De Klerk, Mobutu Meet on Angola : Presidents of Zaire, South Africa Review Faltering Peace Plan

Making his first formal diplomatic foray into black Africa, South African President Frederik W. de Klerk met President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire on the banks of a volcanic lake Friday to discuss ways of patching up the faltering peace process in Angola.

Mobutu, reputed to be one of Africa’s most corrupt leaders but also a senior statesman and valued friend of the United States and South Africa, greeted De Klerk at this small city in eastern Zaire with a red carpet, a military honor guard and a brass band.

Trailed by about 100 South African officials and journalists, De Klerk and Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha stepped down from a South African Airways jet after a four-hour flight into central Africa and shook hands with Mobutu, who was wearing his trademark leopard-skin cap and carrying a carved walking stick.

De Klerk, who has been president only 11 days, spent nearly three hours with Mobutu, chatting in lawn chairs beneath a pink-and-green umbrella amid blooming bougainvillea at Mobutu’s summer palace on Lake Kivu, near the Rwanda border. Later the two men had a buffet lunch that included grilled pigeon and fried plantain.

‘Delicate Situation’ in Angola

The two leaders said their wide-ranging discussions covered the “delicate situation” in Angola, Zaire’s neighbor, where the U.S.-backed UNITA rebel movement on Thursday announced an end to a two-month-old truce brokered by Mobutu and Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda at Mobutu’s presidential palace in Gbadolite.

“These discussions were positive, opportune and constructive, particularly at this critical stage of development in Angola,” De Klerk and Mobutu said in a joint statement. Senior South African officials said later that both men had agreed to pursue individual diplomatic initiatives to keep the peace process in Angola alive.

South Africa and Zaire are supporters of UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, although Pretoria no longer provides direct military assistance.

De Klerk’s visit was part of an attempt to restore South Africa’s ragged reputation in black-ruled Africa, where it has long been accused of trying to destabilize other governments, by showing its willingness to contribute peaceful solutions to the region’s problems. The process was begun under De Klerk’s predecessor, Pieter W. Botha, who in the past year paid state visits to Mozambique, Malawi, Zaire and Ivory Coast. As Botha’s heir apparent last month, De Klerk visited Mozambique and met with President Joaquim Chissano.

Since De Klerk, the former education minister, became acting president Aug. 14, African leaders have been anxious to take his measure. De Klerk plans a meeting Monday in Zambia with Kaunda, Africa’s elder statesmen and patron of the African National Congress, the principal guerrilla group fighting white minority-led rule in South Africa.

De Klerk will probably use his meeting with Kaunda to express his concern about the peace process in Angola.

The apparent failure of the June 24 cease-fire in the 14-year-old civil war in Angola threatens one of southern Africa’s most important peace initiatives--the U.S.-mediated accord that began the steady pullout of Cuban troops from Angola and the independence process in South Africa-controlled Namibia.

African leaders had hoped that the removal of foreign troops from oil-rich Angola would open the way for peace talks between the Soviet-backed Marxist government and UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, which receives about $15 million a year in U.S. aid.

UNITA and the Angolan government began peace talks in June, but several attempts to restart the negotiations under Mobutu’s leadership have failed. Both sides have charged violations of the cease-fire, and Cuban President Fidel Castro, in a letter to the United Nations this month, complained about what he said was a UNITA attack on his troops in which six soldiers died. Castro threatened to halt his troop withdrawal.

UNITA was not a party to the three-nation agreement that provides for the withdrawal of Cuban troops and Namibian independence.

UNITA’s Savimbi and Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos reportedly shook hands on a cease-fire in the war, which has raged since Angola was granted independence from Portugal in 1975. But since then, the government and Savimbi have disagreed sharply about what was decided that day.

Angola says Savimbi agreed, in closed-door sessions, to accept “temporary and voluntary” retirement and the integration of UNITA members into the government. But Savimbi has said he never agreed to bow out of Angolan politics, and he has demanded a role in a coalition government.

Rejects Angolan Version

On Thursday, Savimbi issued a statement from his rebel headquarters saying that he “violently rejects” the Angolan government’s version of that agreement and the meddling of other African states. While UNITA remains willing to discuss peace, Savimbi said, the cease-fire is over.

“The Angolan people, to their infinite sorrow, accept that the war has restarted,” Savimbi said in the statement. Botha, South Africa’s foreign minister, said the statement indicated only that UNITA had ordered its forces to “remain on alert,” not begin an offensive.

Savimbi has close ties with both Mobutu and South Africa, and two weeks ago he met for 14 hours in Pretoria with representatives of both governments in an attempt to keep the Angolan peace talks on track.

Mobutu, 58, has been praised by African leaders for his efforts to end the war in Angola. And he his risked his diplomatic reputation to convince black African leaders of the importance of meeting with South Africa. More than 40 countries in Africa trade with South Africa, but only a handful do so openly and only one, Malawi, has formal diplomatic relations with South Africa.

Mobutu has long had a close relationship with South Africa. Not only has he encouraged trade between the two countries, but Mobutu’s Gbadolite palace gardens were landscaped by the gardening columnist of a South African newspaper.

Mobutu’s domestic policies, however, have been widely criticized. He presides over a country that some African experts have labeled a “kleptocracy.” In nearly 25 years in power here, he has managed to accumulate a personal fortune estimated at well over $50 million while his country, despite abundant natural resources, remains one of the poorest in Africa.