Replies

Since that occurrance which began under Bush I, accelerated under Clinton I, and capped off in Clinton II, Savimbi has lost his support world-wide, his sympathetic Intelligence Community and Patriot Community supporters in the US were forced aside, and he slowly lost power to the International's man in town-Santos.

I saw the writing on the wall when Savimbi disarmed several thousands of his troops in accordance with the peace agreement with the Communists in Luanda and surrendered the diamond mines which had financed his anti-Communist freedom fighters for so long in the hopes of gaining international acceptance around 1999. Instead, the UN and the Clinton Administration condemned Savimbi every time the Angolan Army launched an offensive to crush him, even when his Vice President was assasinated by the Communists in 1994 shortly after the peace accords, he received the blame. It got so bad that Kofi Annan's report on UNITA depicted them as terrorists and the Clinton Administration, agreeing with the report, increased the sanctions against them.

I knew at that time that the UNITA freedom fighters were finished and that the best thing to do was to guarantee safe passage for UNITA out of Angola to the US or some other friendly country. The outcome, which had once favored the anti-Communist freedom fighters in their bids to retake control of both Angola and Mozambique, became pre-ordained in the case of UNITA. Once they gave up half their troops, weapons and the diamond mines to Communist control in accordance with UN strictures/demands, they were as good as finished.

How's that jingle go" "If you've got a buddy who's tried and true, f*** your buddy before he get you." Politics get a lot tougher over across the sea. Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and the elder President Bush move about with impunity here, whereas losers in some places are shot up beyond recognition. Some way I blame those societies for problems such as this, and the situations in most of these far away places with strange sounding names are not likely to improve until the people there decide they don't want or need to live like baboons and jackals any more. I wouldn't give any foreign powers any credit for anything that happens over there; if any of them, including the US, had much influence, the places wouldn't be the violent, pestilent hell-holes they are.