Cuba, Angola and S. Africa Reach Accord on Namibia

GENEVA —  Cuban, Angolan and South African negotiators agreed today, subject to approval by their governments, on the terms and timetables for a Cuban withdrawal from Angola in exchange for Namibian independence, a South African official said.

“If our governments approve the document we have negotiated here, then we are looking to Brazzaville (Congo) to sign,” chief South African negotiator Neil van Heerden told reporters after a joint meeting in which celebratory champagne flowed.

Cuban and Angolan delegates confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

“We are satisfied,” said Cuban delegation leader Carlos Aldana. “It has been a very laborious, very intense process. We are at the towering moment. With a constructive will we are now moving to Brazzaville.”

Asked whether Cuba is ready to withdraw its estimated 52,000 troops, which have been there since shortly after Angola’s 1975 independence, Aldana said: “We are ready to bring them home. It is time.”

No timetable was announced. Van Heerden said no deadline had been set for approval by the respective governments but added that if accepted this will be the final round.

The negotiators in Geneva are not authorized to sign a final agreement.

U.S. Mediator

The current five-day round of talks, mediated by Chester Crocker, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was the ninth since May.

Under negotiation were undertakings by Cuba to pull out of Angola and by South Africa to permit the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 435 under which seven decades of white South African rule in Namibia would end.

Crocker had proposed that the Cubans leave within two years from the start of implementation of Resolution 435, delegates said, but this timetable was adjusted during the negotiations.

Although delegates said today’s agreement covered the terms and timetable of the withdrawal, the actual starting date will still have to be settled.

“We arrived at a consensus on an agreement that our governments must confirm,” said Angolan delegation chief Gen. Antonio dos Santos Franca, known as “Ndalu.”

“The implementation date is not yet decided. That must be decided in Brazzaville.”