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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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070389
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07038900.056
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1990-09-22
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WORLD, Page 28ANGOLA"We Have Taken the First Step"African leaders push two old enemies toward a cease-fire
President Mobutu Sese Seko's country estate, a marble-studded
palace set amid flowers and fountains in northern Zaire, is
sometimes called "Versailles-in-the-Jungle." The nickname, a
reminder of the treaty that ended World War I, seemed especially
apt last week as Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos and rebel
leader Jonas Savimbi, the main antagonists in a 14-year-old civil
war, met there for a handshake that might lead to a formal peace
agreement.
For years Dos Santos had denounced Savimbi as a traitor for
accepting covert military aid from the U.S. and South Africa, and
insisted he could make peace with Savimbi's National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), but never with its leader.
The dislike was mutual. Savimbi never ceased deriding "Dos Santos
and his gang" as puppets for introducing "Russian-Cuban
imperialism" into Angola.
For a few hours last week, all the insults seemed forgotten.
At the end of the one-day summit, attended by 17 other African
leaders, the Angolans announced that they had agreed to a
cease-fire and the opening of peace talks. Said Dos Santos: "We
have taken the first step."
Angola's civil war, a conflict that has devastated the country
and taken the lives of an estimated 100,000 people, began when the
Portuguese colonial government pulled out in 1975. The Marxist
leadership in Luanda immediately accepted military and economic aid
from the Soviet Union and troop support from Cuba; UNITA turned for
help to the U.S. and South Africa. With neither side able to
prevail in an increasingly costly and bloody contest, the first
step toward conciliation was finally taken last December. After
eight years of U.S.-brokered negotiations, South Africa agreed to
grant independence to Namibia, the southwest African territory it
had administered since 1914, in return for a Cuban promise to pull
its 50,000 soldiers out of Angola.
With the departure of Cuban and South African forces under way,
Dos Santos offered amnesty and "reintegration" to UNITA's 75,000
guerrilla fighters -- with the notable exception of their
commander. Savimbi pledged to keep fighting until Dos Santos
accepted his demands for a multiparty state and free elections in
which UNITA could take part.
While few details were known about last week's discussions, the
two sides agreed to the establishment of a mediation commission
under Mobutu's chairmanship to deal with "technical" issues and to
meet again in Zimbabwe in August. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda,
who sat in on the talks, said afterward that Savimbi would leave
Angola for voluntary exile. Other participants doubted that,
however, assuming that Savimbi would want to stay on the scene to
keep UNITA alive as a political movement. The biggest obstacle to
a final agreement may arise if Dos Santos remains determined to
preserve Angola's Marxist one-party system and his control of that
system.
A major beneficiary of the summit was Mobutu. The Zairian
President will be in Washington this week for meetings with
President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker. Mobutu's role
in bringing the Angolan opponents together may mute criticism of
human-rights abuses and government corruption in Zaire. U.S.
Congressmen, who are considering an Administration request for
extended aid for UNITA, will also be eager to hear Mobutu's
assessment of the chances for peace. The Zairian is expected to
call on all outsiders, including the U.S., to cut off military aid
to the combatants.
Progress toward peace in Angola may produce a spillover effect
elsewhere in Africa. The government of President Joaquim Chissano
in Mozambique, another war-torn former Portuguese colony, is
reportedly ready to open negotiations with the insurgents of the
Mozambique National Resistance, a brutal movement whose 14-year
antigovernment campaign has laid waste to the economy and killed
thousands of civilians. Chissano was among those who persuaded Dos
Santos to talk peace with UNITA -- and may wind up taking his own
advice.