Folly in the House

The House of Representatives once again has bowed to President Reagan and his preoccupation with waging a proxy war on Marxism in the Third World. First it was support of the $100-million arms and aid package for the contras trying to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. Now it is new support for a package estimated at $15 million to help the UNITA guerrillas of Jonas Savimbi try to overthrow the government of Angola.

Both programs are bad, and the worst thing about each is that it separates the United States from the nations in the region that are seeking their own solutions to enormously complex problems. No other nation in Latin America, and only the Republic of South Africa in Africa, supports the American-sponsored insurgencies.

The Angola intervention is all the more mistaken because it places the United States firmly on the side of South Africa in a war that includesthe active intervention of South African troops. This in turn has served the South African policy of postponing independence for Namibia, the last colony on the continent.

Angola has been chosen as a target for ideological reasons by the reactionary right and by the Cuban exile community in the United States. They cite the risks inherent in the presence of more than 30,000 Cuban soldiers and technicians supporting the Angolan government. But the very guerrilla war that they sponsor has proved the principal barrier to a negotiated agreement to withdraw the Cuban troops and get on with nationhood for Namibia.

And now the House, for the second time, has given sanction to this folly at a moment when the interests of the United States in Africa can best be served by putting distance between Washington and Pretoria.