The FNLA soldiers [were] slathering animals.” 
Though consistently armed by the US and China and supported by troops and artillery from Mobutu’s Zaire, the FNLA was not able to maintain military success against the Cuban-backed MPLA and ceased to be a major force in Angolan politics after 1976,  
	The União Nacional para a Indêpendencia Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) was a latecomer in the independence struggle, formed in 1966 by Jonas Savimbi. A Swiss- and Portuguese-educated Angolan émigré of Ovimbundu descent, Savimbi was for a time a member on the FNLA but left the organization in 1964. The Mbundu and Bakongo ethnic groups dominated the MPLA and FNLA leadership, while the largest group, the Ovimbundu, had limited representation. Seeking to create a nationalist movement for his own people, Savimbi formed UNITA, basing his power among the Ovimbundu capital of Huambo.
	UNITA received aid from the US and South Africa for most of its existence and espoused an anti-communist agenda, though Savimbi had himself been a Marxist at one time. After being defeated right after independence UNITA retreated deep into the Angolan bush and built up an army of several thousand men with fanatically loyal officers. Savimbi’s charisma and previous training in China helped him build an effective fighting force that challenged the MPLA for over twenty-five years. However, the fact that UNITA was built around Savimbi meant that after his death the movement disintegrated.
	Through the entire course of conflict in Angola from 1961 to 2002, foreign powers were involved in various degrees, from direct military assistance to monetary and diplomatic backing of one or more of the internal movements. Ranging from global superpowers like the United States and the Soviet Union to regional players like South Africa and Zaire, numerous countries entered the conflict and complicated the situation. American, Soviet, and Chinese involvement were rooted primarily in the existential Cold War struggle of ideologies and global geopolitics, with economic interests also playing a major role for the United States. Regional powers were influenced by the superpowers and motivated by a number of other factors as well.  The changing nature of world politics would alter the course of the war and most of the major powers would withdraw from Angola in the late-1980s and early-1990s. 
	Chief among the regional powers involved in Angola were Zaire and South Africa. Both countries had strong motivations for their presence in Angola and importantly the means to affect the course of the war. The rise of Black Nationalism and the decolonization of many countries in the region posed a major threat to the survival of the apartheid régime of South Africa. Politically and economically based on a persistent system of racial oppression and exploitation, South Africa, as well as the other remaining settler colony, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), was under heavy international pressure to grant rights to its African majority and faced various boycotts and trade embargos as a result. 