SHULTZ SEES PEACE HOPES IN ANGOLA TALKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130044-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: December 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130044-4
ARTICLE APF~-" ED
ON PAGE. i
Shultz Sees
Peace Hopes in
Angola Talks
By DOYLE McMANUS.
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-Secretary of
State George P. Shultz has indicat-
ed that he opposes any immediate
decision to provide covert aid to
Angolan rebels in hopes that a
delay will spur Angola's Marxist
regime toward a negotiated settle-
ment, State Department officials
and congressional sources said
Tuesday.
Shultz said a U.S.-Angolan
meeting last week offered new
hope that the Luanda government
of President Jose Eduardo dos
Santos, faced with the threat of
large-scale American aid to the
rebels, will agree to longtime U.S.
demands that it send Cuban troops
home and negotiate with the insur-
gents.
"The talks ... really were use-
ful," he told reporters who accom-
panied him on a trip to Colombia
earlier this week. "I'd put it in a
positive way."
He said the Reagan Administra-
tion backs rebel leader Jonas Sav-
imbi but would prefer to see nego-
tiations rather than an escalation of
Angola's 10-year-long guerrilla
struggle, an outgrowth of factional
rivalries between Marxist and
pro-Western groups that battled
the Portuguese for independence.
"We support Savimbi," Shultz
said. "The question is, what's the
most effective way to do it? And if a
negotiation can take place that
withdraws foreign forces from An-
gola and Namibia, that gets a
Namibian settlement-well, then
that's a good way to support Sav-
imbi."
The United States has been
seeking for five years to negotiate a
withdrawal of Cuba's estimated
25,000 troops from Angola, where
they have been propping up the
regime, as well as a withdrawal of
South Africa's army from neigh-
boring Namibia (South-West Afri-
LOS ANGELES TIMES
4 December 1985
ca). But the effort has been sty-
mied by resistance in both Angola
and South Africa.
Fire From the Right
Shultz's position has drawn op-
position from conservatives in the
Administration and Congress, who
want to give Savimbi enough mili-
tary aid to overthrow the Luanda
government.
President Reagan told reporters
last month that both he and Shultz
favor covert aid to Savimbi. But
other officials said that Shultz
wanted to give the Angolan gov-
ernment a last chance to engage in
negotiations before committing the
United States to a military role.
"Our policy is to try to find a way
to end the violence," a State De-
partment official said. "We have
not backed away from that."
Assistant Secretary of State
Chester A. Crocker traveled to
Zambia last week for two days of
talks with Angolan Interior Minis-
ter Alexandre Rodrigues, the first
such contact in five months. Crock -
er said after the meetings that the
United States wants to "re-ener-
gize" negotiations, and Rodrigues
said the two countries agreed to
meet again in Luanda soon.
In Congress, there was skepti-
cism that talks could produce any
real concessions from the Ango-
lans.
"Of course we support a negoti-
ated settlement," said a spokesman
for Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.),
sponsor of a bill to provide $27
million in open aid to Savimbi.
"And if a proposal like ours helps
produce a settlement, that's
fine.... But there's no sign yet
that anything is coming out of
these negotiations."
Shultz has publicly opposed the
idea of above-board military as-
sistance because, aides said, it
would become an obstacle to nego-
tiations. But Pepper's spokesman
said the congressman has been
assured "that the Administration
would, in fact, support his bill in
time."
The House Rules Committee
turned down a request from several
conservatives Tuesday to allow
debate on Pepper's overt aid bill
this week.
The CIA secretly aided Savimbi's
arm e National union for the
Total Independence of Angola, un-
Congress discovered the scheme
d cut it off in 1975.
Since then, Savimbi has contin-
ued his guerrilla war with support
from South Africa and Zaire, con-
trolling as much as one-third of
Angola's territory from his base in
the southeast.
Congress repealed its prohibition
on aid to Savimbi's force last
summer, soon after its vote in favor
of "non-lethal" aid to the Nicara-
guan rebels (contras). e CIA and
other agencies then pre ro-
s s for coverassistance, ut
Reagan made no decision on the
issue.
Last month, 101 members of
Congress, mostly Democrats, sent a
letter to the President urging him
not to aid Savimbi.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130044-4