Unita’s governance

Abstract Chapter Three traces UNITA’s centralized strategy that produced a state alternative and staged a propaganda and acculturation war aimed at delegitimizing the MPLA’s post-independence state. The first governing strategy of the 1960s was pillared on three principles: the respect for ethnic custom, a developed agricultural system, and the organization of community institutions. After Jamba was built, UNITA’s strategy involved a far-reaching social engineering project of “elevating” the southern masses to become the next leaders of Angola through extensive skills training, political indoctrination, and mandatory education. From 1979 to 1991 Jamba became the embodiment of UNITA’s capacity to govern a state within a state. Built as a rear base and a training ground for its growing army, UNITA used Jamba to test its redefinition of society and what it meant to be “Angolan”.