The State Department v. the freedom-fighters.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT V. THE FREEDOM-FIGHTERS

DURING THE 1970s and the early 1980s, anti-Communist resistance movements erupted throughout the Soviet empire. One of Ronald Reagan's more significant initiatives was his latching onto this development to make it the centerpiece of a new "post-Vietnam-era" foreign policy. The subtleties of what has come to the called--not by Reagan--the Reagan Doctrine have yet to be defined, but the cornerstone of the policy is support for the insurgencies.

Ironically, the most damaging opposition to this policy has come from within Reagan's own State Department. Even congressional liberals have been more cooperative: At least some liberal-Democratic congressmen support each of the resistance movements; the State Department at one point or another has effectively opposed, or at least resisted aiding, all of them. In general, State cooperates only when maximum presidential attention is focused on a particular insurgency. Thus, in the recent past, State has opposed or obstructed aid to the anti-Communist resistance group in Cambodia, the Renamo guerrillas in Mozambique, Jonas Savimbi's UNITA forces in Angola, and the Mujahedin in Afghanistan. Lately State has been helpful to the Contra forces in Nicaragua; but before Central America became a top priority for the President, some offices in State were actively undermining resistance to the Sandinistas.

Chester Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has become a particular bete noire of anti-Communist supporters of the Reagan policy. There is a certain irony here, fot at the beginning of Reagan's first term, Crocker (then director of African studies at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies) was singled out in The Conservative Decade by James C. Roberts--a movement conservative--as "one of the best" among a "number of superbly qualified analysts of a conservative cast" at the center.

Yet by Reagan's second term, Crocker's handling of policy for southern Africa (i.e., Angola and Mozambique) had come to symbolize, for most conservatives, State's sabotage of the anti-Communist insurgencies. Under Crocker, State's policy has been to ignore or disparage the opportunities presented by UNITA and Renamo. Instead, his efforts have centered on an attempt to "constructively engage" Angola's Marxist MPLA regime into sending home some 35,000 Cuban troops in exchange for South African withdrawal from Namibia (itself threatened by the Marxist, MPLA-backed SWAPO).

THESE NEGOTIATIONS have been going on for almost five years. So far they have not removed a single Cuban soldier from Angolan soil. In fact, during this whole period, the number of Cuban troops and other East-bloc personnel in Angola has steadily increased. Yet each year the State Department has claimed that the negotiations were on the verge of a major agreement. This year, conservative congressman Jim Courter (R., N.J.) points out, "the critical point in negotiations came in early March, when President Botha [of South Africa] offered the Angolan MPLA what has in essence been its own negotiating position: South African withdrawal from Namibia in exchange for Cuban withdrawal from Angola. [MPLA boss Jose Eduardo] dos Santos turned it down. That proves his talk is cheap, and it indicates that without the Cubans his government would fall."

Did this convince State that negotiations had collapsed, and that it should perhaps consider actively seeking military aid for Savimbi and UNITA, at the very least to push dos Santos toward serious negotiations? After all, I pointed out to a State Department spokesman, this is U.S. policy in Nicaragua--to support military aid for the Contras in order to force the Sandinistas into genuine negotiations.

"I won't draw that comparison," my spokesman from State said. Furthermore, the talks with the MPLA had not collapsed: "It is incorrect to say [that the Angolan government] rejected Botha's offer." How so, since there has yet to be any agreement by the Angolan Marxists to withdraw Cuban troops? Where is the positive sign? "They [the MPLA] have accepted the principle of linkage. In 1984, they agreed to withdraw twenty thousand Cuban troops in three years in exchange for immediate implementation of UN Resolution 435 [South African withdrawal from Namibia], to be completed in a year. This was not acceptable to the U.S., but it showed the MPLA, in principle, accepted linkage." It was a relief to hear that the hard-as-nails realists at State turned down a deal that would have (at best) legt half the Cubans in Angola in exchange for turning Namibia over to the SWAPO Communists.

President Reagan has said that the "starting point" for any negotiations to settle regional conflicts such as the one in Angola is the inclusion of all the warring parties. I asked my spokesman if Savimbi was a party to the Angolan talks. Savimbi is "consulted," I was told--which means no.

"Look, no military solution is possible in Angola," the spokesman declared. "UNITA cannot push the MPLA out as long as there are Cuban tropps. And we've got to convince the MPLA also that the military option is out. We'll make use of Savimbi's pressure to get the MPLA to see this and realize that a negotiated settlement is the only way." Isn't the only pressure Savimbi can exert military? "So what's your question?" the spokesman asked, getting a little testy now.

I tried again: "If the only pressure Savimbi can exert is military, will the State Department actively encourage military aid for UNITA?"

He replied: "We have always and we continue to support effective aid for UNITA."

That's not what the boys from State said last year. "We asked for a briefing late last year with officials from the State Department," a congressional aide who works on Angola told me. "They said they had no position on aid. But in the course of the briefing, it became evident that State believed aid to UNITA would disrupt negotiations. This was at a time when the President was making 'Reagan Doctrinesque' speeches in support of aid to UNITA."

