Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita Savimbi (August 3, 1934 – February 22, 2002) was an Angolan political and military leader of the Bieno Ovimbundu ethnic group, born in Munhango, Bié Province, Portuguese Angola, to stationmaster and Protestant preacher Lote Savimbi and his wife Helena. Raised in Chilesso and educated in Protestant mission schools with some Catholic schooling, he studied medicine in Lisbon (1958) before shifting to social sciences in Fribourg, Switzerland (1961-1964), and law and international politics in Lausanne (1964-1965), earning a Ph.D. in 1965. Multilingual in seven languages including Portuguese, French, and English, he trained in guerrilla warfare in China that year. Savimbi joined the FNLA in 1961 as secretary-general and foreign minister but resigned in 1964 over disputes, founding UNITA on March 13, 1966, in Mungai, Moxico Province, after Maoist training. As UNITA's president and supreme commander (1966–2002), he led the fight against Portuguese colonial rule (1966-1974), establishing liberated zones with schools and clinics. After Angola's 1975 independence, he waged the Angolan Civil War against the Soviet- and Cuban-backed MPLA government, receiving U.S. backing (CIA arms, Reagan and Bush support, $600,000 annual lobbying from 1985), aid from apartheid South Africa, and early Chinese assistance. He positioned UNITA as anti-communist, mobilizing Ovimbundu support, and served as co-president of the Democratic People's Republic of Angola (1975–1976, 1979–2002). Savimbi signed peace accords like Bicesse (1991) and Lusaka (1994) but resumed fighting after losing the 1992 elections. He faced accusations of severe human rights abuses, including 1970s-1990s purges like the 'Red September' witchcraft ritual involving torture and killings, the 1991 executions of his brother-in-law Tito Chingunji and family, UNITA leader Mateus Katalayo, and the burning alive of Aurora Katalayo and her son (which he denied, blaming dissidents), as well as a pre-1975 pact with Portuguese secret police against the MPLA and UNITA's ties to illicit diamond trade. Savimbi had several wives and at least 25 children. He was killed in a firefight with government troops near Lucusse, Moxico Province, sustaining 15 gunshot wounds, leading to a UNITA-MPLA peace agreement in April 2002. Initially buried in Luena, his tomb was vandalized in 2008 and reburied publicly in 2019.