adminThe Herald, December 28, 1985
UNITED States aid for Unita bandits in Angola could resume within weeks as State department resistance to involvement in the Southern African bush war crumbles under a conservative assault.
Congressional and administration sources said the first instalment of money and arms for Jonas Savimbi’s Unita could be flowing down secret channels controlled by the CIA by February.
Estimates of the size of the initial package differ but a Washington Post report said it could be worth between US$8 million and US$15 million.
Congressional sources said it would probably include Red Eye and anti-aircraft missiles as well as anti-tank rockets.
The plan could be derailed if the state department’s Mr Chester Crocker produces an 11th-hour deal to remove Cuban forces helping the Angolan government under President Eduardo dos Santos, the sources said.
But Mr Crocker has been struggling for five years for a peace agreement linking withdrawal of the estimated 35 000 Cubans from Angola with independence for neighbouring Namibia, which is illegally occupied by South Africa in defiance of the United Nations.
Conservatives now scoff that Assistant Secretary Crocker’s peace process has seen many false dawns.
Without a deal, the State Department seems ill-equipped to resist further the pro-aid forces in the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Council and conservatives in Congress.
A law banning aid to Unita was repealed last July.
Conservatives brush aside state department arguments that support for Unita would ruin the US role as a mediator in Southern Africa as well as its reputation among African states deeply offended by South Africa’s apartheid policies.
They say that while apartheid is deplorable, South Africa remains a key US ally in the fight against “Soviet communism” and that Unita is on the front line. Officials claim the Soviet Union has pumped US$2 billion in military aid into Angola in the last 18 months.
But even if US aid to Unita were to be covert, news would inevitably leak out, State Department sources said. The best they could hope for, one said, was that it would be “deniable”.
“It may be public knowledge, but as long as we can say ‘no’ or ‘no comment’ that’s different. It maintains certain options.”
But congressional aides questioned whether that might not be too sophisticated for Southern Africa’s political cauldron. – Ziana/Reuter.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
The Angolan Civil War, fought between 1975 and 2002, was one of deadliest where almost 800 000 people were killed, while one million more were displaced. It also left many maimed by landmines.
At face value, it looks like a war between National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government, but in reality it was a proxy war. It was a Cold War conflict, pitting rivals – the United States, apartheid-ruled South Africa, and Zaire (now DRC), against former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Cuba and China.
The United States’s international relations policy is marked by interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. They do not have permanent friends, but permanent interests (natural resources).
This has seen the US fighting proxy wars in various parts of the world as we see in the story.
Although the rebuilding process started soon after the war, it’s an understatement to say that it is a war that damaged Angola’s infrastructure and ruthlessly damaged public administration, the economy, and religious institutions.
Angola is endowed with natural resources like oil and gas. Does the visit by Angolan President João Lourenço signal a new chapter in US-Angolan relations? What about relations with Russia, another long-time ally?
Online Reporter