A Tiger at the Back Door

"Congress has turned Ford's water off. South Africa has pulled out. UNITA is forced to fight not only the M.P.L.A. and the Cubans up front but a miserable bunch of F.N.L.A. cowards from behind. Any help from mercenaries will be too little and too late. The game is just about over." Allowing for a bit of hyperbole, that dour summation of the Angolan civil war last week by an American diplomat in Nairobi was fairly close to the mark.

No one was yet conceding defeat--or, for that matter, claiming victory. For one thing, the touted South African pullout proved to be at most a strategic withdrawal, and quite possibly a temporary retrenchment. Pretoria's forces still remained inside Angola, settling in around the Cunene River hydroelectric complex 20 miles north of the South West African border. There they would be available for possible reinvolvement.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was not giving up either, despite an overwhelming House vote (323 to 99) cutting off covert CIA funds to the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the two U.S.-backed factions. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee on Africa last week, Kissinger charged that Congress had deprived the President of "indispensable flexibility" in formulating a foreign policy. The Administration, he added, may seek congressional approval for direct financial aid for the beleaguered F.N.L.A.-UNITA forces.

By that time, the outcome may well have been decided on the battlefield--most probably in a victory by the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.). After routing F.N.L.A. forces in the north, the M.P.L.A., led by Cubans and backed by Soviet tanks and advisers, launched a three-pronged assault in southern Angola. Last week the attack force was reported within 100 miles or less of its objectives: Lobito, Angola's biggest port; Huambo, provisional capital of the F.N.L.A.-UNITA government; and Silva Porto, UNlTA's headquarters.

Crucial Week. At the same time, the uneasy alliance between the F.N.L.A. and UNITA was close to collapse. For the second time in less than a week, F.N.L.A. forces under UNITA command in the south refused to go to the front. The result was a bloody Shootout between the two factions in Huambo. UNITA Leader Jonas Savimbi admitted to TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand after a tour of UNlTA's central front last week that the next week or two will be crucial to his cause. If the M.P.L.A. makes greater gains, Savimbi said he is planning to return to the sort of guerrilla warfare that all three liberation movements used in their long war against the Portuguese.

"For all its troubles, predictions of UNlTA's imminent collapse are exaggerated," reported Hillenbrand. "But the outlook is not bright. An estimated 100,000 members of the Ovimbundu tribe, who make up most of UNITA's support, have already fled into the bush to avoid the fighting. At his front-line rallies, Savimbi urged others to follow. After eight years in the bush as a guerrilla fighter against the Portuguese, he professed not to see any problem with this. 'Mao taught us that a peasant revolution can be successful, but the people have to be willing to suffer,' said Savimbi, who spent nine months in China in 1965. 'When one has a garden in the bush to defend, one will defend it. We are asking [people] to go into the bush and plant a garden to support themselves.' "

White Angolans. "But Red Cross officers fear that so massive a retreat to the bush could lead to a new Biafra, with thousands of deaths by starvation. That could be avoided by a political settlement, for which Savimbi is eager. He admitted that he would even accept Agostinho Neto as President of a coalition government, although only if the M.P.L.A. leader gave UNITA an important role. Neto, said Savimbi, is not a true African: if he were, he would understand that the leadership of an African nation requires compromise. 'You never have everybody with you,' he added. 'You must be flexible in your principles to allow for varying opinion. I'm willing. Is Neto?'

"Moreover, South African troops and logistic support have been withdrawn. The full extent of South African assistance may never be known. Before the pullback, South Africans kept popping up in the strangest places, on the remotest roads. Last week it was different. 'You see,' quipped a UNITA guide on a walk through the railroad junction of Lumege, 'there are no white Angolans up here.' As it happened, if the 'white Angolans'--UNlTA's euphemism for the South Africans--had been around, Lumege might not have fallen the next day."

Some Western officials, in fact, believe that the South African withdrawal--and UNITA's ouster of Western journalists from its territory--may be designed to mask continued South African involvement. The suspected strategy would entail a forward movement of detachments of South African soldiers camouflaged as mercenaries. Their job would be to stiffen the UNITA resistance and provide a holding and screening force to cover the re-entry of South African army regulars into the battle.

UNITA is getting other help as well. American advisers have been seen discreetly circulating around Silva Porto. About 1,000 mercenaries, recruited in the U.S., Britain, Portugal and France, also landed in Zaire last week to report for duty. Even Michael ("Mad Mike") Hoare, legendary leader of the Congo mercenaries in the mid-1960s, appeared to be gearing up for action. From Johannesburg, he sent an "alert notice" to members of the Wild Geese Club, composed of Congo veterans. Hoare said he was offering his services to Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko, the principal backer of the F.N.L.A.

Despite its gains on the battlefield, there is still a slight hope that Agostinho Neto's Luanda government might consider some sort of political settlement with UNITA before long. The reasoning:

1) The territory the M.P.L.A. is now entering is the traditional heartland of the Ovimbundu tribe. Tribal loyalties in Angola are strong, and the M.P.L.A. would have trouble administering the area without Savimbi's help. Even worse, the M.P.L.A. would have to deal with guerrilla activity, a debilitating prospect that would prevent reconstruction of the war-ravaged economy.

2) There are signs that the M.P.L.A. may be trying to broaden its base of international support, and even that it may be interested in establishing relations with Washington. Said M.P.L.A. Prime Minister Lopo do Nasciamento last week: "Our movement has been widely misunderstood in the West. We want and need cordial contacts with the West to develop our country."

Some foreign observers now argue that a quick M.P.L.A. victory might be preferable to a prolonged conflict, even were it to end in a coalition government. As one senior British official puts it: "The longer the war goes on, the greater the price in Soviet bases, etc., that the Russians will be able to extract from the M.P.L.A." For this reason, British policy advisers were privately critical of Kissinger's renewed condemnation of the M.P.L.A. last week. They fear that a cool U.S. posture could play into the hands of radical, Soviet-lining elements in the Luanda government.

Internal Subversion. Meanwhile, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, which has been plagued by thousands of refugees, declared a state of emergency. Kaunda, who is sympathetic to the F.N.L.A.-UNITA coalition, blamed threats of internal subversion. "They drove colonialism and fascism out the front door," said Kaunda referring to Angola, "only to let a plundering tiger and its cubs in the back door." There was no doubt he meant Russia and Cuba.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.