Four S.A. soldiers in Angola not held as P.O.W.s

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34037, 29 December 1975, Page 13

Four S.A. soldiers in Angola not held as P.O.W.s

Zealand Press Association—Copyright) JOHANNESBURG, December 28. As long as South Africa remained involved in the Angolan war. four South African soldiers taken prisoner bv the People's Liberation Movement • M.P.L.A. > uould be regarded as criminals and not as prisoners of war. the M.P.1..A. director-general of information. Dr Luis de Almeida said in a telephone interview with Agence France-Presse today.

I le ruled out any possibility that they would be exchanged for prisoners held by the National Liberation Front (F.N.L.A.) and I nion lor Total Independence (L nita) forces fighting the M.P.L.A.

“What happens to the four soldiers is not the problem of South Africa,” Dr Almeida said. “It is our business. The problem of South Africa is to withdraw its forces from Angola and to leave Angolans to solve their own problems without external interference.”

A week ago. an M.P.L.A. spokesman in Luanda said th«* four South Africans

could be exchanged for prisoners held by the F.N'.L.A. and Unita, but Dr Almeida said today that not only had this been ruled out. but they might in addition not neces-

sarily be treated in terms of the Geneva Convention on

prisoners of war. "The People’s Republic did not declare war on South Africa and that means we must consider them as criminals, because South Africa came to intervene in a country- without declaring war. In spite of this they are well treated.” Dr Almeida said. Asked whether the four would be exchanged for black political prisoners in South Africa and whether the South African authorities had proposed this to the M.P.L.A.. Dr Almeida said: "No comment I only want 10 say we have solidarity with these prisoners like Nelson Mandela and all the peoples in South Africa fighting for racial equality.”

Dr Almeida said that South Africa had troops up to 700 km into Angola from the southern border with Namibia.

The "Johannesburg Star” said that forces fighting the M.P.L.A. were using arms produced in several Western European countries and the United States.

The newspaper’s correspondent in Nova Lisboa, the central Angolan stronghold of the anti-M.P.L.A. allies — the F.N.L.A. and Unita—says that their soldiers are using ■small arms produced in BelIgium, Portugal, Italy and ■Spain, while American-made mortars, anti-tank guns and recoilless rifles are also among the other weapons. “Both sides are well equipped with weapons, and the (supply is formidable,” the paper said.

The United States is reported to be under pressure from African countries to use diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union, including the threat of withholding wheat shipments, to get Moscow to quit Angola. According to officials of the N.F.L.A. of Angola and the Total Independence of Angola movement, African States sympathetic to their cause have approached Washington and urged the United States to use maximum diplomatic pressure on Russia to quit Angola.

The Soviets have an estimated 400 to 500 technicians in Angola supporting the M.P.L.A. and have given the Marxists more than SBom 'worth of military equipment (as well as supplying some '5OOO Cuban troops fighting 1 alongside M.P.L.A. forces.