South African troops have advanced more than 600 miles into Angola. I and four The South African force is fighting alongside units of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation that South Africa does not intend getting involved in the civil war in Angola'.
UNITA too has sought to deny charges that it has received South African aid. Speaking in New York on Angola's formal Independence Day, 11 November, UNITA's representative in the United States, Jeremiah Chitunda, said that South African intervention on behalf of an Angolan liberation movement does not exist.
UNITA's Department of Information in Lusaka, Zambia, charged on 16 November that 'both radio and press have been presented with false reports that white South African soldiers were fighting alongside UNITA forces in Lobito and Southern Angola'. UNITA alleged that 'without confirming their nationality', visiting journalists had mistaken white Angolans in UNITA's army for white South African soldiers.
NO DOUBT But I, a correspondent of Reuters and a Japanese journalist were able to verify that these soldiers were not white Angolans when we were allowed - - due to a temporary lapse of UNITA security - to interview three white soldiers at the UNITA-held Silva Porto airport, 442 miles south-west of Luanda. They were driving two Panhard armoured cars daubea with "Viva Unita' slogans. The men could not with strong and unmistakable South African accents. I, along with a British television crew and representatives of Reuters and the New York Times, saw over 50 South African soldiers stacking arms crates at Benguela airport on 10 November. Two more Panhard armoured cars, manned by young, sandy-haired soldiers, guarded the airport access road. Aged between 18 and 20, these soldiers were too young to be mercenaries and appeared to be regular conscript soldiers.
The Southern African intervention proves that the detente policies pursued by the neocolonial regimes in 'independent' Africa towards the white-ruled south of the continent have emboldened the South African racists to act with even more cavalier disregard for the rights of the African masses. The invasion is not, as it might appear on the surface, inconsistent with South Africa's detente offensive, but designed to promote it.
South African prime mininster John Vorster has calculated that intervention by his army at this stage can tip the balance in favour of political forces firmly committed to collaboration with South Africa. UNITA's strong pro-detente line has been spelt out on numerous occasions in interviews granted to foreign journalists.
"REALISTIC"
In an interview with the Luanda publication Portuguese Africa, UNITA's leader Jonas Savimbi stated on 28 April that economic cooperation with South Africa is only realism, however much we may be opposed to the in humanity and injustice of apartheid. The 2 May issue of the bulletin went on to report:
*Dr Savimbi said he was in favour of detente and of dialogue as a means of solving problems, and that he did not believe, in the present Southern African context, that armed liberation wars were necessarily the solution for the problems of Namibia and Zimbabwe. Dr Savimbi said he believed that South Africa's Premier, John Vorster, is a responsible leader'' African imperialism must also welcome Savimbi's espousal of the virtues of a free enterprise economy. In the same interview, Savimbi favoured a state that would leave as much as possible of the economy to private enterprise He stated that we welcome any source of foreign investment, and South Africa certainly knew that its dispatch of troops to Angola would meet with little response from the neo-colonial African states and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). MPLA president Agostinho Neto has charged, during an interview with the Algerian press agency APS on 22 November, that "most African countries are betraying us by remaining silent in such a situation and avoiding condemnation of South Africa.
Countries like Zambia, which have played a key part in promoting the detente with South Africa, have issued no protests against the invasion - though, according to London Observer correspondent David Martin, who was granted an interview with Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda on 22 November, Zambia was first informed of South African intervention in early September.
Kaunda, who has described Vorster's detente propaganda as the 'voice of reason', has also given Savimbi strong support. UNITA has been promoted in the strictly government-controlled Zambian press, and material aid to UNITA has been funnelled through Zambia's ruling (and only legal party, the United National Independence Party (UNIP).
British journalists here have seen large crates of British-made radio equipment airfreighted out of Lusaka International Airport to UNITA territory. The crates had been sent from Racal Communications Ltd., a major British telecommunications firm, to UNIP for forwarding to UNITA.
Another factor behind Kaunda's backing for UNITA is his Government's desire to reppen the strategic Benguela Railway (now controlled entirely by UNITA except in the extreme north-east), which has been used in the past to export over 45 per cent of Zambia's annual copper production of around 700,000 tons. Zambia earns over 90 per cent of its foreign exchange from copper exports, and has been hit hard by the closure of the railway since mid-August. 146,000 tons of imports destined for Zambia have also been held up at the port of Lobito because of the railway's shut-down.
MERCENARIES
American mercenaries are also helping the UNITA war effort. I was told by a trans. lator working at UNITA's Capola training camp near Silva Porto that 15 Americans were based at the camp as instructors. ex-Green Beret named 'Skip' told me that he had offered his services as a trained pilot to UNITA It is widely believed that most of the war material arriving for UNITA and the FLA is routed through Zaire, a major recipient of United States military aid. The Ford administration revealed on 26 October that it was about to propose to the US Congress a 19 mil lion dollar military aid programme for Zaire in addition to 60 million dollars of emergency financial aid already under consideration. This would amount to a more than fivefold increase in US military aid to Zaire.
ARMS RUNS
According to pilots at Silva Porto airport, a Pearl Air Viscount runs a daily arms run for UNITA from Kinshasa, the Zaire capital. Unmarked transport planes are also landing tons of heavy weapons at Benguela airport, apparently the main supply point for the advancing South African-FNLA-UNITA force on the coast. We saw a giant camouflaged Hercules touch down only minutes after our arrival at the airfield.
E0 Ireland. Australia From JOHN MAGEE in BELFAST Ked Weekly I December 1975
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tell give the investor all facilities and guaran- BETRAYAL