the Angolan rebel leader, Dr Jonas Savimbi, is not a man of many public words. The moments when he does speak, to less than a handful of carefully selected journalists, are rare. He chooses his "appearances" as precisely as he plans his battles.
Just over a week ago, Savimbi telephoned Joao Van Dunem, a journalist for the BBC Portuguese service in London. They talked for just 30 minutes. Within hours, slices of the interview had reached Luanda's only independent radio station, Radio Ecclesia. Journalists there chose to broadcast Dr Savimbi's voice during the lunchtime news last Monday.
Eight hours later, three of Radio Ecclesia's reporters had been arrested by the police. They were interrogated for four hours, but eventually set free when reports came through that Angola's government-controlled television corporation, TPA, had also run the interview.
On Wednesday, after the same three journalists had once again been put through eight hours of questioning, the police issued a statement in the state-owned daily, Jornal de Angola. If any journalist considered "passing on" this type of "absolutely false and grossly deformed" information again, he risked arrest.
In fact, several analysts agree that much of what the UNITA leader told the BBC was false. His insistence that "there is no humanitarian crisis" in Angola led many to describe his words as absurd. Notwithstanding, the Angolan police have decided, regardless of the law, that messages from the UNITA elite must not be published, broadcast or relayed.
This should please the rebel leader no end. The man is a pure military strategist. Close associates say his favoured text is the Chinese military classic, The Art of War, by Master Sun Tzu. Examine the book closely and about half way through, you will come across a fascinating phrase.
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate," writes Sun Tzu, in the version translated by Thomas Cleary. As one political analyst points out, "In suppressing Savimbi's words, the government is contributing to his insatiability and absolute subtlety."
What the Angolan police have failed to realise is that public scrutiny, including the press, could be exploited to the government's gain.