Angolan rebels getting aid

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 6

Angolan rebels getting aid

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States Government confirmed yesterday that it had decided to provide military aid to anti-Government rebels in Angola and that the process was in motion. “Certain decisions have been made to provide both moral and material assistance to rebels fighting the Marxist Government in Angola,” Chester Crocker, the Government’s top African affairs official, told a Congressional hearing. “The decision has been made and the process is in motion,” he said in response to persistent questioning by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Reagan Administration had said only that it wanted to provide effective support for rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita). Mr Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was asked by Senator Jesse Helms, "Will it (aid) include weapons which are effec-

tlve against the main threat to (Unita) freedom fighters — I mean Soviet tanks, helicopter gunships. Will this aid include the weapons that they really need to win?”

Mr Crocker replied, “We want to be effective and that obviously covers the ground you have covered in your question.” The President, Mr Ronald Reagan said last year that he was leaning towards a programme of covert aid to Unita, whose leader Dr Jonas Savimbi, spent 10 days in Washington earlier this month seeking arms. Congressional sources say the Reagan Administration last month had notified Congressional Intelligence committees of its intention to provide SUSIS million ($27.9 million) in military aid to Unita, channelled through the Central Intelligence Agency.

These initial funds do not need Congressional approval, but any further programme could be blocked by ’ Congress, which is divided about aid to Unita.