Gains Seen in Angola Talks; 2nd Round Planned

Declaring that “progress was made,” four nations involved in talks to end the 13-year-old Angolan civil war agreed Wednesday to meet again in Africa within the next few weeks.

“The principle involved in an Angola-Namibia settlement does exist,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker, who headed the negotiations, the first of their kind in one of the world’s longest regional conflicts. “It’s ready to be pursued.”

A brief communique issued at the end of two days of meetings here described the atmosphere as “constructive.”

“We were impressed by the absence of polemics, the indications of serious purpose,” Crocker said. But he cautioned that a quick settlement of the war is unlikely.

The talks brought representatives of Angola’s Marxist government and Cuba, which supports it militarily, face to face with delegations from South Africa and the United States.

The United States and South Africa back an anti-government Angolan guerrilla group known as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA.

The Soviet Union, which supplies Angola with arms, was not represented, but Crocker hinted that Washington and Moscow might guarantee an accord.

“The question of Angola and Namibia is one of the regional issues on which there has been an expanded and intensified exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the course of the last six months,” he told reporters at a news conference.

Crocker declined to speak in detail about the discussions in London but said the proposed framework for a settlement involves both Angola and neighboring Namibia, where the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) wages a guerrilla war to end South African control in the big, sparsely populated territory.

“The question of Namibia and Angola in terms of a settlement are obviously closely related to each other,” Crocker said. “We don’t see any other way to settle it, and the parties that met here in London don’t either, because that’s the framework in which they are negotiating.”

He indicated there was agreement that removal of “foreign military forces” is the best way to create conditions for an agreement.

An estimated 45,000 Cuban troops and advisers are in Angola helping government forces, while 3,000 to 9,000 South African troops have fought alongside the UNITA guerrillas.

The talks reportedly concentrated on an Angolan proposal that includes a withdrawal of Cuban troops in two stages over a four-year period, first from southern Angola and later from the north. The timing of the withdrawal is a major point of debate.

Crocker said the location and dates of the follow-up meeting are under discussion.