S. Africa Denounced in U.N for ‘Persistent’ Angola Invasions

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday for a resolution condemning the “racist regime of South Africa for its premeditated, persistent and sustained armed invasions” of Angola.

In an unusual procedure, U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters asked for a 10-minute delay before the 15-nation council voted, then requested that a paragraph calling on member states to send military aid to Angola and other black African nations bordering South Africa be acted upon separately.

As the separate vote was taken, Walters abstained while all other delegates voted yes. But when the council president, British Ambassador John Thompson, called for the vote on the entire African-sponsored resolution, Walters joined his colleagues in unanimous support.

Besides condemning South Africa’s recent armed incursions into Angola and asking military aid for the “front-line” states--the black-ruled nations in southern Africa--the resolution demanded immediate withdrawal of South African forces and called for “payment of full and adequate compensation” to Angola for loss of life and property.

To assess the invasion damage, a commission of three members of the council is to be named to travel to Angola and report back by Nov. 15.

Member states were also urged to “implement fully” the arms embargo the council imposed on Pretoria in 1977, and to press South Africa to comply with the U.N. Charter and “desist from all acts of aggression against neighboring states.”

Asked why the United States abstained on the paragraph calling for arms assistance to Angola and its neighbors but then voted for the entire resolution in the end, Walters told reporters that it was done only to “register our concern” about the military aid request.

Washington supplies economic aid to Mozambique, the Marxist nation on South Africa’s eastern border, but in the past is believed to have given clandestine aid to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the conservative opposition force fighting Angola’s Marxist government.