Angola Dancing to a Tin Drummer

Angola remains mired in a seemingly endless war between the Marxist-Leninist government, led since 1979 by Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (unita), headed by Jonas Savimbi and supported by South Africa and the U.S. After a decade the fighting drags on, with no prospect of victory on either side. TIME's Nairobi bureau chief, James Wilde, recently spent 15 days crisscrossing Angola. His journey took him from the U.S.-operated oil installations in the northern enclave of Cabinda to the capital, Luanda, where he was admitted to the presidential palace three times. His report:

A man dressed in a threadbare overcoat and a small boy in rags stand in a sewage-clogged shantytown street just outside Luanda. The man has no right leg, the boy no left. As the boy hammers out a rhythm with a stick on a battered tin can, the man begins to swing his shortened limb in time to the beat. Others join in. Some waggle truncated arms, others hop on withered stumps. Soon nearly 100 cripples are shaking their mutilated bodies to the beat of the weird tin drum.

The danse macabre is a reminder of the toll exacted by the ongoing civil war. By now some 20,000 civilians have lost limbs to rebel mines planted among crops, under footpaths and along dusty village roads. Thousands more have been killed by the rebels or by government troops on the prowl for guerrilla collaborators. Economically, the nation has also been left maimed. President Dos Santos concedes that the war has already cost his government more than $12 billion; 1 million of the country's 8.5 million people are on the brink of starvation.

In theory, the 100,000 soldiers of the Angolan army, backed by as many as 40,000 Cuban troops and more than 1,500 Soviet and East German advisers, should have gained the upper hand long ago. Luanda has received $2 billion in military hardware from Moscow in recent years; airports are crowded with Soviet assault helicopters and fighter aircraft, and ports provide havens for Soviet warships. Despite this mighty arsenal, some Angolan troops are in rags and many are demoralized. Observes a church worker who has lived in the country three years: "When things get tough, they peel off their uniforms and take to the bush."

Savimbi's 40,000 UNITA fighters, backed by an estimated 20,000 South African troops stationed across the border in the South African-controlled territory of South West Africa, or Namibia, have extended their operations to within 40 miles of Luanda. In addition to their military successes, the rebels scored a diplomatic triumph earlier this year when President Reagan welcomed Savimbi to Washington and promised him $15 million for new equipment.

UNITA's efforts to topple the Luanda government have laid waste the countryside. Since the war began, guerrilla attacks and government mismanagement have combined to drive food production down by 80%; even in the fertile savanna plateau running across the heart of the country, half the children are suffering from malnutrition. Angola's diamond production, which once ranked fourth in the world, has plummeted by nearly 70%. Only the country's vast oil resources, including those controlled by Chevron Corp.'s subsidiary Gulf, continue to bolster the war effort. However, there are estimates that almost half of last year's $2.2 billion in total export earnings has already been lost, as a result of the drop in oil prices.

With the Dos Santos government committing an estimated 80% of its budget to military needs, the economy has been thrown into chaos. These days a dollar will buy more than 1,500 kwanza on the black market, or 50 times as much as at the official exchange rate. At bank rates, a sack of potatoes costs $100. Some 750,000 squatters jam the garbage-filled streets of Luanda, where many scrounge through trash cans for food and live in shacks. Even a confidential Soviet report on the capital acknowledged its "sense of hopelessness."

For his part, Dos Santos, a Soviet-trained petroleum engineer, has shown an increasing inclination to distance his regime from Moscow. The Luanda government, for example, has accepted $100 million in development aid from the European Community. Still, with UNITA extending its influence, the war- weary Angolan army has gradually come under the control of Soviet military technicians. "Dos Santos must move very carefully in dealing with the Soviets," says one foreign diplomat in Luanda. "He does not yet enjoy enough of a power base to keep the Soviets in line -- or to do without them." At the same time, the President badly wants to encourage U.S. investment to help his devastated economy.

In fact, any rapprochement with Washington seems a long way off. The House of Representatives last week defeated a measure that would have barred covert U.S. aid to UNITA unless it was approved by Congress. Such signals are unlikely to deter Dos Santos. Not long ago a diplomat applying for a site to build an embassy in a choice Luanda location was surprised to find that it was reserved.

"For whom?" he asked a city official.

"For the future U.S. embassy," came the hopeful reply.