The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely
asymmetric conflict that occurred in
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
(then
South West Africa),
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...
, and
Angola
, national_anthem = "Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
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, coordinat ...
from 26 August 1966 to 21 March 1990. It was fought between the
South African Defence Force (SADF) and the
People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the
South West African People's Organisation
The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...
(SWAPO). The South African Border War resulted in some of the largest battles on the African continent since
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
and was closely intertwined with the
Angolan Civil War.
Following several years of unsuccessful petitioning through the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
and the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordan ...
for Namibian independence from
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
, SWAPO formed the PLAN in 1962 with material assistance from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, and sympathetic African states such as
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
,
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...
, and
Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
.
Fighting broke out between PLAN and the South African authorities in August 1966. Between 1975 and 1988 the SADF staged massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate PLAN's
forward operating base
A forward operating base (FOB) is any secured forward operational level military position, commonly a military base, that is used to support strategic goals and tactical objectives. A FOB may or may not contain an airfield, hospital, machine ...
s.
It also deployed specialist counter-insurgency units such as ''
Koevoet'' and
32 Battalion, trained to carry out external reconnaissance and track guerrilla movements.
South African tactics became increasingly aggressive as the conflict progressed.
The SADF's incursions produced Angolan casualties and occasionally resulted in severe collateral damage to economic installations regarded as vital to the Angolan economy.
Ostensibly to stop these raids, but also to disrupt the growing alliance between the SADF and the
National Union for the Total Independence for Angola (UNITA), which the former was arming with captured PLAN equipment,
the Soviet Union backed the
People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola
The People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola ( pt, Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola) or FAPLA was originally the armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) but later (1975–1991) became Ango ...
(FAPLA) through a large contingent of military advisers and up to four billion dollars' worth of modern defence technology in the 1980s.
Beginning in 1984, regular Angolan units under Soviet command were confident enough to confront the SADF.
Their positions were also
bolstered by thousands of Cuban troops.
The state of war between South Africa and Angola briefly ended with the short-lived
Lusaka Accords
The Lusaka Accords of 1984 declared a ceasefire between Angola and South Africa during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War, a withdrawal of South African troops from Angola and established a commission to oversee the treaty's implem ...
, but resumed in August 1985 as both PLAN and UNITA took advantage of the ceasefire to intensify their own guerrilla activity, leading to a renewed phase of FAPLA combat operations culminating in the
Battle of Cuito Cuanavale
The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was fought intermittently between 14 August 1987 and 23 March 1988, south and east of the town of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, by the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) and advisors and soldie ...
.
The South African Border War was virtually ended by the
Tripartite Accord, mediated by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, which committed to a withdrawal of Cuban and South African military personnel from Angola and South West Africa, respectively.
PLAN launched its
final guerrilla campaign in April 1989.
South West Africa received formal independence as the Republic of Namibia a year later, on 21 March 1990.
[
Despite being largely fought in neighbouring states, the South African Border War had a phenomenal cultural and political impact on South African society.] The country's apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
government devoted considerable effort towards presenting the war as part of a containment
Containment was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The name was loosely related to the term '' cordon sanitaire'', which ...
programme against regional Soviet expansionism and used it to stoke public anti-communist sentiment. It remains an integral theme in contemporary South African literature at large and Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...
-language works in particular, having given rise to a unique genre known as ''grensliteratuur'' (directly translated "border literature").
Nomenclature
Various names have been applied to the undeclared conflict waged by South Africa in Angola
, national_anthem = "Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
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, coordinat ...
and Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
(then South West Africa) from the mid 1960s to the late 1980s. The term "South African Border War" has typically denoted the military campaign launched by the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), which took the form of sabotage and rural insurgency, as well as the external raids launched by South African troops on suspected PLAN bases inside Angola or Zambia, sometimes involving major conventional warfare against the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola
The People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola ( pt, Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola) or FAPLA was originally the armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) but later (1975–1991) became Ango ...
(FAPLA) and its Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
n allies.[ The strategic situation was further complicated by the fact that South Africa occupied large swathes of Angola for extended periods in support of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), making the "Border War" an increasingly inseparable conflict from the parallel Angolan Civil War.][
"Border War" entered public discourse in South Africa during the late 1970s, and was adopted thereafter by the country's ruling National Party.][ Due to the covert nature of most South African Defence Force (SADF) operations inside Angola, the term was favoured as a means of omitting any reference to clashes on foreign soil. Where tactical aspects of various engagements were discussed, military historians simply identified the conflict as the "bush war".]
The South West African People's Organisation
The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...
