| From: | "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Block Address | Add to Address Book |
| To: | "Maceo Carillo Martinet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| Subject: | ex-CIA agent in Angola faults Kissinger |
| Date: | Mon, 1 Apr 2002 20:37:25 -0800 |
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Ex-CIA Man Criticizes Kissinger
By GEORGE GEDDA
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's support for the anti-communist faction in Angola's civil war during the mid-1970s was a major contributor to instability in southern Africa at that time, a former CIA official contends.
Robert Hultslander served as CIA station chief in Angola from August to November 1975, a time when the country became a Cold War battleground as it gained independence after centuries of Portuguese colonial rule.
Concerned about another Soviet conquest after the fall of South Vietnam in the spring of 1975, the Ford administration launched a covert operation in Angola to prevent the leftist MPLA from gaining power over two rival groups.
In response to Kissinger's thesis that an MPLA victory would have a destabilizing victory in southern Africa, Hultslander said: ``Of course, the opposite proved true. It was our policies which caused the destabilization.''
Efforts to reach Kissinger for comment were not immediately successful.
Hultslander's comments were in response to questions posed by Piero Gleijeses, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University, in preparation for his newly published book, ``Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976.''
Excerpts of Hultslander's comments and other documents were released Monday by the National Security Archive, an independent, non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington.
Hultslander said, ``Kissinger was determined to challenge the Soviet Union, although no vital U.S. interests were at stake,'' according to the documents.
Congress voted to end the covert U.S. operation in late 1975. The MPLA prevailed in the struggle, but has faced armed resistance from the UNITA rebels ever since.
During the Reagan administration, the congressional ban on U.S. involvement in Angola was lifted, and military aid was secretly funneled to UNITA for roughly six years.
Ironically, hopes for peace in the devastated country grew Saturday when the UNITA rebels said they intended to sign a cease-fire this week with the MPLA.
Hultslander said he came to the view in 1975 that the MPLA was better suited than UNITA or a third faction, the FNLA, to govern the fledgling country.
``Despite the uncontested communist background of many of the MPLA's leaders, they were more effective, better educated, better trained and better motivated,'' he said.
``The rank and file also were better motivated, particularly the armed combatants, who fought harder and with more determination.''
As part of this tumultuous period, South Africa sent troops to Angola to fight the MPLA, prompting Cuba to send troops in the MPLA's defense.
Gleijeses, citing information from newly declassified documents, said the United States initiated its covert operations in Angola weeks before the arrival of any Cubans, not afterward, as Washington claimed.
Cuba eventually sent 50,000 troops to Angola, finally withdrawing in the early 1990s as part of a U.S.-brokered deal.
[OF COURSE, THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO IT THAN THAT. AFTER CUBAN, ANGOLAN AND SWAPO (NAMIBIAN)TROOPS DESTROYED THE MYTH OF SOUTH AFRICAN MILITARY INVINCIBILITY AT THE CUBAN-LED BATTLE OF CUITO CUANAVALE, THE WHITE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA FOUND IT MORE AND MORE DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN POPULAR SUPPORT FOR THIS WAR AMONG WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS. ITS EVENTUAL AGREEMENT TO END HOSTILITIES ALSO INCLUDED ACCEPTANCE OF NAMIBIAN INDEPENDENCE. NELSON MANDELA HAS SAID ALL OF THIS UNDERMINED THE DOMESTIC POWER OF THE APARTHEID REGIME AND LED TO ITS DOWNFALL. CALLING THE PEACE AGREEMENT A "US BROKERED DEAL" GREATLY MISSTATES THAT HISTORY, ALTHOUGH THE US WAS AT THE NEGOTIATIONS. ON THE OTHER HAND, IF THE US HAD NOT SUPPORTED OR AT LEAST CONDONED UNITA'S MORE THAN TWO DECADES OF IGNORING AND VIOLATING THE PEACE AGREEMENTS, A GREAT MANY ANGOLAN LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SPARED. WE CAN JUST IMAGINE WHAT THE US WOULD HAVE DONE IF IT HAD BEEN THE MPLA, NOT UNITA, THAT HAD VIOLATED THOSE AGREEMENTS.kw]
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