Now, Back to the Battlefield

"No agreement! No resolution! We have failed the people of Angola!" So said Kenya's Vice President Daniel Arap Moi last week after the collapse of the Organization of African Unity's emergency summit meeting on the Angolan civil war. After three frustrating days of talks in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, the delegates from the 46 O.A.U. nations gave up their effort to find a way to halt the fighting. In fact, all they were able to do was demonstrate just how little unity there is in the O.A.U. The delegates not only failed to adopt a resolution on Angola, they could not even agree on a final communique. Concluded Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda: "Our failure to find a solution here confirms that the O.A.U. has no power to shape the destiny of Africa."

Neutral Host. The conference was deadlocked from its opening moments. On one side were the 22 nations that back the Soviet-sponsored Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.), which has been receiving massive arms aid from the U.S.S.R. and is being helped on the battlefield by some 7,500 Cubans. The M.P.L.A.'S supporters at the O.A.U. included all the former Portuguese African colonies, as well as such leftist states as Guinea, Somalia and Algeria; they endorsed a resolution proposed by Nigeria's strongman, General Murtala Mohammed, urging the recognition of the M.P.L.A. as the legitimate government of Angola. The resolution also called on the O.A.U. to aid the M.P.L.A. in its fight against its two Western-backed opponents, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The Nigerian proposal was opposed by 22 other nations, among them Zaire, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. In what was quickly labeled a "national unity" resolution, presented by Senegalese President Leopold Senghor, this group urged that all fighting in Angola cease immediately and a government of national unity be formed. The resolution further called for an end to all outside military aid to Angola, a demand that was aimed at both the Soviet and Cuban support for the M.P.L.A. and the help the other two factions have been receiving from Zaire, South Africa and the West.

As the summit's host, Ethiopia felt it should remain neutral; Uganda also abstained from the voting because its leader, Field Marshal Idi Amin, is O.A.U. chairman. If South Africa were to withdraw its forces from Angola, most of Black Africa might favor an immediate cease-fire and the installation of a coalition government in Luanda, which would give a voice to each of the country's varied regional, tribal and political factions. No regime, for example, could govern effectively without the cooperation of the pro-UNITA Ovimbundu tribe in the south. Yet many African states have been unwilling to back the national-unity solution as long as the F.N.L.A.-UNITA coalition is aided by the hated South Africans.

Despite some impassioned speech-making and nearly nonstop lobbying in and around O.A.U. headquarters, neither side budged from its opening position.

At times the mood in the O.A.U.'s Africa Hall turned ugly. Reported TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs from Addis Ababa: "One African leader who has attended every O.A.U. summit said that he had never heard such foul or threatening language. When Ethiopia seemed about to join the backers of the M.P.L.A., for example, two opposing delegates threatened to recognize the Eritrean Liberation Front--insurgents who are fighting the Ethiopian government. The summit's most stabilizing force, ironically, was the usually mercurial Idi Amin, who tried mightily to find some ground for compromise."

Soviet Tanks. Before the summit began, it had seemed that the Soviet-backed M.P.L.A. would easily pick up the votes needed to give it an ardently sought O.A.U. imprimatur. Thus the deadlock was a slight victory for the F.N.L.A.-UNITA coalition. But UNITA Leader Jonas Savimbi cautioned that"we still see a government of national unity as the only answer."

After the summit's failure, the fighting in Angola surged. M.P.L.A. forces, using Soviet tanks and rockets, shelled the port town of Ambriz in the north, forcing the F.N.L.A. to abandon it without a fight. In fact, the F.N.L.A. has now evacuated all but one of its key outposts and is withdrawing toward sanctuaries in neighboring Zaire, from where it plans to pursue a guerrilla-style war. In the southeast, meanwhile, a powerful M.P.L.A. column, reportedly composed of some 1,000 Angolans and 500 Cubans, was marching toward the railway town of Luso, an important UNITA stronghold.

South Africa feared that an upsurge of fighting on the war's southern front would draw Pretoria more deeply into the conflict. Last week South Africa reluctantly mobilized seven additional regiments of its reserves, while economists grimly warned of a drop in living standards--now the highest on the continent--if defense outlays rise.

Angola is high on the list of topics for discussion that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is bringing with him to Moscow this week. He may try to persuade the Russians to pressure its M.P.L.A. client into accepting some form of coalition government in Luanda. The elimination of the F.N.L.A. from the battlefield may make a coalition more likely; while the M.P.L.A. and the F.N.L.A. have been archenemies for various reasons, including old tribal animosities, the Soviet-backed group and UNITA are not irretrievably far apart.

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