w£a Dit
Eighty-Six Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Wednesday, January 7, 1976 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
IF LILI EDirWLV~jIO
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Angola:

The

Cold

WTar revisited

AP Photo
Troops of the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(MPLA) listen to political lecture during training on Luanda parade ground.
B eyod Angola...
0 .. Fa minle in Africa

Stop U.S. mercenary aid

LAST DECEMBER, when Congress
shut down President Ford's at-
tempt to bolster pro-Western Ango-
lan forces with a multi-million dol-
lar dose of American aid, most ob-
servers assumed the legislature's ver-
dict to be clear and final. Then last
week, in an NBC interview, Ford dis-
closed that American money is be-
ing poured into mercenary factions
active in Angola whose motives con-
cur with Ford's.
The same non-interventionist ar-
guments which ultimately defused
America's Vietnam policy clearly ap-
ply to the Angola situation. Con-
gress, along with its constituency,
Photography Staff
'KEN FINK PAULINE LUBENS
Chief Photographer Picture Editor
Editorial Staff
E. SUSAN SHEINER ......., Staff Photographer
GORDON ATOHESON CHERYL PTLATE
Co-Editors-in-Chief
DAVID BLOMQUIST ................ Arts Editor
BARBARA CORNELL .. Sunday Magazine Editor
PAUL HASKINS ..............EditorialnDirector
MARY LONG .. Sunday Magazine Editor
JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY Sunday Magazine Editor
SARA RIMER...................Executive Editor
STEPHEN SELBST...................City Editor
JEFF SORENSON.Managing Editor
STAFF WRITERS. Tom Allen, Glen Allerh and,
TH MISREPRESENTATION OF
THE PRE5VIENT'S IMAGE MUST
6TOP! 1E I 5 NOT THE BUMBLING,
INEPT, CLUMSY PRESIPENT lHAT
CARTOONISTS AND COMEPIANS
PORTRAY!
~~a
) ~
*

learned its lesson the hard way in
Southeast Asia, and the lopsided
anti - Angola aid vote dramatically
demonstrated legislative aversion to
the prospect of another Vietnam.
Now Ford, by authorizing and de-
fending U. S. aid to mercenary activ-
ities in Angola, is attempting to
strong-arm Congress and the law
where persuasion failed.
American activities in Angola are
cut from the same cloth as the hush-
ed-up Cambodian invasion of 1970
and U.S. bombing of the plain of jars
in Laos.
The fact that Ford chooses to ad-
mit surreptitious if indirect U. S. in-
volvement in this case makes it no
less appalling.
Congress must no allow the admin-
istration to wriggle its way out of
every directive not to its liking.
If the lawmakers sit back and let
Ford get away with the Angolan
gamble they are no better than he,
violators of both the lessons of the
recent past and the law.
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Jay Levin, Cheryl Pilate, Jeff
Ristine, Steve Selbst
Editorial Page: Paul Haskins
Arts: Joshua Becker, David Blomquist
Photo Technician: Steve Kagan

By BRUCE WATSON
Jan. 1 (PNS) - As the U.S.
pours military aid into Angola,
millions of malnourished Afri-
cans 1,500 miles to the north
await U.S. aid for their drought-
ridden region.
International relief came
quickly in 1973-74 when West
Africa's Sahel desert was hit
by mass starvation following
a seven-year drought. But since
rains ended the emergency a
year ago, interest in helping
the Sahel has nearly evapora-
ted.
A long-term U.S.-sponsored
development program for the
Sahel has been mired so long
in bureaucratic red tape that
its chances for passing Con-
gress may now be in jeopardy.
It took the U.S. Agen-
cy for International Develop-
ment (AID) a full year to de-
velop an initial proposal for
the Sahel rehabilitation projezt.
("One doesn't convert from
drought relief to long-term de-
velopment overnight," srys
AID official Irving Rosenthal.)
Then it took three more months
before Congress recently au-
thorized $5 million to AID to
finalize its plans. As the 1974
emergency passes further from
the public mind,, AID's planeed
multi-billion dollar proposal may
be lost among more politically
pressing issues. The Sahel has
no politically or militarily stra-
tegic value.
EVEN IF CONGRESS quick-
ly approves the AID plan when
presented this spring, aid would-
n't begin until 1977.
The AID proposal - of whch
the U.S. would contribute $140

