Cubans Guard U.S. Oilmen in Angola
Oily orange flames burned from Chevron’s offshore wells here and a Cuban officer watching from a distance allowed a trace of a smile to cross his face.
”We never thought we would be protecting American interests,” the officer, Maj. Alberto Garcia Mestre, said of his first ”internationalist duty.”
As commander of a crack unit of ”tropical troops,” Major Garcia arrived here in March to bolster the defenses of Chevron’s $1.3 billion investment in Cabinda, a 2,800-square-mile enclave cut off from the Angolan mainland by Zaire.
The complex, which Major Garcia scans every day with his field glasses but has never visited, includes 200 offshore wells that pump 190,000 barrels a day, providing about 60 percent of Marxist Angola’s foreign exchange.
Major Garcia’s unit, part of a 30,000-man Cuban expeditionary force in Angola, patrols the perimeter of the complex day and night, seeking to intercept commandos sent by any of three enemies: South Africa; a separatist movement seeking independence for Cabinda, and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or Unita, an anti-Government force that is armed by South Africa and the United States. #180 American Workers All three groups have vowed to sabotage the oil complex, which is called Malongo and which is run by Chevron’s local subsidiary, Cabinda Gulf. The Cubans, interviewed at one of several bases they maintain here, said they came in March in response to stepped-up threats against the complex, where about 180 Americans work.
Bivouacked within sight of the oil wells and tank farm, the Cubans cut trees from the surrounding hills and use the timber to reinforce underground bunkers for jeeps, dormitories, cafeterias, classrooms and gun emplacements.
”Together with our Angolan comrades we are confident that we can assure the safety of Malongo,” said Capt. Pedro Valdez Alfonso, a ramrod-straight graduate of Cuban, Polish and Soviet military academies. ”There is no working link with the Americans.”
Despite this confidence, there is a new edginess about security in Angola’s oil-rich north.
Three weeks ago a bomb that Unita says it planted caused widespread destruction at Cabinda’s air terminal. When American journalists took photographs Friday of the shredded concrete, twisted steel and blown-out windows, they were detained for three hours and given a military escort for the duration of their stay. Other Attacks Reported
Independent interviews with Cabindans were impossible during a trip, but according to diplomats and businessmen in Luanda, Angola’s capital, other attacks have taken place in Cabinda this year.
In March, Angolan troops exchanged shots with unknown intruders near Malongo’ perimeter. In April, electric and water services were sabotaged.
In June, a daylong shoot-out took place in the city of Cabinda after guerrillas, reportedly from Unita, launched a rocket and rifle attack against the offices of the provincial commissar.
”We had a delegation visiting Malongo that day,” a Western diplomat recalled. ”They had to go there from the airport by helicopter.”
The most serious attack was attempted in May 1985 by a South African commando unit. According to the unit’s commander, Capt. Wynand du Toit, who was captured, the aim was ”to destroy the oil tanks” of Chevron.
Shuttled at night to Malongo’s coast in inflatable rubber boats from a South African Navy vessel anchored offshore, Captain du Toit’s nine-man team carried overalls with the Cabinda Gulf logo and mines, two for each oil tank and more to destroy water pipes supplying Malongo’s fire hydrants. Two Soldiers Killed
Before they could accomplish their mission, Captain du Toit recounted, they were discovered by an Angolan Army patrol. Two South African soldiers were killed.
In response to this attack, the Angolan Government has tightened security, clearing and illuminating Malongo’s perimeter and asking the Cubans to provide more defense.
Also, seeking to defuse latent separatist sentiments, Angola’s Government decided last year to devote 1 percent of its oil revenues from Cabinda to development of the province.
Cabindans, who now make do with rutted dirt roads and tin-roofed wooden shanties, would have had a per capita income last year of $25,000 if independent. Houston Accents Heard
At Malongo, Angola’s tangled politics are left at the gate. After a final propaganda poster announcing ”The party is the strength of the people in the revolution,” the scene quickly fades into landscaped lawns, a nine-hole golf course and Houston accents.
”There’s a lot of oil out there,” Malongo’s operations manager, Tom Willoughby, said, tapping a map of Chevron’s offshore concession with a pointer improvised from a golf putter.
”We are running an oilfield with Sonangol, Angola’s oil company – the politics we stay out of,” Mr. Willoughby, a New Orleans native, said.
This year, conservative groups in the United States have sought to persuade Chevron to pull out of Angola, arguing that the oil company helps finance a Marxist government.
P. J. Demare, a drilling engineer from Baton Rouge, La., seemed to echo the attitudes of most Americans working here when he said: ”How can someone be so naive to believe that if Chevron leaves this oilfield, it will just shut down? Another foreign company will step in and the U.S. will lose that income.”
Despite this marriage of convenience between the American oilmen and their Cuban protectors, the two groups say they never meet, not even on the baseball diamond.
The Americans say they play among themselves on Malongo’s field. The Cubans say they play with other Cuban teams, largely fielded from a contingent of 300 Cuban civilians who are cutting timber in the Mayombe rain forest of Cabinda.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 24, 1986, Section A, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: CUBANS GUARD U.S. OILMEN IN ANGOLA.
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