The United States appears to have suddenly shifted its policy towards Angola. While so far it had held Angola guilty of involvement in the recent attack on Zaire’s Shaba province by Katangese rebels, it has now acknowledged that on its part President Mobutu’s government, too, has encouraged and supported armed incursions from its side of the border. Indeed, the secretary of state, Mr. Cyrus Vance, has warned Zaire that if it wants to avoid “more Shaba incidents”, it must not interfere in Angola’s internal affairs. Similarly, instead of accusing Angola of serving as a pawn of the Soviet Union and Cuba in Africa, Mr. Vance has said that the Soviet and Cuban role in the Shaba incident has been “overblown” and that the United States wants to increase consultations with Angola in order “to improve the prospects of reconciliation between Angola and Zaire as well as for achieving a peaceful settlement in Namibia”. The latter point is particularly noteworthy because it is the first time that a top US official has explicitly recognised the Angolan government’s potential for influencing SWAPO, the nationalist organization in Namibia which the Vorster regime in Pretoria has been trying to bypass in order to perpetuate its hold on that territory. Incidentally, Mr. Vance has also warned Somalia not to encourage insurgency in the Ogaden province of Ethiopia and dropped a broad enough hint that his government wishes to improve lies with Addis Ababa. The US has already provided 1.5 million dollars for the victims of famine in that country and promised to help fight against the spread of locusts there. These are token gestures but they can lead to some more substantial ones.
Some of the observations Mr. Vance has made in his testimony before a congressional committee and in a speech in New Jersey contradict what President Carter himself has been saying. Who, for instance, has “overblown” the Soviet-Cuban role in the Shaba incident if not President Carter and his national security adviser, Prof. Brzezinski? In fact the US chief executive had refused to accept President Castro’s explicit statements that the latter had tried to restrain the Katangese rebels and let loose a propaganda war against Cuba. This point cannot be ignored because it is possible that under the influence of Mr. Brzezinski and others, who view recent developments in Africa in terms of the East-West competition, he may revert to this line again. But at the moment it need not be over-emphasized because it appears that for the time being at least Mr. Vance, Mr. Andrew Young and the specialists in the state department have had their way. They are not interested in reviving the cold war with the Soviet Union and reversing the process of normalization of relations vis-à-vis Cuba. This may or may not produce immediate progress in SALT-II negotiations. But hopefully it may prevent an unnecessary and dangerous deterioration in Soviet-U.S. overall relations.