Word: roberto
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...north, Holden Roberto's National Front for the Liberation of Angola seemed virtually finished. The scattered F.N.L.A. forces were withdrawing slowly through dense jungle toward the Zaïre border, blowing up bridges and destroying guns and ammunition that they could not carry with them. At week's end Cuban-led M.P.L.A. troops had pushed the F.N.L.A. to within 50 miles of the Zaïre border. It was apparently only a matter of time before Roberto's army lost control of Santo António do Zaïre, São Salvador and Maquela...
...support U.S. objectives in Angola. Zaire has in the past been open to many influences, and it is far from clear that the United States controls its policy. Zaire presently uses North Korean military advisors, for example. Also, President Mobuto of Zaire is the brother-in-law of Holden Roberto, leader of the FNLA, and this certainly is one other possible reason why Zaire has supported the FNLA...
...their fighting ability, Savimbi's administration and logistics are a shambles. UNITA battle claims are of ten embarrassing when not ludicrous. As for the F.N.L.A., its military is so oblivious of civilian suffering that starvation has become widespread. One mercenary who has been to Ambriz, F.N.L.A. Leader Holden Roberto's operations capital of the moment, reported that civilians were evacuated from the town and then simply dumped in the bush and left to their own devices...
...When Roberto's plane was late arriving for ceremonies inaugurating the two groups' joint government in Huambo last month, UNITA airport officials, tired of waiting, turned off the runway lights and went home. A furious Roberto was forced to return to Kinshasa. Recently there have been fistfights, stone-throwing and open fighting between soldiers of the two allies. In one Shootout in Huambo two weeks ago, 25 were killed. Although UNITA and F.N.L.A. commanders meet to plan strategy, there is no joint field command, and no soldier from one movement will take an order from an officer...
Third Parties. Zaïre insists that it has no troops in Angola, but Mobutu is openly supplying his longtime friend Holden Roberto, head of the F.N.L.A., with arms. U.S. law forbids foreign arms purchasers to pass them on to third parties, but as Zaïre receives new supplies of American weapons it will be free to send older Chinese and French materiel to Angola. In any case, the U.S. is already involved in the Angolan arms race; Washington is financing non-American arms deliveries to F.N.L.A. and UNITA through third parties...