Regrets Only: An Africa Journal: UNITA’s Favorite Conservative

Thursday, February 14, 2008

UNITA’s Favorite Conservative

You’ll recall the recent postings on the contacts a top Pentagon official held several years ago with UNITA’s one-time chief representative in the US, Jardo Muekalia (aka Domingos Muekalia). Mr. Muekalia also had a meeting back then with Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political advisor, at a conservative gathering. UNITA and Mr. Muekalia had great hopes for a Bush-led shift in US policy in favor of the Angolan rebels after the Clinton administration, which had distanced itself from UNITA.

There was no shift, though. And Federal Election Commission records show Mr. Muekalia gave no contributions to Mr. Bush or the Republican Party.

They do show, however, that he sent $200 to a conservative candidate for President, Howard Phillips. The money was returned, just as the Republicans returned donations made to them by the wife of arms dealer Pierre Falcone.

The backing for the conservative Mr. Phillips was not surprising. Below the following entry from Federal Election Commission documents are some excerpts from Mr. Phillips’ conservative publication.

Contributions to Political Committees
MUEKALIA, DOMINGOS
FALLS CHURCH, VA 22041
PHILLIPS, HOWARD VIA PHILLIPS 2000 INC

10/03/2000
-200.00
20036402612

11/05/2001
200.00
22037440597

11/05/2001
-200.00
22037440597
Total Contributions: -200.00

If you click on the minus 200 dollar entries, the first is described as a “refund of contribution.” The second is “refund of contribution, check lost.”

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of February 28, 2002:

SHAME!

GEORGE W. BUSH DISGRACES HIMSELF AND DISHONORS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY MEETING WITH DR. JONAS SAVIMBI’S ASSASSIN, JOSE EDUARDO DOS SANTOS, WHILE SAVIMBI’S BLOOD IS STILL ON THE FINGERS OF ANGOLA’S CORRUPT LENINIST TYRANT

On Monday, February 25, The Conservative Caucus hosted a news conference at which I delivered the following statement (The complete conference, including media questions is recorded on a Visions of Victory audiocassette which is available on request to anyone who returns the enclosed reply envelope asking for a complimentary copy. Recorded on the cassette are remarks by Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy; Brad Phillips, President of the Persecution Project Foundation; and Jardo Muekalia, Dr. Savimbi’s last official representative in the United States):

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.

http://www.conservativeusa.org/angola.htm

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: It's unfortunate to see Brad Phillips, President of the Persecution Project Foundation mentioned in your article. A word of caution is in order. I'm a former Persecution Project supporter and I discovered an extremely disturbing story late last year about Brad Phillips and Persecution Project. I know that sometimes missionaries are capable of doing some foolish things, especially when it comes with trying to interact with a culture they're unfamiliar with. But this is worse than just foolish ignorance. To me it seems Brad Phillips has acted in an extremely selfish way that even jeopardizes the lives of the Sudanese that he claims to be helping. I think that Persecution Project's donors should contact Brad Phillips about these serious allegations and try to get to the bottom of this. No simple wave of the hand or "It's all just a big misunderstanding" should satisfy any Persecution Project donor. Be forewarned though. That's exactly what they did to me when I called and asked about it. They won't be getting any more of my support at least until they come clean.; March 22, 2008

Post a Comment

Why?

It is October, 1997. I am standing in a rubble-strewn Brazzaville street as the city returns cautiously to life after a bloody civil war. Armed men are all around me, most of them looting, occasionally firing off bursts of bullets in celebration. But I am not concentrating on this anymore. Instead, with the hand holding my microphone limp by my side, my tape running senselessly. I am looking at another corpse -- this one of a man, perhaps in his 20's, his legs charred. I know there will be no voice to record. But his lips are apart, his arms outstretched, fingers together, as if in prayer. It seems another one of Africa's dead is trying to speak to me. And I feel I owe him this one last consideration. I think maybe he wants to share his anguish, his despair, his pain. Or maybe a last word to a parent or a wife or a child. I feel badly -- because I do not know for sure. I do know though that I have seen corpses like this before -- victims of war, or of genocide, or of famine, or of sickness. A symbolic path of the dead now runs through my mind -- a personal collection reflecting the real path their corpses have left across much of Africa: from arid Somalia in the northeast, across Sudan and into northern Uganda, down through steamy Rwanda, Burundi and Congo in the center of the continent. Some have been young men in uniform, their bodies shattered by a bullet or a shell. Some have been old men, thin beyond belief, weakened by hunger or disease. Some have been women, their dresses in tatters, their faces etched with silent agony. Some have been children, too young to die, their skulls cleaved in half. Some I have met in battle-scarred streets, some in burned-out buildings. Some I have seen sprawled amidst flowers in an open field, some floating, limbs bound, in muddy water. Some I have found in groups thrown into a dirt pit, some alone in the aisles of a gutted church. I have, at times, had imaginary conversations with these dead of mine -- their unrecorded voices playing on endlessly inside my head, sometimes loud, sometimes just a whisper. I tell them I am sorry and if it were in my power, I would restore them to life. But I can't. It's not in my power. Perhaps the only help I can give is to try to tell their story.

The Reporter

Alex Belida has been in international broadcasting since 1971. He spent nearly eight years in sub-Saharan Africa as a correspondent for the Voice of America, based first in Nairobi (1993-1996) and then in Johannesburg (1996-2000). He covered conflicts and humanitarian crises in Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville, northern Uganda, Angola and Lesotho as well as political unrest in Zimbabwe and catastrophic flooding in Mozambique. He suffered gunshot wounds while reporting in Somalia.
While in Africa, he was elected Chairman of the East Africa Foreign Correspondents Association in Nairobi and served as Treasurer of the Foreign Correspondents Association of Southern Africa during his Johannesburg assignment.
Before going to Africa, he served as VOA's Senior White House reporter for four years following stints as coordinator of the 1988 Presidential Election coverage and as National News Editor. Before those Washington assignments, he was based in Germany, where he served as Soviet affairs, East-West security and German affairs correspondent (1982-1985).
Following Africa, he served as Pentagon correspondent. In 2004 he was named Managing Editor and in 2007 became Senior Advisor for News at VOA. He retired in 2011.
Before joining VOA, he worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in both New York and Munich, rising from reporter to Assistant News Director. He has a BA from Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., and a MS in Journalism from Columbia University in New York. In 2006, he received the prestigious Alumni Achievement Award from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. He also has an honorary doctorate in communications from the Somali National University.

The views expressed here are his own.

Regrets Only: An Africa Journal

Thursday, February 14, 2008

UNITA’s Favorite Conservative

1 comment: