Guerrillas Angola

In a dramatic symbol of joint American and Soviet efforts to settle regional conflicts, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze each met simultaneously here Wednesday with representatives of an opposing side in the Angolan civil war. The two meetings in Washington provided strong new impetus for a cease-fire that would end Angola's 15-year-old civil war.

Reflecting the thaw in the Cold War, Congress is on the verge of hobbling all three ongoing covert U.S. military operations, including cutting about $50 million from the Bush Administration's $300-million request for rebels in Afghanistan, sources said Tuesday. The actions, believed to be the first substantial curtailment of the secret U.S. proxy wars in more than a decade, signal growing congressional impatience with the operations.

Angola's Marxist regime has offered an olive branch to rebels demanding political pluralism by announcing that it intends to move toward a multi-party system, diplomats said. The cautiously worded promise, made shortly before a further round of exploratory talks with the U.S.-backed rebels, could take a long time to put into practice, the diplomats said. But it is likely to give a lift to the peace process as talks resume in Portugal in the next few days, they added.

Nelson Mandela pointedly criticized U.S. aid to guerrillas battling the Marxist government in Angola on Sunday, the day before he is scheduled to meet with President Bush. After big rallies in New York and Boston, Mandela flew to the nation's capital Sunday where he met with reporters and editors from black-owned media outlets. During a question-and-answer session, Mandela said the United States should not be providing assistance to guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi.

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.

The Angolan army has killed 175 U.S.-backed UNITA guerrillas in recent fighting across the country, Angola's state-run news agency, Angop, said Thursday. In a report monitored in Lisbon, Angop said troops also captured five rebels and rescued 44 civilians kidnaped by UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. The report said the fighting took place Feb. 7-13.

Cuba on Thursday blamed the United States for a rebel attack on its troops in Angola last weekend and temporarily suspended the withdrawal of its forces from the African country. The decision halted a Cuban pullout of soldiers and equipment from Angola that has been under way since January, 1989, as part of regional peace accords between Angola, South Africa and Cuba. Under the agreement, South Africa halted support for the Angolan rebels and agreed to a U.N.

Pro-Western rebels in Angola have blunted a monthlong offensive by troops of the Marxist government, which is supported by Soviet advisers, the deputy chief of the insurgent organization said Wednesday. "At this moment, the fighting continues, but the outcome is quite predictable," said Jeremias Chitunda, deputy to Jonas Savimbi, chief of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Despite relaxation of East-West tensions, Soviet advisers in Africa have been sent into battle to support an offensive by the Marxist government of Angola to capture territory long held by pro-Western rebels, the Bush Administration said Monday. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler described the attack, by several thousand Angolan soldiers using tanks and other armored vehicles, as a "dangerous escalation" of the 14-year-old Angolan civil war.

The State Department denied Thursday that the crash of a CIA plane in Angola indicated the United States is acting like the Nicaraguan government it has accused of helping leftist rebels in El Salvador. Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler refused to confirm publicly, as other officials have said privately, that the plane was on a covert CIA mission to resupply Angolan rebels.