MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A000100150001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 8, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

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9CTI~P Kau~
Middle East
Africa
South Asia
anfidential
No Foreic;n Ditrem
Confidential
No. 0409/75
January 8, 1975
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Warning Notice
Sensitive Intelligence Sources and Methods Involved
NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
Classified by 005827
Exempt from general declassification schedule
of E. 0. 11652, exemption category:
? 5B (1), (2), and (3)
Automatically declassified
on: Date Impossible to Determine
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MIDDLE EAST - AFRICA - SOUTH ASIA
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Middle East - Africa Division. Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
Ethiopia: Government Offers Concessions on
Eritrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Angola: Nationalists Prepare for Round-Table . 3
Talks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
January 8, 1975
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Ethiopia
Government Offers Concessions on Eritrea
The ruling military council is attempting to
implement its recently announced decision to pursue
a peaceful solution to the insurgency in Eritrea
province. On January 5, the council announced sub-
stantial concessions to Eritrean tribal and religious
notables. The local leaders, who apparently have
been in contact with the insurgents, had presented
a list of demands to government representatives in
Asmara last week. Despite the government's conces-
sions, some elements of the Eritrean Liberation Front
have rebuffed the council's offer to negotiate a
political settlement.
In its announcement, the council said it had
directed its forces in Eritrea to relax security
measures and to exercise maximum restraint in carry-
ing out their duties. The provincial leaders had
demanded that the government confine troops to
their barracks and stop all military operations in
the province.
The council also agreed to review the cases of
all Eritrean political prisoners and held out the
prospect of granting them amnesty or reducing their
sentences; the council excluded prisoners charged
with murder or other serious criminal offenses. The
local leaders had asked for the release of all Eritrean
political prisoners.
In response to a demand by the notables that
Eritrean students be excluded from the government's
nationwide rural development program, the council
said it would make "special arrangements" for Eritrea.
The council also met an Eritrean demand that it
publicize the meetings in Asmara. Previously, the
government-controlled media had not reported the
sessions.
The council sent Information Minister Mikael
Imru to Asmara to convey personally to the local
leaders its reply to their demands. In its statement,
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Jan 8, 1975
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the council said the local leaders were authorized
to contact "Eritrean insurgents" and to convey to
them the need for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
This was the first time an Ethiopian government has
referred to Front members as insurgents; previously
they had been labeled "bandits."
Last week, before making these concessions, the
council had agreed to hold direct negotiations with
the rebels, meeting a key demand of the local leaders.
The provincial notables, in, return, agreed to urge
the insurgents to accept a cease-fire. Local leaders
are alleged to have already begun talks with insurgent
leaders on a possible truce: and direct negotiations
between them and the council.
According to initial press reports, exiled
leaders of one of the Front's two major factions
issued a statement in Cairo on January 6 refusing to
negotiate with the council except to arrange for the
withdrawal of army troops from the province. Leaders
of this group reiterated their demand for complete
independence for Eritrea and said their group was
ready to increase combat operations. This group
does not speak for the entire front, and the insur-
gents who reportedly have been holding talks with the
local Eritrean leaders may not have approved the
Cairo statement. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Jan 8, 1975
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Angola
Nationalists Prepare for Round-Table Talks
The leaders of Angola's three rival liberation
groups and Portuguese officials are to meet this
weekend in Portugal to discuss formation of a transi-
tional government that Lisbon hopes will lead Angola
to independence this year. The nationalist leaders
now appear willing to set aside, if only for the time
being, their longstanding personal and political
differences in order to revive the flagging de-
colonization effort in the territory.
Following two days of talks last weekend in
Mombasa, Kenya, the three leaders--Holden Roberto of
the National Front for the Liberation of Angola,
Agostinho Neto of the Popular Movement for the Libera-
tion of Angola, and Jonas Savimbi of the National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola--issued
a joint communique in which they pledged to work
together for an independent, democratic, and multi-
racial Angola. In a separate agreement, the two
most important nationalist chiefs, Roberto and Neto,
who have been archrivals for more than a decade,
promised to end all hostile political and military
actions against each other.
During the years of insurgency in Angola armed
clashes occurred between the two groups, and since
the coup in Lisbon last year the two leaders, sup-
ported by rival foreign patrons, have waged an in-
cessant propaganda battle against each other. For
the past year or so, Roberto has assisted a faction
within Neto's organization that has unsuccessfully
sought to oust Neto from leadership of the Popular
Movement.
The Mombasa communique gave no details on how
the three leaders are likely to deal with a number
of difficult issues that seem sure to provoke hard
bargaining at the roundtable session with the
Portuguese. In the short time devoted to the talks
they could hardly have concerted their positions on
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such matters as ground rules for political activity
and how their groups will share military and security
responsibilities during a transitional period. Nor,
in all probability, did they give much thought to the
future of Angola's 500,000 fearful whites--a primary
concern of Lisbon. The nationalists common basic
position is that the territory's whites should cease
considering themselves a separate power bloc and should
join one of the three liberation groups.
The Mombasa agreement did suggest, however,
that the rival leaders may at last be ready to enter
a transitional government, a development the Portuguese
have been trying to bring off for some time. Until
now, each of the three nationalists has refused to
share power with the others in the hope that he could
maneuver himself into a dominant position at the out-
set of a transitional government. Such a position,
each reasoned, would go a long way toward securing
his political supremacy upon independence.
Despite the modest step forward represented by
the Mombasa accord, cooperation among the rebel
leaders could be short lived. The personal ambitions
and conflicting political ideologies of Roberto and
Neto, and the deeply-rooted ethnic antagonism between
the groups they lead--representing two of Angola's
largest and most powerful tribal communities--are
likely to impose severe strains on a transitional
government. How serious the rebel leaders are about
avoiding these strains should become more evident
during their forthcoming negotiations with the
Portuguese. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Jan 8, 1975 4
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Con-f idential
Confidential
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