SAVIMBI AND MARCOS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: February 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
` Declassified
in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400007-9
ARTICLE APP NEW YORK IIME5
ON PAGE --~, 21 February 1986
IN THE NATION.
Tom Wicker
Savimbi
And
Marcos
The Reagan Administration
"wants to be seen as fully aware
that the election cheating [in the
Philippines] was done by the Marcos
camp and as understanding of the
Aquino concerns, but not be stamped
as anti-Marcos." Its "immediate
goal is to prevent a further hardening
of battle lines...."
So wrote Leslie Gelb, quoting Ad-
ministration officials, in Wednes-
day's New York Times. In that same
issue were these stories:
? "Reagan Says Support for the
Contras Must Go Beyond 'Band-
Aids.' " So he will ask for $70 million
in guns and ammunition and $30 mil-
lion in -humanitarian" aid to help
rebel forces try to overthrow the
Marxist but recognized Government
of Nicaragua.
?"President Decides to Send
Weapons to Angola Rebels." He's
using about $15 million in Central In-
telligence Agency funds to provide
aid for guerrillas under Jonas Savim-
bi, who already had the support of
South Africa in trying to overthrow
the Marxist but recognized Govern-
ment of Angola.
Of all these decisions, based appar-
ently on the ideological dogma that
anything calling itself "anti-Commu-
nist" must be "freedom," the most
outrageous is the policy designed to
mute. reaction to the theft of the Phil-
ippine election by the corrupt but
"anti-Communist" dictator Ferdi-
nand Marcos. But the most illogical is
the new intervention in Angola, where
nothing is to be gained and much
could be lost.
Mr. Savimbi is a raffish character
who is iti trainin rom
Madists, who failed to win a leader-
ship post in the Marxist party that
now governs Angola, who then organ-
ized is own dissident party of no,
rticular leanin except that it is
certainly not "democratic," and who
since 1975 has been on the take from
the C.I.A.. South Arica or both.- If e
were in power,' he might or miltt not
give Angola better government and
greater independence, from the
United States and South Africa as
well as from the Soviet Union; but he
would certainly give it more cult of
personality and the indelible taint of
South African sponsorship.
American conservatives, who see a
"freedom fighter" in this freebooter,
tend to dismiss his South African sup-
port. He's had to take aid where he
could get it, they argue; and Repre-
sentative Jack Kemp suggests that if
the United States supports h ln, he
won't have to be on South Africa's
payroll - a prospect that $15 million
will hardly cause to come true. This
apologia ignores two cardinal points :
First, in serving his own interests,
Mr. Savimbi has served South Af-
rica's. Pretoria has frustrated all
Western efforts, including those of
the United States, to bring independ-
ence to Namibia, which South Africa
governs illegally; the most recent
reason given is that the Cuban troops
in Angola, which borders Namibia,
would facilitate a Communist take-
over after South Africa moved out.
But the Cuban troops remain in An-
ggqla primarily to help thwart Mr.
Saaimbi's insurgency; thus, Mr.
Savimbi - who admits he has no
chance to win a military victory - al-
lows South Africa to buy the excuse it
needs to stay in Namibia, through its
support for him. Why should the
United States reward him for the
frustration of its Namibian policy?
Second, the certain future in South
Africa is the emergence, peacefully or
otherwise, of a black majority regime.
Farsighted U.S. policy would support
that inevitability, and attempt to
shape it with minimum bloodshed, just
as President Carter gave his support
to an independent black regime in
Zimbabwe at a time when he was
strongly urged to support reactionary
whites and black puppets.
Renewed United States support for
Jonas Savimbi, so far from looking
similarly to the future, will be seen by
black Africans as more like the
myopic Nixon-Kissinger ? policy of
last-ditch support for Portugal when
its colonies, Mozambique and Angola,
were moving inexorably toward ma-
jority black government. .
In the subsequent struggle for con-
trol of Angola, the Ford Administra-
tion abandoned diplomacy an com-
m million in funds to
the support o anti- ommunist" fac-
Savimbi. The result? Escalation met
escalation; Cuban troops arrived (ap-
parently after South Africa first in-
tervened: although the record is not
.conclusive) and have been in Angola
ever since; the Marxist M.P.L.A.
came into power; and Jonas Savimbi
began his long trek into Ronald Rea-
gan's embrace. ^
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400007-9