Clinton Advised to Recognize Angola Regime

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton has been advised by the State Department and the National Security Council to recognize the Angolan government headed by Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who is under sharp military challenge by rebel forces formerly backed by the United States, Administration officials said Tuesday night.

The officials said that Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake concurred in the recommendation, which had been tentatively made during the final months of the Bush Administration. The officials said that they do not know whether Clinton has formally accepted the proposal but that he is believed likely to do so.

Dos Santos’s Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) won a 49% plurality in elections last September. Under terms of a U.N.-negotiated settlement of Angola’s 17-year civil war, he was to face a runoff against rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who won 40%. But Savimbi and his National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rejected the results and launched military assaults estimated to have taken more than 20,000 lives by last month and brought large portions of the country under UNITA control.

In recognizing the Dos Santos government, the United States would be breaking definitively with Savimbi, who at one time received substantial U.S. financial and military aid.