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Filling the Holes in the Deal
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15634 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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2 / 1989 |
1,001 Words |
| Author
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Michael Johns
Michael Johns is a foreign policy analyst at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he specializes in the
Third World and Africa. |
There are few foreign policy developments that seem to generate more support than when sworn enemies of our nation put their names to treaties with the United States. In the rather unique case of the recently signed agreement between Cuba, South Africa, and Angola, the United States is not a signatory, but the agreement is being met in certain corners with similar levels of ecstatic praise. The day following the signing of the protocol in Brazzaville last December, the New York Times reported in a lead news article that the agreement, orchestrated largely by Chester Crocker, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, represented "a major foreign policy success."
This support is extremely premature, and the agreement is far more dangerous than its proponents seem to realize. The Angola/Namibia accord may turn out to be the successful diplomatic initiative that some analysts are hailing it to be: The 52,000 Cubans in Angola may depart on schedule; Namibia may achieve genuine democracy and independence; and Jonas Savimbi's 13-year struggle for a democratic Angola may be advanced.
But there is a very real possibility--even a probability--that it will go the other way. Should the agreement succeed in bringing the Soviet-backed Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO) to power in Namibia and consolidating the Marxist-Leninist MPLA regime in Angola, Crocker's "major foreign policy success" may actually represent nothing less than the greatest diplomatic coup for the Soviet Union in the past decade. With the consolidation of the Soviet bloc in southwestern Africa, the Soviets will have altered entirely the balance of forces in one of the most strategically important regions in the
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