million a year, or 20 per cent
of the total, over a 10-year peri-
od - is',intended to head off the
worst effects of future .1rougnts
by doubling food producti n in
the Sahel region. Several West-
ern European governments,
Canada, U.N. organizations and
the World Bank have indicated
they would help finance such
a project.
All) officials estimate that
U.S. investment now could save
billions of dollars in emergency
aid later when another drought
hits the Sahel.
Key targets of relief officials
are improved transportation,
grain storage areas, irrigation
of waste land and replenishing
of cattle herds.
" The landlocked Sahel c ntries
of Chad and Mali have no rail-
roads and few paved highways.
When grain shipments from re-
lief agencies arrived during the
emergency, they backed up for
weeks. Up to 50,000 tons of grain
waited at one time in Dakar,
Senegal, which thousands starv-
ed just a hundred miles inland.
WITH THE HELP of AID,
which in 1974 provided S6C mil-
lion to the six Sahel nations,
road renair and maintenance
has begun in Chad,, Mali and
Upper Volta. But still no funds
have been allocated for rail-
road construction.
Grain storage areas have been
increased in the Sahel country
of Niger to 35,,000 tons - from
5,000 tons in 1972. But this is
still only four per cent of Ni-
ger's annual grain consump-
tion.
Irrigation projects include two
new dams planned for the Sene-
gal River that will irrigate 825,-

000 acres in Senegal,, Mauritan-
ia and Mali. Rice and tomatoes
are being raised on 173 acres
of newly irrigated land in Sene-
gal,, with the support of the
National Council of Churches.
The drought killed 40 ~per cent
of Sahel cattle, a crippling blow
to the nomadic tribesmen who
tended the herds. Ranching has
begun in Niger with the help
of Canada and West Germany,
but the nomads are reluctant
to settle on them.
The recent drought was the
third such disaster in the Sahel
this century. After the first two
droughts, the inhabitants co)n-
tinued their primitive methods
of livestock breeding and farm-
ing. West African farms still
yield only one-fifth as much
grain per acre as U.S. farms,
lacking fertilizer, equipment
and technology.
BEFORE THE RECENT dis-
aster, the people of the Sahel
seemed doomed to continue their
cycle of starvation followed by
devastating drought. Agricultur-
al production has been unable
to keep up with growing popula-
tion. Only mass starvation has
maintained any kind of balance.
Now, the world-wide publicity
given the recent famine has of-
fered the Sahel people a, chance
to improve their plightathrough
economic delevopment. But if
humanitarian aid lags until an-
other drought hits, massive em-
ergency relief will again be
needed, thousands will starve
before the rains return, and the
cycle will be repeated.
Bruce Watson is a freelance
journalist.

By DAVID OLSEN
Dec. 21 (PNS) - Unknown
to much of the world only last
year, Angola today is the focus
of saturation news coverage..
As in the early days of the
Vietnam war, much of this com-
bines an ignorance of African
affairs with an all-too-ready re-
course to standard cold-war
analysis.
Take Cuba's involvement in
the crisis. It is commonly as-
sumed that by sending troops
to fight with the Soviet-backed
MPLA in Angola, Cuba is fol-
lowing the dictates of Moscow.
That Cuba is prepared to sac-
rifice normalized relations with
the U.S. over Angola is seen
as further evidence of Cuban
subservience to Russia.
But Cuba has its own foreign
policy reasons for committing
troops to, Angola. Cuba has
maintained close ties with all
three anti-Portuguese indepen-
dence movements in Africa (the
PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, Freli-
mo in Mozambique and MPLA)
ever since their beginnings in
the early 1960s.
Cuba in fact has been far
more supportive of these three
movements than the U.S.S.R.
Although it had no military
hardware to offer, Cuba sent
medical supplies, doctors, edu-
cational materials and political
advisors to all three movements,
and led a world-wide propagan-
da campaign in support of their
struggles for independence.
FROM CUBA'S POINT of
view, participation in Angola
may be worth much more than
the fading possibilities of de-
tente with the U.S. Cuba has a
long-standing commitment to
build up its own armed forces.
The military has an important
place in Cuban life because of
the ever-present possibility of
invasion. Fighting in Angola not
only gives Cuban soldiers com-
bat experience but puts some
backbone in Cuba's political
presence in Latin America.
Soviet intervention in Angola
and growing Soviet influence
elsewhere in Africa remains the
predominant concern of most
Angola news coverage. Reports
point to the flocking of African
nations of all political persua-
sions to the Soviet camp, in-
cluding Nigeria-long aneutral,
nonaligned nation and the U.S.'s
largest foreign oil supplier; and
Mozambique and Tanzania, both
recipients of Chinese aid and
heretofore considered in the
American press as sympathetic
with China. All three have re-
cently announced their support
for the Soviet-backed MPLA.
But like Cuba. all these coun-
tries have their own reasons
for supporting the MPLA. Un-
like Cuba, none of them have
alliances with the U.S.S.R., and
none can be considered in the
Soviet socialist camp.
NIGERIA, FOR EXAMPLE,
has long been friendly toward
the U.S. and indifferent toward
the U.S.S.R. But Nigeria's fore-
ign policy in Africa is built on
opposition to South Africa's in-
fluence on the continent. Ni-
geria maintains the largest
standing army in Africa ex-
pressly "to counter South Afri-