Jack Kemp relates a similar experience. "Congressman Claude Pepper and I sponsored legislation to provide $27 million in humanitarian aid for UNITA. The State Department opposed our bill, and continues to oppose our bill. Why? As a Foreign Service Officer told a member of my staff, 'The President doesn't have the Administration with him on this one.'"

STILL, BECAUSE of the President's oft-stated support for UNITA, State must give it at least nominal backing. Mozambique is another story. When I asked about support for Renamo, I was informed by the State Department that "U.S. interests would not be served by defending [this] moribund group. It is a bunch of ex-colonialists, with no political program and no leader." The CIA, however, says Afonso Dhlakama is the clearly recognized leader of Renamo and enjoys wide popular support. As for being ex-colonialists, Dhlakama himself defected from the Portuguese army to fight with Frelimo, the Communist faction currently in power in Mozambique. When Frelimo reneged on promises of power-sharing and free elections, Dhlakama joined Renamo. And Renamo does indeed have a political program, whose ten points include free elections and a free economy.

Under the leadership of Samora Machel, Mozambique, once fairly prosperous, has become a famine-wracked economic basket case. In addition, Machel has managed to run up one of the worst human-rights records in southern African and has consistently voted against the U.S. at the United Nations.

All that is changing, however, according to the State Department. Machel has given "many signs," State says, of wanting to edge away from the Soviets and toward the West. In exchange for Mozambique's alleged swing to the West, State last year asked Congress to approve $40 million in aid for Mozambique, $1.1 million of it in military aid.

One of the most powerful signs of Americans who want to help the Afghans." But, Wilson continues, "there are five who don't. Unfortunately, they are all in the State Department."

Wilson's remarks came during a congressional hearing to discuss UN talks on Afghanistan that the United States recently agreed to guarantee. The parties to these talks are to be Pakistan and the puppet regime in Kabul. In certain ways, these talks are very similar to the talks the State Department has engaged in with Angola: They include no representatives of the anti-Communist resistance, and they offer no provisions for internal reconciliation. Despite these drawbacks, State favored American involvement.

Jeane Kirkpatrick, testifying at this hearing, was not so sure: "To be a party in negotiations which don't meet the minimum standards set by the President makes us seem as if we are not serious, as if the President made them for rhetorical effect. We should not set standards and then become part of negotiations that don't meet those standards."

At another congressional hearing on this subject, Senator Gordon Humphrey (R., N.H.) was curious as to how the United States became the guarantor of such talks. Did the President give his approval to this decision? Humphrey asked Robert Peck, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.

"The decision was thoroughly vetted up and down the Administration," Mr. Peck replied. Yes, but did the President himself give the go-ahead? Again, the same response: "The decision was thoroughly vetted up and down the Administration." Perhaps the President didn't have the Administration with him on this one either.

Representative Stephen Solarz (D., N.Y.), who chaired the hearing, wanted to know what kind of agreement we would guarantee. Mr. Peck replied that the U.S. would only guarantee an agreement it found acceptable, and no other. Yes, but what kind of agreement would be acceptable? Solarz asked. Would we consider an agreement that called for an immediate end to aid for the Mujahedin while allowing, say, up to a year for the Soviets to withdraw their troops? Or would we insist that any withdrawal of aid for the Mujahedin be timed to the withdrawal of Soviet troops? "I am uncomfortable answering that," Mr. Peck responded, "given the state of flux the talks are in now."

There is a clear State Department policy toward the freedom-fighters, and it has little to do with the "Reagan Doctrine." Only in Nicaragua has State aggressively pursued Reagan's policy of strengthening resistance movements with the goal of either wringing real concessions from Communist governments or, if necessary, driving them from power. In every other case--that is, in every case in which State Department officials have had room to maneuver--State's policy rests implicitly on the assumption that it is possible simply to negotiate satellites out of the Communist orbit.

By the standards of the resistance movements and their American supporters, this is nonsense. But State's standards are a bit different. As Tom Bethell has pointed out in these pages, State Department officials quite rightly see their jobs in terms not of foreign policy but of diplomacy--that is, the peaceful resolution of disputes between countries. Leave foreign policy in the hands of the State Department bureaucracy, and inevitably the highest goal of that policy will be to avoid unseemly confrontations with the Soviets or their proxies. Actually gaining ground against the Soviet empire will be a secondary consideration at best; and if negotiations don't offer much hope of liberating any Soviet satellites, neither do they violate the prime directive. Such a policy will not always serve American interests, but that won't be the State Department's fault.

The Reagan Doctrine offers many things; it cannot offer a world in which we never confront our enemies. It is too realistic for that. Guerrilla wars, even those fought on behalf of freedom and human rights, are unseemly, nasty things. The Great Communicator cannot afford to remain the Great Delegator if support for anti-Communist insurgencies is to become a basic tenet of U.S. foreign policy. Failing this, the Reagan Doctrine, like the Nixon and Carter Doctrines before it, will become a piece of political trivia. And so will the freedom-fighters.