Angolan Rebels Capture Two Cubans After Shooting Down Their MIG

Angolan rebels said Friday that they had captured two Cubans after shooting down their MIG-23 jet over Angola’s eastern province of Moxico.

Cuba, in an unprecedented public admission, confirmed the incident in a Defense Ministry statement issued in Havana.

The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym UNITA, issued a statement here, identifying the Cubans as Lt. Col. Manuel Rocas Garcia and Capt. Ramos Cazados. It said they will be presented at a news conference in the rebels’ bush headquarters at Jamba next month.

UNITA said the Soviet-built jet was shot down Wednesday and that its two crewmen parachuted to safety but were captured by rebels near the town of Luvuei.

“One of the airmen is giving us valuable information which reveals that the morale of Cuban troops in Angola is extremely low,” the rebel statement said.

Quoting a Defense Ministry statement, Cuba’s state-run news agency, Prensa Latina, identified the two occupants of the Soviet-built plane as Lt. Col. Manuel Rojas Garcia and Capt. Ramon Quezada Aguilar.

It said that the plane “was shot down while on exploratory mission on Wednesday in the Lounze area, 12 kilometers (7.2 miles) southwest of Luvuei, province of Moxico, in the southeast of the country.”

UNITA, which is funded by the United States and South Africa in its fight against Angola’s Marxist government, said this week that it had routed the biggest government offensive against it in more than a decade of civil war.

It said that rebel leader Jonas Savimbi will hold a news conference Nov. 12 to discuss the impact of that success and to present the captured Cubans.

Cuba, Angola’s closest ally since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975, has an estimated 35,000 troops stationed in the African nation, plus thousands of civilian advisers and technicians.