Angola, S.Africa hold secret meeting

Press, 10 December 1982, Page 9

Angola, S.Africa hold secret meeting

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Diplomatic efforts to bring about independence for South African-ruled Namibia (South-West Africa) have taken a new turn with an unprecedented meeting in the Cape Verde islands between Angolan authorities and senior South African officials. A brief statement issued in Johannesburg yesterday said that a 15-member South African delegation, led by the Foreign Minister. Mr Roelof Botha, and the Defence Minister. General Magnus Malan. had returned from the meeting with the Angolan Interior Minister. Lieutenant-Colonel Alexandre Rodrigues: It gave no other details. A main stumbling block in discussions between South Africa and a western “contact" group negotiating Namibian independence is the presence of an estimated 18.000 Cuban troops in Angola. almost certainly a main topic of discussion at the Cape Verde meeting. The troops have been in Angola, main base for guerrillas opposed to South Africa's rule of the disputed territory, since they inter-

vened in the' civil war of 1975-76 on behalf of the present Marxist Government. The talks in Cape Verde, like Angola a former Portuguese colony, were the first direct contact between the two opposed governments. South Africa has made withdrawal of the Cuban troops a condition to the holding of internationally-su-pervised elections in Namibia. This position was supported by Mr George Bush,

Vice-President of the United States, which has taken the main role in the “contact group" negotiations with Pretoria, during a recent seven-nation African tour. But black States in the region oppose it. Cape Verde is a strategic stopping point for South African Airways flights to Europe and the United States. The Governmentowned airline is forced to fly round the bulge of West Africa due to the denial of overflight rights by black States opposed to apartheid. The aiport, at Ilha da Sol, is also used by Cuban and Angolan airliners. The talks, held at an airport V.I.P. lounge at the invitation of Cape Verde authorities, came only hours before the scheduled arrival in the islands of the Cuban Vice-President, Mr Juan Almeida Bosque, and the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Oscar Paramas. Last month Mr Botha went to Washington to discuss Namibia with the American Secretary of State. Mr George Shultz, in the wake of Mr Bush's African tour.

Diplomatic sources in Cape Verde said that the South Africans and Angolans had agreed to meet again at a place and on a date to be decided later. They said that Pretoria had agreed to return the bodies of Angolan soldiers killed in southern Angola where South African forces have staged frequent raids.