Brad Phillips and Howard Phillips
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2002

My family and I have spent the weekend grieving the loss of a longtime friend and heroic Christian leader, Dr. Jonas Mahleiro Savimbi.

Dr. Savimbi, age 67, Angolan patriot, African nationalist, Christian leader and founder and president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was murdered by government forces in Moxico, Angola, 480 miles southeast of Luanda.

It is no small coincidence that Savimbi was killed by Dos Santos forces only days prior to his scheduled visit with President George Bush on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at the White House. It has always been the strategy of the Marxist regime in Luanda to totally consolidate power by systematically exterminating those it could not co-opt.

In Angola, freedom of worship, association, speech and all the freedoms we hold dear have been denied by the unelected regime of Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. More than 1 million people have been killed in fighting since the resumption of war in November 1992 and 4 million people have been displaced.

Despite the fact that Angolan oil output is the largest in all of sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of Nigeria, its people are among the poorest in the world.

In Moxico, where Savimbi was murdered, the government has employed exfoliants and chemical and biological agents to destroy the food supply and "depopulate" the area, resulting in the displacement and death of some 150,000 people. Savimbi's murder was in coordination with government attempts to stop Angolans from fleeing into Zambia.

Savimbi was the leader of the only organized opposition to the totalitarian rule in Luanda. He sacrificed his life for more than 40 years in pursuit of liberty and self-determination for his people. He had a following in Angola up until his death because he personified hope for the most marginalized and downtrodden segment of Angolan society, the indigenous non-assimilated African people.

The son of an evangelical pastor and railway stationmaster, he relied on his Christian faith for strength, courage and wisdom to wage a lifelong struggle for the freedom of the Angolan people.

Africa has lost one of its best Christian leaders and America has lost one of its most faithful Cold War allies.

Herewith is my Dad's press release prepared for today's press conference.

Sincerely,
Brad Phillips

Statement of Howard Phillips
Chairman, The Conservative Caucus

Dr. Jonas Savimbi was a great Angolan patriot, truly a man who served as a loving, self-sacrificing father to those of his countrymen who shared his love of freedom and who were willing to die to escape the bonds of Portuguese colonialism and Communist tyranny.

In the war against Soviet imperialism America had no more faithful and courageous ally.

Unfortunately, many Americans betrayed Savimbi's heroic friendship. Chevron and other oil companies and their minions in the top ranks of both major political parties degraded themselves for filthy lucre, even consenting to have their employees in Angola guarded by Fidel Castro's Cuban Communist troops.

At the State Department, Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, consistently strove to undercut the Reagan Doctrine and to undermine Dr. Savimbi's UNITA freedom fighters.

Herman Cohen who, under George Bush the elder, succeeded Crocker as Assistant Secretary for Africa, was such a despicable traitor to the cause of freedom and to America's national interests that he hired himself out as a foreign agent to the Leninist tyrants who still rule in Luanda, Angola.

In 1992, Savimbi won a popular election, which victory was stolen from him even more blatantly than Mayor Daley stole Illinois for John F. Kennedy in 1960.

On September 27, 1993, Bill Clinton issued an Executive Order and sent a message to Congress which asserted, "I have exercised my statutory authority to declare a national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ('UNITA'). These actions are mandated in part by United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 864 of September 13, 1993."

Disgracefully, on September 24, 2001, George Bush the younger extended Clinton's outrageous Executive Order, demonstrating that, while the names of the players change, nonetheless, under both Democratic and Republican governance, considerations of commercial profit override commitments to liberty, or, indeed, to the larger national interest.

G.W. Bush's affirmation of the Crocker-Cohen-Clinton policy concerning Angola was a signal to the assassins who hold power in Luanda that, while pro-Communist terrorist Yasser Arafat enjoys the protection of the U.S. government, the anti-Communist hero Jonas Savimbi was fair game.

No word of caution or indication of concern issued from either the White House or Foggy Bottom, despite repeated statements of the Jose Eduardo dos Santos government that the murder of Dr. Savimbi was its prime strategic objective, necessary to the consolidation of power by its corrupt Leninist tyranny.

Thus, with no fear of rebuke from those who govern the New World Order of socially respectable international opinion, the Angolan Reds targeted Dr. Savimbi to be hunted down and murdered.

His death is a tragic loss.

His blood is on the hands of the government of the United States, as well as on the hands of the Angolan gangster government which directly gave the orders.

If President Bush meets on Tuesday with Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the president of Angola, as is now planned, within days of the murder of Dr. Savimbi, it will be a grievous, unforgettable insult to all Americans who are grateful for the sacrifices Dr. Savimbi made throughout his life and for the extraordinary assistance he provided to freedom's cause at a crucial time in America's epochal struggle with international Communism.

Howard Phillips is chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a nonpartisan, nationwide grassroots public policy advocacy group, and the author of three books, including "Moscow's Challenge to U.S. Vital Interests in Sub-Saharan Africa."

David Phillips, the son of Howard Phillips, is president of the Persecution Project Foundation (www.persecutionproject.org), which collects information about worldwide persecution of Christians, with particular focus on Africa.