Red Carpet for an African Rebel

By Amy Wilentz

He swept into Washington like a head of state, wearing a tailored Nehru suit and traveling around town in a silver stretch limo dubbed "Jonas' whale" by Washington wags. Seeking U.S. support for his 28,000-strong guerrilla army, he was formally received by Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and, finally, President Reagan. With the help of a high-powered public relations firm, he appeared on Public Television's MacNeil/ Lehrer NewsHour and ABC's Nightline and Good Morning America to plead his cause against Angola's Marxist regime and their Cuban and Soviet sponsors. At a national Conservative convention in Washington, he received a cheering, whistling ovation, and former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick urged the U.S. to provide him with "real helicopters, real ground-to-air missiles, real weapons."

It was quite a reception for a little-known African rebel leader who has been unable to achieve power in ten years of fighting. Nonetheless, Jonas Savimbi, head of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), has become a test case for hard-line conservatives on the Administration's commitment to the so-called Reagan Doctrine. The President affirmed that policy a year ago in his State of the Union address. "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua, to defy Soviet-supported aggression," Reagan stated. "Support for freedom fighters is self-defense."

But U.S. backing for Savimbi has never been firm. Until it was repealed last July, the 1976 Clark Amendment banned any American assistance for his forces. Even today the Administration's position is equivocal. After Reagan's half-hour meeting with Savimbi, the President said that he wanted "to be very helpful" but did not commit himself to a specific offer of aid. For his part, Shultz noted the difficulty of devising a formula for Angola that would be "effective." Nonetheless, word leaked out last week that the Administration was prepared to send covert aid to Savimbi. Various Congressmen have also proposed several UNITA aid bills, including one calling for $27 million in overt military assistance and another for $41 million.

Savimbi's career is no textbook example of anti-Communism. In his fight against the Portuguese colonial rule that ended in Angola in 1975, Savimbi traveled to China to study revolutionary tactics. In those days, he talked of turning Angola into a Maoist agricultural commune, stating, "You can't apply capitalism to Africa."

He began to change after UNITA, backed by CIA funding, lost a power struggle to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.), a Marxist party that continues to run Angola with the help of some 30,000 Cuban troops and 1,500 Soviet military advisers. From his base in the southeastern third of the country, Savimbi turned from a Maoist into what he called "a New Testament socialist." Recently, he has portrayed himself in terms that U.S. conservatives find even more appealing. "The American people are again interested in helping those who are fighting for freedom," Savimbi told TIME in Angola shortly before leaving for Washington. "We want to go to America to put our case."

One factor that has clouded U.S. relations with Savimbi is his reliance on supplies and occasional military support from South Africa. "I consider the Executive President of South Africa as my friend, if it shocks you or not," Savimbi told 60 Minutes. While Savimbi has proposed giving up South Africa's support for U.S. aid, Shultz has argued that open U.S. aid would jeopardize relations with black African nations and compromise the neutral American role in persuading South Africa to withdraw from Namibia, the former territory of South West Africa that borders Angola. Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker has been pursuing a diplomatic solution that would consist of a Cuban withdrawal from Angola in return for a South African withdrawal from Namibia. Afterward, Savimbi could attempt to pressure the M.P.L.A. to hold the free elections that he says he wants.

Savimbi and his U.S. supporters point out that after five years of talks, none of these goals have been accomplished. Crocker, Savimbi says, "goes to Luanda (Angola's capital), but Luanda does not give him anything. They keep talking because they are aiming at the three years left to President Reagan. If we keep talking for the next three years, the M.P.L.A. will have won."

Savimbi also argues that U.S. aid of another sort helps bolster the current Angolan regime. The M.P.L.A. government earns $2 billion a year in oil revenues from Chevron Corp. through Chevron's subsidiary Gulf Corp., which owns a 49% interest in Angola's Cabinda Gulf Oil Co. Says one UNITA leader: "Gulf Oil has been subsidizing the Soviet and Cuban occupation of Angola." Although the U.S. has long supported and encouraged the American industrial presence in Angola, Crocker last week issued a warning to U.S. companies: "They are in the middle of a war zone. They should be thinking about U.S. national interests, as well as their own corporate interests, as they make their decisions."

Despite the red carpet reception for Savimbi, Congress remains uneasy on the question of U.S. involvement in southwestern Africa's complicated political stalemate. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dante Fascell thinks the chances are "slight to none" that aid for UNITA would survive the Capitol Hill appropriations process. One major obstacle: the crunch on foreign aid imposed by the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.

Nevertheless, the White House did welcome Savimbi to Washington with more than words. The Administration has already informed the Senate and House Select Committees on Intelligence that it intends to offer UNITA about $10 million in covert aid from a special discretionary fund that is not subject to congressional approval. Although ranking Republican and Democratic Senators have told the Administration they consider covert aid a bad idea, it appears that Africa's controversial freedom fighter will not go home empty-handed.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Washington and Bruce W. Nelan/Jamba