Angola Foreign Relations South Africa

The government of Angola declared South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha persona non grata for allegedly giving support to the UNITA rebel group as tension continued to be high across the country. The government said Botha could visit Angola only if invited because Pretoria had supplied logistic aid to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in a recent flare-up of the conflict with government forces.

The government of Angola declared South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha persona non grata for allegedly giving support to the UNITA rebel group as tension continued to be high across the country. The government said Botha could visit Angola only if invited because Pretoria had supplied logistic aid to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in a recent flare-up of the conflict with government forces.

South Africa plans to complete a pullout from Angola today in compliance with a regional peace plan aimed at removing foreign troops from the country and granting independence to Namibia, the South African military said. An estimated 2,500 South African troops in Angola have been leaving since a cease-fire was declared Aug. 8. About 50,000 Cuban troops support Angola's Marxist government in its 13-year-old war against guerrillas of UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.

The African nation of Angola teetered on the brink of civil war Tuesday, just two weeks after its first free elections, as South African diplomats tried to dissuade presidential loser Jonas Savimbi from leading his guerrillas back into battle. Savimbi, the 58-year-old leader of a heavily armed and well-disciplined rebel force, appears ready to renege on his pre-election promise to abide by the results of the balloting. And the uncertainty has spawned sporadic fighting across the country.

Declaring that "progress was made," four nations involved in talks to end the 13-year-old Angolan civil war agreed Wednesday to meet again in Africa within the next few weeks. "The principle involved in an Angola-Namibia settlement does exist," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker, who headed the negotiations, the first of their kind in one of the world's longest regional conflicts. "It's ready to be pursued."

President Frederik W. de Klerk met Thursday with French President Francois Mitterrand, launching a nine-nation diplomatic offensive by becoming the first South African leader to visit the Elysee Palace in more than 40 years. The talks underscored the progress De Klerk has made in eight months as president toward easing South Africa's isolation and convincing Western leaders that he is serious about ending apartheid.

Angola's foreign minister Wednesday announced direct talks "within the next few days" between the Marxist government and the U.S.-backed UNITA rebels who have fought a decade-long civil war in the southern African nation. Pedro de Castro Van Dunem told reporters at a breakfast conference that the talks could begin in Portugal, the former colonial power in Angola that he credited with bringing the two sides together. But he said the exact time and place of the talks had not yet been fixed.

Jonas Savimbi, leader of Angola's UNITA rebels, met with South African President Frederik W. de Klerk to discuss a faltering peace accord with the Luanda government. In a rare public appearance after the meeting, Savimbi told a news conference in Pretoria: "I hope peace will get back on the rails."

Land mines are planted like maize and beans in the verdant, densely populated hills here, and the war's harvest of mutilados --mutilated ones--swings on crutches through the city streets. Hegino Lungi, 11, was one of several dozen people recently fitted with new legs by Red Cross workers who have given artificial limbs to 1,400 people in the last year. Lungi's right leg had disappeared in a flash of light when he stepped on a mine behind his home.

When Chester A. Crocker began the delicate task of selling his peace plan for southwestern Africa nearly eight years ago, he remembers plenty of resistance in African capitals. "There was a lot of broken furniture in the room during the first 18 months," said the 46-year-old assistant secretary of state. The notion of linking a Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola with independence for Angola's South African-controlled neighbor, Namibia, wasn't all that popular with any of the principal players.

Cuba, Angola and South Africa signed a historic agreement in this equatorial African capital Tuesday, committing themselves to a 27-month withdrawal of the approximately 50,000 Cuban troops in Angola and free elections next year in Namibia, the vast territory that South Africa has ruled for 73 years.