Power politics in Angola

Fred Bridgland

C enhor Joao Webba, representative of the Angolan Coffee Board in London, has inherited another role since the death of Agostinho Neto, Angola's first President. Neto died in Moscow in September 1979 following an operation; he was only 56 and had gone to Russia for a routine medical check. There has been speculation ever since that the operation was deliberately bungled. Neto's personal Angolan physi- cian was denied entry to the Moscow surgery and, after returning home with the President's body, he went into permanent exile. Angola's ministers themselves seem to believe the Soviet scalpel may have deliberately slipped: since then they have abandoned the socialist medical facilities open to them in Moscow in favour of private facilities in London clinics.

Which is where Senhor Webba comes in. Angola has no embassy in London, and so the Coffee Board representative acts also as his government's medical liaison officer. The health visits by the Angolans allow our Foreign Office to chat with leading ministers of the MPLA administration. The MPLA (Popular Movement for the Libera- tion of Angola) are supposedly Marxist- Leninist, but the switch from Moscow's clinics illustrates that they may be more pragmatic than many of their critics sup- pose. This year they have been exploring the possibility of reconciliation with Dr' Jonas Savimbi's guerrilla movement UNITA (National Union for the Total In- dependence of Angola).

The diplomatic moves began two months ago, on New Year's Day, when Paulo Jorge, Angola's foreign minister, visited Senegambia and told President Abdou Diouf that the MPLA were considering offer- ing negotiations to UNITA. (Senegambia is one of black Africa's leading supporters of 'Savimbi, providing tinnTA's leaders with passports for foreign travel.) Savimbi, who has just returned to Angola after 11 weeks out of the country seeking diplomatk sup- port, collecting weapons (SAM-7 anti- aircraft and Milan anti-tank missiles) and boosting UNITA'S bank account by several million dollars (courtesy of Saudi Arabia), met Diouf in Dakar on 5 January and was given an account of Jorge's thinking.

On 14 January Angola's interior minister, Alexandre Rodrigues Quito, flew to Lisbon and gave a message to the Por- tuguese government to pass on to Savimbi. On 17 January, in Rabat, Portugal's senior foreign ministry civil servant, Dr Leonardo Mathias, told Savimbi that the MPLA were officially ready to explore the possibilities for reconciliation and wanted to know on what basis he would negotiate. It was the first such offer by the MPLA in nearly seven years of fighting since Angola became in- dependent from Portugal in 1975.

On 15 and 16 January Paulo Jorge met President Reagan's Africa expert, Chester Crocker, for talks in Paris. Although well publicised, they were meant to be secret and when Crocker and Jorge talked again a week later in the Zairean capital, Kinshasa, the MPLA officially denied they had met. Another interesting meeting took place in mid-January in the Congo capital, Braz- zaville, between the MPLA defence minister, Pedro Maria Tonha, and senior South African generals. The MPLA seem to have asked the South Africans to ease military tension in south-west Angola, where South Africa's attacks on guerrilla camps of the South West African Peoples Organisation (swAPo) have been concentrated. The South Africans asked the MPLA to put pressure on SWAPO, which is seeking in- dependence for South African-ruled Namibia, to maintain a low profile while the current Angola-Namibia diplomacy continues.

The covert negotiators have gone deeply to ground pending the first public test of collective good intentions. Under the super- vision of the International Committee of the Red Cross, two Soviet airmen will be flown to Kinshasa from south-eastern Angola. Simultaneously two mysterious