can power on the lower third
of the continent and announced
support of the MPLA only be-
cause South Africa entered the
civil war on the other side. Had
South Africa stayed out of the
conflict, Nigeria would more
than likely have remained neu-
tral.
In the case of Mozanbique,
its ruling national party Frelimo
has been an ally of the MPLA
for over 11 years. At the begin,
ning of their simultaneous wars
of national liberation against
Portugal, the PAIGC, Frelimo
and the MPLA formed a joint
organization to coordinate the
propaganda and diplomatic
activities of the three move-
ments. The founders of all three
(including Dr. Neto of MPLA)
studied together at the Univer-
sity of Lisbon, and the leader-
ship of each retains close per-
sonal ties with the others. These
historical factors explain Mo-
zambique's support for MPLA
much better than do supposi-
tions of Soviet influence on Fre-
limo.
THE FACT IS that many Af-
rican nations have remained re-
markably independent of the
influence of both capitalist and
socialist bloc countries. This is
true not only of Mozambique,
which received small amounts
of military aid from both Russia
and China, but also of Tanzania.
Tanzania's president, Julius
Nyerere, is a proponent of "Af-
rican socialism," but this "so-
cialism" has amost nothing in
common with its Soviet or Chi-
nese namesakes beyond some
degree of economic planning
and an emphasis on coopera-
tive styles of production.
It is precisely Tanzania s in-
dependence that explains how
it could supposedly desert the
Chinese camp even while China
just completed a major rail-
road linking Tanzania and Zam-
bia. It never was in the Chi-
nese camp, as it is not in the
Soviet camp now. Tanzania has
been an active supporter of Fre-
limo in neighboring Mozambi-
que, and of the MPLA and the
PAIGC, for over 10 years. 'That
it continues to support the
MPLA should present no mys-
tery.
Because much of the report-
ing on Angola advances cold-
war preconceptions rather than
historical and political informa-
tion about Africa, the civil war
is largely regarded only as a
communist vs. anti-communist
conflict. Certainly big-power in-
tervention into Angola has in-
troduced this element, but the
key issue remains how Angola
will achieve self-determination.
FAILING TO ASSIGN proper
importance to African history in
the emerging crisis could mis-
lead the American public into
accepting a set of policy deci-
sions completely out of touch
with the interest of the people
in Africa's newest independent
country.
David Olsen, co-author of
"Race to Power: The Struggle
for Southern Africa", is former
director of the Africa Research
Group in Cambridge, Mass.


HE~ 15,84' FAR, THE MOST' GRACEF-UL,
AT16fLETIC PRPESDEN1" IN MEMORY!
HEY, RON! THROW ME MY SKI,VWILL YAZ
SASXT P1SLOPGE Ir F?om

clericals
To The Daily:
PLEASE PERMIT ME, an
outsider, a few thoughts on the
current election of officers for
the clerical union, UAW Local
2001. There are four basic con-
siderations, I suggest, for voters
to keep in mind.
Maturity is a curious item to
list first. And yet, as the con-
duct of several candidates spon-
sored by the Clericals for a
Democratic Union has demon-
strated for example, the dis-
ruption of meetings, the ado-
lescent responses to frustration)
that the Union membership can-
not assume that an elected offi-
cer will exercise mature and
rational thought on matters af-
fecting 3,000 clericals. For ex-
ample the latest CDU flyer in-
cludes charges of a rigged elec-
tion in case they lose. The act
that the contention - like all
those which preceded it - to-
tally lacks evidence or logic
bothers me less than the imma-
turity of the mind which con-
trived it.
Maturity involves also coop-
eration. And yet major CDU
candidates have spent the past
six months alienating the very
people with whom they must,
work if the union is to be ef-
fective. For example, major
CDU candidates have called
I n t e r national representatives
(again, without factual or logi-
cal bases) liars and despots.
And yet the representatives are
the only dependable allies the
local will have in future rela-
tionships with the university.
Irrational statements do not
promote cooperation.
Secondly, experience is obvi-
ously a qualification for any

