Angola War May Continue, U.S. Aide Says

The Reagan Administration’s top policy-maker for southern Africa conceded Tuesday that the 13-year-old civil war inside Angola may continue despite the cease-fire agreement announced Monday.

According to Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker, the cease-fire agreement covers only outside forces fighting in Angola, including South African and Cuban troops. But it does not apply to the continuing war between the Angolan government and the rebel forces of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known as UNITA.

At a news conference, Crocker said the Soviet Union will have the right to continue giving military supplies and aid to the Angolan government. Similarly, both the United States and South Africa will be entitled to continue supporting the UNITA rebels, led by Jonas Savimbi.

‘Suffering and Losses’

Until Angola and the UNITA insurgents reach a political settlement, Crocker said, “you would still have the United States and Soviet engagement . . . on opposite sides of the civil war. . . . You’d have the continued fighting and the suffering and the losses inside Angola.”

In a joint statement Monday, the governments of Angola, Cuba and South Africa declared an immediate cease-fire in Angola. South Africa said it would pull all its 3,000 troops out of Angola by Sept. 1, and Angola and Cuba promised to announce a timetable by that date for the removal of the 50,000 Cubans fighting in support of the Angolan government.

“The path to a settlement, in a sense, has been cleared,” said Crocker, who led the recent peace initiative. However, he acknowledged that “there is real work ahead. . . . Up until now, the internal question (of political leadership) in Angola has not yet been solved.”

Similar to Afghan Pact

In effect, the agreement on Angola announced Monday was similar to the one reached earlier this year on the future of Afghanistan. In both instances, the United States and the Soviet Union worked out a deal in which outside forces would be withdrawn but the civil war would continue and the two superpowers would have the right to keep supplying military aid.

The Soviet Union has been providing Angola with about $1 billion a year in military supplies and other aid, according to U.S. estimates. The Reagan Administration never has said officially how much in covert aid it supplies to UNITA, but past estimates have put the figure at about $15 million a year. Since 1986, the American aid has included Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Crocker, apparently seeking to head off possible criticism of the agreement by American conservatives, stressed repeatedly that the Administration is not abandoning UNITA in its challenge to the Soviet-supported Angolan government.

“We’re not going to unilaterally disengage,” he said. “. . . We have consulted extensively with the leadership of UNITA. We are in regular contact with them. . . . There is nothing that President Savimbi of UNITA wants more than an agreement that leads to the withdrawal of Cubans from his country.”

An Improved Climate

Crocker also contended that the agreement on Angola was an outgrowth of the improved climate between the United States and the Soviet Union. He met in Geneva for two days with a senior Soviet official, Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly L. Adamishin, before the talks with Angola, Cuba and South Africa that produced Monday’s agreement.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev “made it clear as far back as February that if the Afghan agreement were to gel and to work, that this could have implications for other regional conflicts,” Crocker said. “We’ve consistently sought to test that proposition.”