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Putting the Heat on Luanda
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13127 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1987 |
2,658 Words |
| Author
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Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp is a Republican congressman from New York and a
presidential candidate. |
On July 14 and 15, Chester A. Crocker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, met with officials of the Angolan communist government in Luanda to discuss a plan to end the 25-year-old war in that country. This represented the first time in almost two years that the two sides had sat down to try to negotiate an end to the war, following the summer 1985 walkout by the Angolan communists.
The Angolan delegation, led by Foreign Minister Afonso Van Dunem Mbinda, had told Crocker at an April meeting that they were prepared to put forth new proposals to end the war. So when Crocker arrived in Luanda in July, he was expecting some new initiative from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the official name of the ruling party in Angola.
Instead, he heard the same old line from the Angolan communists. They demanded that the Reagan administration cease its support for the democratic resistance forces of Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Moreover, they wanted the United States to use its influence to get the South Africans to allow Namibia its independence.
What were they willing to offer in return? Nothing. And they didn't say a word about a withdrawal of the 37,000 Cuban combat troops that are presently in Angola, propping up the regime, or the other 8,000 troops and advisers from assorted Soviet bloc nations.
Crocker left Luanda disappointed. He told the international news media that the trip had been a "waste of time." And he vowed that U.S. assistance to
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