I have been reading the great Polish journalist Ryszard
Kapuscinski´s(1932-) book Another Day of Life
(2001; Jeszcze dzien zycia, 1976), which tells about
his experiences in Angola as it became independent from
Portuguese colonial rule in 1975.

A great book from Kapuscinski, and one that has given
me much background for a war that I had (occasionally -
when it reached me through television news and documents
or from the pages of newspapers) followed from the mid
1980´s. One of those wars, like the civil war in Lebanon,
that seemed just to go on and on. And when northern and
central Lebanon became peaceful, the situation in Angola became
even more dire as the victory for the beast Jonas Savimbi´s
UNITA became a real possibility.

And years passed. Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon,
the SLA collapsed. War in Angola continued. There were
rumours that the United States, that had given some help
to the MPLA government after the end of the cold war,
could start instead to support the beast and his troops again.

Then, one day in February 2002, I heard from the radio that
Jonas Savimbi had been shot dead by the Angolan army. I was
very surprised and very glad - a surprising twist in a war that I
had thought would never end. Savimbi got what he deserved
and UNITA´s armed fight was finished. At last, a happy ending
for a brutal war that had consumed over a million lives.

MPLA is not perfect, but I will always choose corrupt former
Marxists over a maniac like Savimbi, one of the forgotten
great thugs of the 20th century, and one which survived to
this new millennium. MPLA, with all it´s faults, is a decent
organization. Far better than the foreign governments who
supported Savimbi through the decades, knowing perfectly
well the terrible consequences of this support.

I did a little search in the web and found out that there are
surprising number of people that have still kind words to
write about Jonas Savimbi(1934-2002). Sick bastards.

But then, there are a lot of more people writing nice words
about his comrades Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Josif Stalin,
Pol Pot, Suharto and the rest of them. Some people just
don´t are fully human.