3 Nations OK Angola, Namibia Principles

The governments of Angola, Cuba and South Africa have officially accepted 14 principles for settling the 13-year Angolan civil war and granting neighboring Namibia its independence from South Africa, Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker announced Wednesday.

South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, in confirming his government’s approval, said in Pretoria that the agreement would contribute “to a lessening of tensions in southern Africa.” Conservative politicians there immediately attacked the accord, while liberals applauded it.

The principles, hammered out in talks mediated by Crocker, were announced by negotiators last week but lacked official acceptance until now. Their approval represented a major political success for the Reagan Administration, which until now has had little to show for its policies in southern Africa.

The principles provide that Cuba will withdraw its estimated 50,000 troops from Angola, where they have been defending the Marxist government against rebels backed by the United States and South Africa. But Crocker said that major issues still must be negotiated before a peace settlement for the region is complete.

Key among them is a timetable for the Cuban pullout. South Africa reportedly wants to give Cuba one year, while Cuba has mentioned four years. In addition, agreement must be reached on a schedule for the withdrawal of South African forces from Angola and Namibia.

“A great many hard and difficult compromises must be achieved” in follow-on talks that begin Aug. 2 in Geneva, said a senior U.S. official.

At a Pretoria press conference, Botha declined to say whether South Africa plans to pull its troops out of Angola and end its support for rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.

Botha Asks for Patience

“I ask for a little more patience,” Botha said. “It is not the stage to ask what we will do about UNITA, nor is it the time to ask what Angola will do about the ANC.” The anti-South African guerrillas of the African National Congress maintain base camps in Angola.

Reagan Administration officials said privately that South Africa was probably spurred toward the agreement by fear that Democrat Michael S. Dukakis might be elected President in November. Dukakis has indicated that he would cut off U.S. aid to the Angolan guerrillas and impose economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa as a terrorist state.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has increased Cuban troop strength in Angola, from 35,000 last fall to about 50,000 now, U.S. officials said, and withdrawing all could create political risks. If demobilized, they would not find work in the weak Cuban economy, officials said, and if kept in barracks, they would be capable of a military coup.

Officials speculated that Castro may have agreed to the principles now with a strategy of stretching the negotiations past Jan. 20, when Dukakis could take office.

The 14 principles agreed on by the three nations “reflect a balance of interest” of the parties, Crocker said, with “no losers.”

Four of the principles formed the heart of the agreement:

-- The parties are to implement U.N. Resolution 435, passed 10 years ago, calling on South Africa to give Namibia its independence. Namibia, also called South-West Africa, has been run by South Africa since just after World War I, and the South-West Africa People’s Organization has been fighting for 22 years for independence.

-- Angola and South Africa will cooperate “toward ensuring the independence of Namibia through free and fair elections.”

-- Cuban troops are to withdraw from Angola.

-- The parties are to agree on “verification and monitoring of compliance with the obligations resulting from the agreements that may be established” to implement the other 13 principles.

Times staff writer Scott Kraft in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this article.