Towards coalition in Angola

Press, 10 January 1984, Page 14

Towards coalition in Angola

From “The Economist,” London

Mr Jonas Savimbi’s U.N.I.T.A. guerrillas are advancing north. They are now closer to Angola’s capital than at any time during their eight-year war against the Soviet-backed Government in Luanda.

For the last two years Mr Savimbi’s men have controlled the south-east third of the country. Recently they reported the capture of Cazombo, one of two garrisons in the region that was still in Government hands.

South African forces, in support of U.N.I.T.A. and seeking an end to Angolan indulgence of S.W.A.P.O. raids into Namibia, have struck deep into Angola. During the last year, raids and battles in central Angola have intensified. The north is still the area most hostile to Mr Savimbi; the Kimbundu people there provide the core of the leadership of the M.P.L.A. party, which forms the Government. If U.N.I.T.A. starts undermining this group’s dominance there of his own Ovimbundu people, the largest ethnic group in Angola, with 35 to 40 per cent of the nation’s 7.2 million people. In July, guerrillas briefly overran Mussende in Cuanza South province. In August they captured, and still hold, Cangamba in Moxico province. For years U.N.I.T.A. has been disrupting traffic on Angola’s main rail link, the

Benguela railroad, which runs across the width of the central region into Zaire. Now international traffic on the railway has been stopped completely. U.N.I.T.A. has also tightened its grip on the countryside around the provincial capital of Huambo.

Mr Savimbi, with 20,000 to 30,000 fighters, is taking on two defending armies: the Government’s, which has about 35,000 soldiers and 55,000 militiamen; and the Cubans, who number 20,000 according to Western estimates and 45.000 according loyalty, by persuasion or by force, President Eduardo dos Santos might be compelled to discuss the coalition government Mr Savimbi wants.

So far guerrilla actions in the north have consisted of hit-and-run raids, attacks on the railway and road system connecting Luanda with Malanje and Saurimo, and snatching foreigners to demonstrate U.N.I.T.A.’s ability to move about with impunity. During a raid on Calulo in September, 22 Spaniards, Portuguese and Brazilians employed by the Government were kidnapped and marched south. They are still in guerrilla hands.

U.N.I.T.A. says it has infiltrated the Bengu region, 90 miles northeast of the capital. Its guerrillas have been sighted in the diamond-

producing area between Saurimo and the Zaire border.

In the central region Mr Savimbi is powerful because of the to U.N.I.T.A.

Nearly all the Cubans are garrisoned in towns; it is the Government’s men who attempt to track the guerrillas. Mr Savimbi gets fuel and weapons and possibly air support

from the other key player in the Angolan war, South Africa. South African troops occupy much ol Cunene province in the south, as part of their war against the S.W.A.P.O. guerrillas, who use Angola as a base to attack South African-administered Namibia. If S.W.A.P.O. and South Africa were to agree to a ceasefire in Namibia, U.N.I.T.A. might lose a

patron. But Mr Savimbi could probably carry on for a long time with stockpiles of captured weapons, plus clandestine help from old friends such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Zaire.

Neither side in Angola’s civil war looks likely to win outright; but stalemate always favours the guerrillas. Copyright, "The Economist,” London.