Letters
union here. The contract in-
cludes for e x a m p l e the
best grievance procedure of any
campus union. And because of
that one accomplishment alone,
for the first time in the history
of the university, job security
is a reality or clearicals. The
contract also gained the best
total economic package that
any campus union has achieved
in several years. The contract
is not perfect, but it is strong,
and a remarkable document.
Moreover, despite unwarranted
obstacles which distracted them,
the bargaining committee and
its chairperson have done an
extraordinary ob o enforcing the
contract. I suggest that to dis-
regard such proven competence,
responsibility, knowledge and
experience would set back the
union at least one full year -
and perhaps destroy it. Certain-
ly, it is a poor sacrifice to
someone's ambition.
Experience has another facet.
The CDU candidate for presi-
dent has worked for the uni-
versity for ony a year. Their
candidate for chairperson of
the bargaining committee has
been a clearical for only four
months. In my view, their ob-
vious inevperience as clericals
poses three questions: Did they
become clericals because they
needed jobs,, or because they
wanted to dominate a union?
Next, Commitment to cleri-
cals is fundamental. A candi-
date must not allow extranal
obligations to compromise her
effectiveness as their represent-
ative. The fact that the CDU
has refused to discuss their fi-
nances or the source of their
"donated labor" causes me to

to

side. Any major officer of the
union -and especially chair-
person of the bargaining com-
mittee - must represent every
clerical throughout the Univer-
sity. Most CDU proposals, which
have originated with their can-
didates for president and other
major offices, have the effect
of divinding the community of
clericals. Some of their propo-
sals flagrantly discriminate
against clericals who are work-
ing parents. The prospect of
leadership based on such a
narrow view of who constitutes
the clericals' union is disturb-
ing.
Integrity is the final princi-
ple which I suggest. Through
flyers, and through the manipu-
lation of news media, the CDU
has barraged clericals with mis-
information and distortions of
fact. I know from personal ex-
perience the extent of such
falsehoods, which the CDU has
spread without regard to either
reason or common sense. I could
not conceive of anyone (short
of Richard Nixon) who wanted
power so badly that they would
lose sight of all acceptable eth-
ical standards of conduct.
The clericals' union began
to stagnate the moment the
Clericals of a Democratic Un-
ion politicized it. Those peo-
ple who held it together through
its crisis - for example,, Jean
Jones,, Deborah Moorehead, and
Susan Susselmann - deserve
to be rewarded for their con-
sci entiousness and, indeed, for
their courage. Their History of
involvement in the union since
it began attests to their com-
mittment to continue to build a
union of, by, and for cleri-
cals. The union needs desparate-

have the chance so long denied
them to restore to the union
the vitality it needs. That is why
the election is more than the
game which CDU wants to play.
Ronald Jones
January 6

Stevens

7w

To The Daily:

I WRITE TO express my dis-
agreement with the lead editor-
ial in The Michigan Daily of
10 December 1975 concerning
the appointment of Judge John
Paul Stevens to the Supreme
Court. Dissatisfaction is expres-
sed in that editorial with the ap-
pointee's position on the ERA
amendment, particularly with
Stevens' appraisal . of the legal
significance of the proposed
amendment. According to the
article in The New York Times
of 9 December 1975, Judge
Stevens suggested in the con-
firmation hearings before the
Senate Judiciary Committee
that the ERA was more of
"symbolic" value than. of any
legal importance. The nominee
defended his stance, saying
that "women should have exact-
ly the same rights under law
as men," and he rejected the
argument of those persons cri-
tical of his position, that he had
shown bias against women's
cases. It is his view that the
rights of all persons are ade-
mnately covered under the Four-
teenth Amendment.
This position seems to be in
line with Stevens' concern with
methodology rather than ideol-
ogv. He said, in those hearings,
"It's always been my philoso-

Daily

tion might be. Who shall decide
what the proper "spirit" of in-
terpretation is? This does not
preclude disagreement about
interpretation of the Constitu-
tion: times and circumstances
continually change, and deci-
sions based on the Constitution
certainly should not become
static despite such change.
BUT WHAT is meant by the
"spirit" underlying Constitu-
tional interpretation? If one
does not agree with a justice'
interpretation of the "spirit" be-
hind the Constitution, in a par-
ticular case, who shall decide
what the true "spirit" of inter-
pretation ought to be?
Under questioning by Senator
Edward Kennedy, Judge Stev-
ens repeated several times that
judges make their decisions on
a case-by-case basis, and that
he believed in treating all who
come before the court equally.
Kennedy tried to get a broad
statement of the Judge on dis-
crimination: he wished an ex-
pression of Stevens' "sensitivi-
tv" on the 'problem. The posi-
tion of Stevens', that he would
annly the law equally to all,
The Senator, according to the
Times, "sought reneatedly to
elicit a broad deminciation
aeainst discrimination." I be-
lieve the Senator, asking what
seems to he a vague sort of
anestion (the "sensitivity" of
the nominee on the matter),
sought an equally vague ans-
wer. Judge Stevens showed
e-inent good sense, I think, in
not giving such an answer.
KENNEDY SEEMS MORE
concerned with scoring politi-
cal debating noints than with
suhstantive (that is, case-by-
case) resolitions of what is in-