Angola Rebel Chief Offers to Reopen Rail Line, Curb S. Africa’s Hold on Region

Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi offered Thursday to reopen the Benguela Railway, effectively closed for the past decade by his forces, so that neighboring Zambia and Zaire can avoid shipping their mineral exports through South Africa and thus take a stronger stand against Pretoria.

The proposal requires the agreement of Angola’s Marxist government, which Savimbi’s pro-Western movement, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, has been fighting since 1975. And in a gesture of “national reconciliation,” he also offered to allow the Angolan government to use the east-west railway through central Angola to ship anything but troops and military supplies.

Savimbi said that reopening the Benguela Railway--once one of Africa’s most important lines but now lucky to see more than one train a month--would be quicker and cheaper than rebuilding and protecting road and rail links to the Mozambican port of Beira from Zambia, Zaire and Zimbabwe as a way of reducing the economic dependence of those countries on South Africa.

“I am prepared to guarantee safe travel on the Benguela Railway through Angolan territory without any negotiations,” he said in a statement issued at his headquarters at Jamba, in southeastern Angola, and distributed in Washington.

Rules Out Military Use

The only condition, he added, is that the line not be used for military purposes and that this be ensured by an international inspection team.

If accepted, Savimbi’s proposal, intended to be too tempting to ignore, could greatly change the politics and economics of southern Africa. For example:

--Zambia, which now ships 65% of its exports through South Africa and gets 75% of its imports through this country, would again be able to ship most of its copper through Angola as it did before 1975. Zaire, which ships about 40% of its copper and cobalt exports through Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa, would also be able again to use the closer Angolan Atlantic Ocean ports.

--If a new rail line were built to link it to the Benguela line, landlocked Zimbabwe could lessen its present dependence for transshipment on politically hostile South Africa to the south and war-torn Mozambique on its eastern border.

Although they have helped lead the international campaign for economic sanctions against South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have themselves hesitated to apply sanctions, largely out of recognition of their own economic vulnerability and the likelihood of South Africa retaliation.

--Angola itself would regain vital rail revenues, which totaled about $100 million a year before the line’s effective closure in 1976. Reopening the 810-mile-long railway might also permit some redevelopment of the country’s inland economy, including the mining of valuable iron ore and other mineral and metal deposits along the line.

But if it accepts the Savimbi offer, the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which came to power with the end of Portuguese rule in November, 1975, would face tough political, military and diplomatic decisions that could draw it into a truce and even a cooperative relationship with Savimbi.

--South Africa, which makes strategic use of its extensive system of railways and ports in dominating the region, would be weakened, politically as well as economically, by the loss of the Zambian, Zairian and possibly Zimbabwean cargoes.

Supported by Pretoria

Ironically, Pretoria over the past decade has been the biggest supporter of Savimbi’s guerrilla movement, known as UNITA, and Savimbi has been one of the few African leaders willing to meet openly with South African leaders.

Apparently caught by surprise by Savimbi’s statement Thursday, the South African Foreign Ministry declined to comment until it had assessed the full implications of the proposal.

American diplomats, studying the initiative, assessed it against a proposal to develop the “Beira corridor” from Zimbabwe about 300 miles to Mozambique’s Indian Ocean port of Beira on the southeastern coast of Africa. They tend toward the view that Mozambique is the key to the region’s stability and to the effectiveness of any effort by neighboring countries to put pressure on Pretoria to end apartheid.

Savimbi Reasons Listed

Savimbi, seeking to broaden his support in the United States, is prepared to argue that his Benguela proposal will accomplish the same goals more quickly, more surely and at a lower cost.