SWAP BEGINS FOR 3 AMERICANS HELD IN ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 16, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070005-0
SwapBegins
THE WASHINGTON POST
16 NCVEIVBEP 1982
The exchange was negotiated by the
International Committee of the Red
(In Seabrook, Md., Tyler's mother-said
in a telephone interview. -1'm Just on
pins and needles waiting." Marjorie Tyler
said she had received about 10 letters
from her son and had been allowed to
j~ Cross based in Geneva.
For 3 Americans The United States is-tlie only major
Held in _ ngola
By.Jay Ross
W': ashington Post Forscn-Servim
LUSAKA. Zambia. Nov. 15-An-
golan rebels today freed two cap-
tured Soviet airmen in the first
phase of a multinational prisoner
exchange that is to culminate here
Tuesday with the release of. three
Americans imprisoned by the An-
golan government.
The complex Lusaka swap, which
has been under negotiations on three
continents for almost two years, also
will include another Russian held by
South Africa plus a number of
Cuban. South African and Angolan
prisoners. The exchange also in-
cludes several bodies. The prisoners
and the dead are the'result of South
African invasions of southern Angola
to fight, -Namibian guerrillas based
there and a guerrilla war against An-
gola's pro-Soviet government.
One of the Russians freed today
told an Associated Press.-reporter at
the scene that he had been treated
well. "I want to go home and im-
prove my health and go to work,"
Mollaeb Kolva said.)
Two of the American prisoners
are mercenaries captured during the
1976 civil war in Angola, while the
third is a civilian pilot, Geoffrey
Tyler, 32. of Seabrook, Md.. who
crash-landed his airplane on a beach
in southern Angola 21 months ago.
One of the mercenaries, Gustavo
Grillo, 33, of'Jersev City, N.J., has
been serving a 30-year sentence
since he was convicted by an An-
golan tribunal in June 1976. The
other, Gary Acker, 27, of Sacra-
mento, Calif.. was sentenced to 16 years.
The swap has been scheduled a num-
ber of times. only to fall through at the
last minute. Sources who declined to be
identified cautioned that even though the
Angolan rebels have released the Soviet
pilots to the Red Cross in Namibia
(South-West Africa) to begin the compli-
cated exchange. "at any stage any of the
parties can call it off."
nation that refuses to recognize the
Marxist government of Angola. The Lu-'
anda government, in turn, has refused to
have any dealings with guerrillas of the
Union for the Total Independence of An-
gola (UNITA), who are led by Jonas
Savimbi.
The two American mercenaries. who
fought for the Zairian-based National
Front for the Liberation . of Angola.
(FNLA) were captured in February 1976
in northern Angola and were among 13
mercenaries convicted in a show trial.
Three British mercenaries and one Amer-
ican, Daniel Gearhart, of Kensington,
Md., were executed in July 1976 despite
clemency pleas from president Gerald
Ford and British prime minister James
Callaghan.
The mercenaries were part of a clan-
destine operation by the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency to bolster the FNLA
and U ITA guerrillas in an unsuccessful
-attempt to prevent the Marxist Popular
Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(;MLA) from gaining power-'in a civil
war. The strife .followed a W -Year guer-
rilla war leading to Portugal's 1975 %%1
drawal from colonial rule-in the oil-rich
West African country that is twice the
size of Texas.
The CIA spent more than $30 million
on the operation. which was cut oft by
Cress after South African troops vacTe-cl a Angola in support of Savimbi's
forces. The MPLA won the civil war with
t support of Soviet military equipment
and advisers and 15,000 to 20,000 Cuban
troops. who have remained in the country
and have become a bone of contention in
negotiations for independence for neigh-
boring South African-controlled Namibia.
The release of the two Russians sig-
naled the beginning of the exchange.
Kolya, a 40-year old . pilot, and Ivan
Chernietsky, a 48-year-old mechanic,
were captured when their Soviet troop-
carrying plane was shot down by a sur-
face-to-air missile over southern Angolan
by UNITA guerrillas.
Savimbi today turned the Russians
send him care packages.]
The Associated Press
following.
reported the
Savimbi said in an interview, in his
thatch-roofed hut that serves as his head-
quarters somewhere in the southern An-
golan hush. "We agreed to release the two
Russians because the American.admin-
istration of President Reagan has asked
us insistently since last November.
"They contacted me directly because
they wanted to get. their citizens out of
Angolan jails."
Savimbi handed over the two Soviets
to Dr. Piet Smit, president of the South
African Red Cross, under a banner say-
ing, "Let's stop the Soviet mad dream," a
reference to the spread of East Bloc in-
fluence in mineral-rich`-southern Africa.
Red Cross officials allowed an AP re-
porter to accompany them into the rebel-
held area and to meet the freed Soviet
airmen. -
Koiva, of Moscow, said he "came here
to help improve the transport system. We
were offered a' contract to work for one
year or two years. We were flying cargo
around in boxes, and passengers. We
never saw what was in the boxes."
Married and the father of two chil-
dren, Kolya spoke in -Russian, which was
translated into English by a Red Cross
interpreter.
"14 e could wash. We had clothes. We
were well-treated," he said of his captiv-
ity.
Chernietskv, of Kiev, said -Savimbi's
-guerrillas told him .Thursday that. he was
to be freed. His captors also informed.
him of the : death of Soviet president
Leonid Brezhi+ev-, Chernietsky said.
Savimbi said he also has promised the
Vatican he will free the Angolan Roman
Catholic. Archbishop of Lubango, Ivlsgr.
Alexandre do Nascimentos, who was ab-
ducted by.:UNITA fighters .in mid-
over td the South African Red Cross in
southern Angola near the Namibian bor-
der, and they were then taken to Nami-
bia and turned over to the ICRC to await
the next phase of the transfer in Lusaka.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070005-0