GETTING READY TO FACE REALITY IN ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400028-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: November 22, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400028-2
WASHINGTON TIMES
22 November 1985
Getting ready to face reality
troops from Angola and of South Af-
ire An ola ncan forces from Namibia.
After five years of intermittent
negotiations, the State Department
African experts have to admit that
CORD MEYER
Descending from the floodlit
stage and glittering gen-
eralities of the Geneva
summit, President Ronald
Reagan is now faced in Washington
with the harsh reality of tough
choices that have to be made in deal-
ing with Angola's escalating civil
war.
Even before the summit, at a Na-
tional Security Council meeting on
Nov 12, the president and his senior
advisers reached agreement that
the United States could not passively
stand aside if the increasing flow of
Soviet weaponry to the Marxist
MPLA regime in Luanda and the fur-
ther deployment of Cuban troops
threatened a decisive defeat for Jo-
nas Savimbi's UNITA guerrillas.
On his recent visit to Washington,
Mr. Savimbi's foreign policy adviser,
Jeremias Chitunda, advised both
Reagan officials and congressional
leaders that the Soviet-directed and
Cuban-supported MPLA offensive
this last September against UNITA's
southern bases was only beaten back
at the last moment at the cost of
1,200 UNITA dead and many more
wounded.
Mr. Chitunda warned that the
Soviet-directed MPLA strategy is
now to keep the UNITA forces off
balance during the rainy season and
then to launch a second massive of-
fensive next April with new supplies
of Russian tanks and artillery and
Cuban-piloted bombers and helicop-
ter gunships. In order to turn back
this attack, Mr. Chitunda pleaded for
timely American assistance, now
that the Clark Amendment has been
repealed, which previously had pre-
vented for 10 years any American
aid.
In weighing whether to risk overt
or covert American involvement in
Angola's complex internal strife, the
Reagan administration has been
consistently advised in the past by
State Department experts to stay out
while U.S. diplomats attempted to
negotiate with all parties a voluntary
and phased withdrawal of Cuban
there are now 35,000 Cuban troops
in Angola, as compared to 20,000
previously. There is also a much
larger Soviet advisory presence and
a billion dollars in Russian arms de-
livered in the last year.
Based on this record, the State
Department can ask for no more
than one last shot at pulling off a
negotiated settlement that leads to
mutual withdrawal. If within a few
weeks there is again no progress, the
Reagan administration will seek
congressional approval for some
form of effective assistance for
UNITA.
Armed with the real threat of im-
minent U.S. intervention, there is
just a chance that State can make a
last-minute breakthrough. MPLA
President Eduardo Dos Santos has
been urged by the black front-line
states to avoid turning his country
into a cockpit for superpower ri-
valry. The Cubans have become so
unpopular that many MPLA black
nationalists are ready to consider a
deal with Mr. Savimbi to get the Cu-
bans out. Whether such a State De-
partment brokered solution is at all
possible should be clear after the
Dec. 8 meeting of the MPLA party
congress in Luanda.
In the absence of such a negoti-
ated settlement, Reagan officials see
no alternative to a policy of active
support for Jonas Savimbi, because
UNITAs defeat would have disas-
trous consequences for U.S. inter-
ests in the whole of southern Africa.
The current presence of UNITA
forces in the areas that border Zaire,
Zambia, and Namibia creates a
buffer zone that limits Communist
guerrilla infiltration.
Secure control of all of Angola by
Soviet- and Cuban-supported MPLA
hard-liners would set the stage for
larger attacks into Namibia. By pos-
ing a real Communist military
threat, complete Marxist control of
Angola would strengthen the hand of
white racists inside South Africa
and further reduce the chances for
liberalizing reform.
Realization of the serious conse-
quences of abandoning the
brilliantly led and well-disciplined
black guerrillas under Mr. Savimbi's
command has already led to a grow-
ing body of support in the U.S. Con-
gress for both humanitarian and
military aid to UNITA.
Opposition comes from those who
fear that American help for UNITA
would identify the United States as
an ally of South Africa, on whose
supply lines Mr. Savimbi is depen-
dent by geographical necessity. The
counterargument is that American
aid would make UNITA less depen-
dent on South Africa and would en-
courage aid from many other poten-
tial donors.
In the event that the Reagan
administration finally comes to
UNITA's assistance in the next few
weeks, the hope will be that this in-
tervention will not serve simply to
prolong an escalating war. Rather it
will be done to bring home to the
moderates in the MPLA leadership
that the time has come to accept Mr.
Savimbi's offer of national reconcili-
ation in a coalition government that
can demand the departure of all for-
eign troops, Russian, Cuban, and
South African.
Cord Meyer is a nationally syndi-
cated columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400028-2