No More Arms to Angola

The point has been made in 14 years of devastating warfare that the future of Angola cannot be resolved on the battlefield. Neither the government troops nor the UNITA guerrillas of Jonas Savimbi could have survived to the present stalemate without huge flows of outside aid from Moscow and Havana for the government, supplemented by Cuban troops, and from Washington and Pretoria for UNITA, supplemented by South African troops.

The justification for American arms has now been eliminated by the peace agreement reached last month at Gbadolite, Zaire. But President Bush has reaffirmed his intention to continue the flow of American arms until a government of national reconciliation is in place. This flow of arms has from the start been a mistake, compounding the misery of Angolans, and the mistake is all the more evident now as outside forces are withdrawing and a cease-fire is being put in place.

Negotiating an agreement will not be easy, given the years of brutal warfare between the government and UNITA in a war whose principal victims have been the civilian population. The cease-fire is a positive development. But the prospect has been greatly complicated by Savimbi’s new posture that he need make no concessions. On the contrary, both sides need to make concessions if there is to be national reconciliation.

U.S. aid to Savimbi has been a favorite cause of the American right wing, which has perceived the battle as an extension of the Cold War. That ignores the reality that pragmatism rather than ideology drives both sides. With President Mobuto of Zaire playing a leading role in facilitating negotiations, there is at least the hope that Zaire will halt the clandestine flow of American arms through its territory. The supply from South Africa already has been halted, with the entry of U.N. peacekeeping forces into Namibia to the south.

The clearest incentive to accelerate peace-making, however, would be a firm decision from Washington to cut off the military supplies. Perhaps Bush is having trouble making up his mind. The American effort to block Angola’s membership in the International Monetary Fund was another wrong signal to send at this delicate time.

As Gerald J. Bender, director of the USC School of International Relations, wrote recently in these pages, the time has come for Washington to “encourage peaceful solutions rather than prolonging the suffering.”