Clandestine flights carrying arms and supplies to Unita in Angola will be curtailed after disclosures, reports John Grobler
The arrest of nine South African men when their DC-4 was forced down by an Angolan Air Force Mig-21 at Menongue, the provincial capital of Cuando Cubango, two weeks ago, appears to have spelled the end — at least for the foreseeable future — of clandestine flights out of South Africa to supply beleaguered Unita leader Jonas Savimbi.
And with the pilot reportedly co-operating fully with Luanda’s state security, the seizure of the aircraft possibly also signals the beginning of the end of the rebel movement’s decades-long guerrilla campaign.
Angolan official television showed footage of the pilot, Captain Peter Bietzke, and his two crew members, with Bietzke confessing to having illegally flown more than 300 times into Angola, mostly to drop supplies to Unita at Andulo and Bailundo, the central highlands headquarters of Savimbi.
Bietzke was also reported in the Angolan press confessing to having flown arms to Unita in defiance of a United Nations ban in place since 1994.”I am a pilot and I fly for a living,” Bietzke was quoted as saying in the official Jornal de Angola. “If I did not do it, someone else would.”
Sources close to Angolan security said Bietzke “was singing like a canary”, providing details of smuggling operations and, in all likelihood, providing Luanda with precious details of Unita’s diamond- supplying route, the rebel movement’s main source of income, estimated at about $300- million a year.
This income is used to sustain the rebel hard-line faction in their bush headquarters in Bailundo — Unita’s more moderate faction in Parliament draws official salaries from the state as paid MPs.
The seizure of the aircraft appears to have been a major blow to Savimbi and his hard- liners still holding out in the bush. Reports filtering back via the Angolan non- governmental organisations community indicate that Unita may be facing starvation with its main supply route by civilian aircraft now exposed to attacks from the Angolan Air Force when they attempt to enter Angolan airspace.
“It’s the worst I have seen yet,” said an official, asking not to be named out of respect for the politically sensitive conditions under which she serves.
With nearly all supplies — including medicines and foodstuffs — prevented from reaching Savimbi at his Bailundo headquarters, his rumoured return to Luanda by the end of February has suddenly become much less of a choice than a measure of simple survival.
Observers of the Angolan situation speculate this may be the overture to a huge, final attack on Unita by their Luanda foes, committed to getting rid of Savimbi and his hard-line supporters once and for all.
The Angolan government has since the middle of last year successfully closed down Unita supply routes via Brazzaville and Kinshasa with the ousting of Pascal Lissouba and Mobutu sese Seko. It has also been reported to be pressuring Lusaka to close down any possible land supply routes from Zambian soil.
The nine South African men — Peter Bietzke, R Swanepoel, M Steyn, MJ Steyn, GW Allen, M van Eeckelen, MJ Jeffries, Johnny Perreira and a Mr Steenberg — are being held in Luanda, pending a final decision on their fate by the Angolan authorities.
Indications from Luanda are that the government intends trying them in court for as yet unspecified crimes. Technically, they can only be charged with violating Angolan airspace and entering Angolan territory illegally, for which they may receive a relatively small fine and expulsion.
But newspapers in Luanda report there is political pressure for a show trial, as with the mercenaries caught in early 1975 in Angola. Nine men were executed by firing squad after being found guilty of fighting on the side of the United States-backed FNLA against the Marxist-backed MPLA.
The DC-4 aircraft — thought to belong to a Belgian businessman — was apparently forced down by a Mig-21 and a Beechcraft KingAir of the Angolan Air Force, after it had put down at Andulo and was on the way to drop some mining supplies at Bailundo.
Questions have been raised about how the Angolan Air Force — which does not have any radar installations in the Cuando Cubango area — managed to intercept the South African aircraft. The US has been giving limited, non-lethal military support to the Angolan army since the Clinton administration recognised President Eduardo dos Santos’s government in 1993. This includes a radar installation at Lubango in southern Angola’s Huige province.
No arms were found on the aircraft, and Angolan television showed only some generators, corrugated sheets and other mining-related equipment on board.
No comment was available from the Angolan authorities, but speculation in pilots’ circles is that the nine men will try to negotiate their release in return for their full co-operation.