Informations on Jamba

About Jamba

Jamba is a town in Angola, located in the southeastern province of Cuando Cubango.

Jamba is best known as the former covert military headquarters of UNITA, a United States-supported rebel movement that fought the Soviet-aligned government in the Angolan Civil War, a Cold War conflict.

The name of the town means "elephant" in Ovimbundu, a language spoken in southern Angola, and presumably refers to the number of elephants in the area.

UNITA headquarters

Jamba served as UNITA's headquarters from 1976 until 1992. The headquarters itself was an elaborate military encampment, with radar capabilities and sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry that protected the headquarters throughout 16 years of war. UNITA also maintained a large military airstrip in Jamba.

Author Paul Hare described Jamba as "a spread out, well-organised guerrilla encampment, carefully planned and camouflaged to protect against air attacks".

On December 24, 2000, Jamba was recaptured by the military of Angola, following 24 years under UNITA control.

UNITA was led by Jonas Savimbi, a charismatic political and military leader who is generally considered one of the more important figures in the history of Angola. Savimbi forged close relations with the U.S. and ultimately became an important figure in support of the West during the Cold War.

Savimbi's critics allege that his military campaign was hugely costly and destructive to modern Angola and that, during the Civil War, human rights were violated by Savimbi and UNITA. Similar allegations, however, also were made against the government of Angola during the war.

Jamba under UNITA

Jamba was believed to be mostly a creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which constructed and sustained Jamba to serve as a sophisticated rebel headquarters for Savimbi's UNITA.

Under the U.S. administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Jamba grew as a major center of UNITA rebel activity, with the construction of elaborate air defense capabilities and air runways designed for the replenishment of U.S. war supplies, which were believed to be shipped to UNITA from both neighboring Zaire and South Africa. Both Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and South Africa's apartheid regime cooperated with the U.S. in supporting Savimbi and UNITA in their war against the Marxist Angolan government.

In 1985, Jamba was the host of the Democratic International or "Jamba Jamboree", a meeting of global anti-communist insurgents organized by United States conservatives, including Jack Abramoff. At the conference, the participants signed a communiqué declaring "our solidarity with all freedom movements in the world and ... our commitment to cooperate to liberate our nations from the Soviet imperialists". Other participants in the conference included:

In later years, Savimbi was visited regularly in Jamba by some of his closest American advisors and advocates, including Michael Johns, Grover Norquist, and others.

The policy of support for anti-communist resistance movements, which was supported by the Heritage Foundation and other influential conservatives, ultimately came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine and was a central component of the foreign policies of the Reagan and (to a lesser extent) George H. W. Bush administrations.

Jamba airport

Today, with Jamba demilitarized, Angola maintains an airport in Jamba (IATA: JMB).