ANGOLA: Guerrillas Who Will Not Give Up

UNITA is still fighting against the Cubans

Under a blazing African sun, the guerrillas' battered trucks crashed through the thick bush of southern Angola. Small bands of soldiers trekked beside the sandy roads. Their destination: a clearing in the jungle known only by the code name Chipundo. There, among the camouflaged grass huts of a hastily erected "instant village," a burly, bearded man with skin the color of oiled ebony embraced each new arrival. He was Jonas Savimbi, 44, who had convened the annual congress of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) to prove a point: far from being wiped out, as Savimbi's foes in the Soviet-and Cuban-supported government in Luanda have claimed, UNITA was still carrying on its struggle to drive the Communists out of the country.

Savimbi claims that UNITA now has wrested effective control of much of south and central Angola from Marxist President Agostinho Neto and the 17,000 Cuban troops fighting on his behalf. Armed largely with captured Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles, Savimbi's 12,000 guerrillas freely roam the countryside, seizing towns and villages at will, disappearing when the Cubans or government troops appear. Savimbi's soldiers have shut down the vital Benguela railroad, which once carried ore from mines in Zaire and Zambia to the Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito. The disruption of rail service has given Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda no choice but to reopen his country's rail link with Rhodesia, the only alternative route.

Savimbi's forces have stayed intact by relying on well-tested guerrilla survival tactics. To travel safely on roads that may be mined, UNITA convoys follow herds of elephants or buffalo; if these animated mine detectors trigger an explosion, the guerrillas know not only that the way is clear, but also that they are going to eat well. Now that large areas of south Angola are coming under its control, UNITA is setting up schools and agricultural cooperatives. But for the most part, Savimbi's forces are constantly on the move, carrying their possessions on their backs. The site of last week's congress was changed six times for security reasons.

Four years ago, after Portugal withdrew from its former colony, Neto's Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.) and 25,000 Cubans apparently had defeated UNITA and another liberation movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.). But Savimbi fought on. Since January, his guerrillas claim to have killed 350 government soldiers or Cubans, while suffering only 150 fatalities. Savimbi has recruited heavily among his fellow Ovimbundu (40% of the country's population) and other southern Angolan tribes, which have deep-rooted hostility toward Neto, a mixed-race assimilado, and the Cubans. He has also received substantial backing from South Africa, which wants UNlTA's help in controlling the Namibian guerrillas of SWAPO (Southwest African People's Organization), who operate from base camps in southern Angola.