American 'businessmen', imprisoned by the MPLA since 1979 and 1980 when light planes they were flying from the Ivory Coast to Namibia crash-landed in southern Angola' will be flown from Luanda, Angola .s capital. All the prisoners will be released in Kinshasa, probably within the next fe'' weeks. Their formal exchange will h.,e, preceded by the release of 23 Portuguese held prisoner by UNITA, some for more than five years. The driving force behind the exchange, has been the United States. Both of Angola's main adversaries want help' almost desperately, from the US. The NIPLA want diplomatic recognition, withheld hY, Washington because of the presence of more than 20,000 Cuban troops in Angola' and aid to rescue the economy from it; parlous state. Oil revenues have dronc'eu because of world market conditions, and diamond and food production have fallen drastically because of war chaos. I° January the planning minister, Lope d° Nascimento, warned Angolans of serious food shortages this year because of greatlY reduced agricultural output and an acute foreign exchange shortage. Meanwhile, the Cubans will have to be fed and paid. The MPLA also want the US to secure in: dependence for Namibia, which will COn once and for all South Africa's destructive military forays into south-west Angola'. This is acceptable to the US, but the price demanded is Cuban withdrawal and WO' UNITA reconciliation. The release of the American prisoners is the MPLA down- payment. UNITA want the US to secure Cuban withdrawal and persuade the MPLA to,, negotiate. UNITA seem satisfied with assurances, given to Savimbi by Alexander Haig in Washington in December, that the Cubans will have to leave Angola at much the same time as South Africa withdraws from Namibia. As part of its price the US has extracted from UNITA a commitment that it will not interfere with any settlement in Namibia — that the rebels will not obstruct the positioning of a United Na- tions force along the 300 miles of Angola' Namibia border that UNITA control. UNITA's down-payment is the release of their Soviet prisoners in exchange for the Americans. UNITA had wanted to continue holding the Soviets hostage against the safety of UNITA supporters imprisoned by the MPLA.

It is now glaringly obvious that a settle' ment of the better publicised problems of Namibia is dependent upon a settlement of f

the problems of Angola. South Africa will stall the Namibian negotiations endlessly until there is a guarantee from the Americans of a Cuban pull-out from Angola. Given that Angola's military and economic chaos is many times greater than Namibia's and that developments in Angola have become crucial for a settle- ment in Namibia, it is regrettable that the country is so poorly reported. Xan Smiley recently lamented in The Times: 'Angola is undoubtedly the worst reported African country of any significance. No Western

observers — diplomats, journalists or businessmen — have more than the haziest idea what is happening in Angola's most

important region ... No journalist since in- dependence in 1975 has been able to travel freely on the Central Plateau around the towns of Huambo and Bie, the most populous region and once the most produc- tive agriculturally. It is the key to the whole country.'

A little evidence of conditions on the Central Plateau — comparable with

Kenya's 'White Highlands' in terms of rich soils and a temperate climate — has come recently from the International Red Cross which daily feeds 60,000 people on , the Plateau (some 400 miles south-east of Luanda) who have become refugees from the fighting. Last month a Red Cross delegation met Savimbi in North Africa and asked if protection could be negotiated for Red Cross vehicles from daily attacks by pt■irrA, guerrillas on vehicle convoys travell- ing between Plateau towns. The Red Cross Privately concedes that an understanding

Was reached and that Savimbi has radioed details to his forces. The consequences of failure of attempts

look reconciliation between Angola's factions look appalling. Savimbi returned to Angola Confident of wide outside support and determined to intensify the war. UNITA 'S military strategy is to use guerrillas, operating in groups 20 to 150 strong, to Soften Up areas held by the MPLA. (The Cubans have not been involved in front line fighting for the past two years.) When the MPLA retreat, UNITA regular troops, organis- ed n battalions of up to 750 men with sup- Port artillery, move in to prevent a return

by the enemy. They are not used in offen- sive operations. When I visited Savimbi's areas in south- east Angola seven months ago UNITA had nine operational battalions, commanded by officers trained in Morocco under French

instructors. (Since President Mitterrand

arne to power, French support for UNITA has ended officially, but British diplomats believe it may in fact be continuing.) Now Savimbi claims to have 12 operational bat- talions which will increase to 16 when another four complete training in June. He claims to be making a two-pronged push

towards the Benguela railway, moving his troops northwards in lorry convoys along

forest trails between the towns of

Metongue, Cuito Cuanavale and Gaga Coutinho.

UNITA'S military determination illustrates the fragility of the reconciliation efforts. The MPLA is badly split between reconcilers and hardliners. If, as the country's chaos

gr°ws, the balance tips towards the hardliners there could be increased Cuban and Eastern bloc military involvement. South Africa might then be tempted to step up Its military interference, especially now that its clients in Namibia, the DTA, seem to be disintegrating. If reconciliation fails, the wearying prospect is of prolonged war and

_more chaos in Angola. All the talk of a

Namibian settlement then becomes purely Chimerical.