is no currency. The system is GI: Everything is government issue, from food, clothing and tools to the “luxury” items, such as cigarettes and soft drinks, that come in from South Africa and are dispensed from grass warehouses run by a central administration.

Liquor is not available. In fact, it is prohibited. Savimbi says the people can drink when the war is over.

Thus, Savimbi’s UNITA functions not only as a political and military front, but also as the central government for as many as half a million people who live in the “liberated territory” he controls.

Undisclosed Revenues

UNITA’s total revenues have never been disclosed. Savimbi claims that he receives assistance not only from South Africa, but also Morocco, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, France and the United States.

In an interview, Savimbi said he is also receiving “some few millions” of dollars from the sale of diamonds taken from captured mines, and from trading Angolan teak to a South African lumber firm. (Other estimates put it in the tens of millions of dollars.)

But beyond this direct aid and outside barter, UNITA since 1980 has established an industrial and agricultural base that takes advantage of the natural resources and war bounty available in the region.

In the Jamba garment factory, soldiers learn to sew on 46 old Singers that the plant’s manager said are turning out 10,000 uniforms a month from bulk cotton cloth purchased on the outside.

Hidden City

Savimbi’s Jamba headquarters, which did not exist before 1980, has grown into a hidden city of 12,000 guerrilla and civilian residents. A policeman in white gloves directs traffic at the main crossroads.

Here and at Likua (pop. 8,000) six hours up the road, people live in modest grass huts. But rebel engineers have built power plants out of captured diesel generators and have strung wires through the forest to light hundreds of these grass-roofed homes.

Diesel fuel and gasoline are among the essential commodities that keep Savimbi’s ministate operating, and during a heavy month of consumption his camps and fleet of 700 trucks can burn nearly 100,000 gallons, according to the logistics officer here.

Hospitals, Classrooms

Road graders can be seen putting a hard pack over the soft, sandy path to the Jamba airstrip where too many heavy trucks have buried their axles in the deep ruts.

Health care is distributed from more than 20 small hospitals, according to Dr. Henrique Raimundo, UNITA’s health secretary and a Lisbon-trained physician, and dozens of open-air classrooms operate year-round for the children.

Col. Ernesto Mulato, a civil engineer before the war, is in charge of the expanding agricultural projects UNITA has undertaken to feed its population. But the thick, fine sand underlying most of this bushland forced Mulato to look farther north for good soil.

Valley in Bloom

He found it just outside Mavinga, where the Lomba River has deposited a thick layer of top soil drained from the rich earth of central Angola. After UNITA captured Mavinga in March, 1981, it was safe to plant there. Today, the entire valley is shoulder-high in bloom.

“We are gradually becoming self-sufficient in our food production,” said Mulato.

The most impressive jungle structure UNITA has erected is at Likua. It can only be described as a five-acre, open-air factory where the battlefield hulks of Soviet-made trucks, tanks and armored personnel carriers are being rehabilitated and altered to give Savimbi what his enemy has: motorized striking power.

In charge of Likua and all of UNITA’s military logistics is a former guerrilla commander, Brigadier Altino Sapalala, whose left hand was sheared off by machine gun fire as he was leading an ambush on a truck convoy in July, 1978.

Soviet Weapons Used

He goes by the nom de guerre Brigadier Bok and he is among Savimbi’s most senior and trusted strategists.

In Bok’s open-air laboratory, changes are made to machinery and weaponry to improve their performance in the harsh climate and terrain of southern Africa. The weapons and trucks come mostly from the Soviet Union. Others are German-made.

After a 1985 offensive in which Savimbi’s forces drove the Angolan army back from Mavinga, Bok said UNITA captured the greatest haul of tanks, armored cars, trucks and weapons in the history of the war.

“Every time they attack Mavinga,” he said, “we get a lot of equipment.”

‘Throw Nothing Away’

It is all dragged back to Likua and Jamba where, Bok said, “We throw nothing away until it is of absolutely no use to anyone.” And, he added, “Out of every three captured truck engines, we get one good one.”

UNITA has learned who makes the best machinery for the kind of abuse it takes here. For instance, Bok said the Soviets make the best heavy truck in the world and the worst gasoline engines of any industrial country.

As a result, Bok’s engineers have designed a way to drop the old engines out of Soviet trucks, custom tailor new motor mounts and install a high-quality German diesel (purchased from South Africa) in its place. The new truck has been dubbed the “Yankee” and its engine, shocks and gear box will hold up longer than any guerrilla transport UNITA has tried, Bok says.

Transport Is Crucial

His men are now studying how to remove the weak gasoline engines from a dozen Soviet armored assault vehicles to get them back on the road for UNITA with sturdier power plants.

Transport is all-important here because Savimbi’s army and small guerrilla units are strung out along logistical supply lines several hundred miles to all points north from his southeastern enclave.

To ensure that his trucks can run at night in dangerous areas near the battlefront, Bok said his men have extracted the infrared night vision scopes from Soviet-made T-55 tanks captured last year at Mavinga and installed them in some of UNITA’s heavy transports.

Rehabilitate Weapons

Now, he said, UNITA drivers “don’t have to use their headlights” for risky deliveries.

About 300 UNITA soldiers work at the Likua factory. A few had mechanical skills in the beginning and they have taught the younger ones. Frayed repair manuals have been gathered into a small library to help the apprentices learn how to tear down engines, do valve jobs and fire up an arc welding machine.