(SWAPO) has described the South African Border War as the Namibian War of National Liberation[ and the Namibian Liberation Struggle.] In the Namibian context, it is also commonly referred to as the Namibian War of Independence. However, these terms have been criticised for ignoring the wider regional implications of the war and the fact that PLAN was based in, and did most of its fighting from, countries other than Namibia.[
]
Background
Namibia was governed as German South West Africa, a colony of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
, until World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, when it was invaded and occupied by Allied forces under General Louis Botha
Louis Botha (; 27 September 1862 – 27 August 1919) was a South African politician who was the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa – the forerunner of the modern South African state. A Boer war hero during the Second Boer Wa ...
. Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea, and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices ...
, a mandate system
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administ ...
was imposed by the League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...
to govern African and Asian territories held by Germany and the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
prior to the war. The mandate system was formed as a compromise between those who advocated an Allied annexation of former German and Turkish territories, and another proposition put forward by those who wished to grant them to an international trusteeship until they could govern themselves.[
All former German and Turkish territories were classified into three types of mandates – Class "A" mandates, predominantly in the Middle East, Class "B" mandates, which encompassed central Africa, and Class "C" mandates, which were reserved for the most sparsely populated or least developed German colonies: South West Africa, German New Guinea, and the Pacific islands.][
Owing to their small size, geographic remoteness, low population density, or physical contiguity to the mandatory itself, Class "C" mandates could be administered as integral provinces of the countries to which they were entrusted. Nevertheless, the bestowal of a mandate by the League of Nations did not confer full sovereignty, only the responsibility of administering it.][ In principle, mandating countries were only supposed to hold these former colonies "in trust" for their inhabitants, until they were sufficiently prepared for their own self-determination. Under these terms, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand were granted the German Pacific islands, and the ]Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tr ...
received South West Africa.
It soon became apparent the South African government had interpreted the mandate as a veiled annexation.[ In September 1922, South African Prime Minister ]Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
testified before the League of Nations Mandate Commission that South West Africa was being fully incorporated into the Union and should be regarded, for all practical purposes, as a fifth province of South Africa.[ According to Smuts, this constituted "annexation in all but in name".][
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the League of Nations complained that of all the mandatory powers South Africa was the most delinquent with regards to observing the terms of its mandate.] The Mandate Commission vetoed a number of ambitious South African policy decisions, such as proposals to nationalise South West African railways or alter the preexisting borders.[ Sharp criticism was also leveled at South Africa's disproportionate spending on the local white population, which the former defended as obligatory since white South West Africans were taxed the heaviest.][ The League adopted the argument that no one segment of any mandate's population was entitled to favourable treatment over another, and the terms under which the mandate had been granted made no provision for special obligation towards whites.][ It pointed out that there was little evidence of progress being made towards political self-determination; just prior to ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
South Africa and the League remained at an impasse over this dispute.[
]
Legality of South West Africa, 1946–1960
After World War II, Jan Smuts headed the South African delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization
The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, Calif ...
. As a result of this conference, the League of Nations was formally superseded by the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
(UN) and former League mandates by a trusteeship system. Article 77 of the United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its Organ ...
stated that UN trusteeship "shall apply...to territories now held under mandate"; furthermore, it would "be a matter of subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing territories will be brought under the trusteeship system and under what terms". Smuts was suspicious of the proposed trusteeship, largely because of the vague terminology in Article 77.[
Heaton Nicholls, the South African high commissioner in the ]United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and a member of the Smuts delegation to the UN, addressed the newly formed UN General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of pres ...
on 17 January 1946.[ Nicholls stated that the legal uncertainty of South West Africa's situation was retarding development and discouraging foreign investment; however, self-determination for the time being was impossible since the territory was too undeveloped and underpopulated to function as a strong independent state.][ In the second part of the first session of the General Assembly, the floor was handed to Smuts, who declared that the mandate was essentially a part of the South African territory and people.][ Smuts informed the General Assembly that it had already been so thoroughly incorporated with South Africa a UN-sanctioned annexation was no more than a necessary formality.][
The Smuts delegation's request for the termination of the mandate and permission to annex South West Africa was not well received by the General Assembly.][ Five other countries, including three major colonial powers, had agreed to place their mandates under the trusteeship of the UN, at least in principle; South Africa alone refused. Most delegates insisted it was undesirable to endorse the annexation of a mandated territory, especially when all of the others had entered trusteeship.][ Thirty-seven member states voted to block a South African annexation of South West Africa; nine abstained.][
In Pretoria, right-wing politicians reacted with outrage at what they perceived as unwarranted UN interference in the South West Africa affair. The National Party dismissed the UN as unfit to meddle with South Africa's policies or discuss its administration of the mandate.][ One National Party speaker, Eric Louw, demanded that South West Africa be annexed unilaterally.][ During the South African general election, 1948, the National Party was swept into power, newly appointed Prime Minister Daniel Malan prepared to adopt a more aggressive stance concerning annexation, and Louw was named ambassador to the UN. During an address in ]Windhoek
Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 202 ...
, Malan reiterated his party's position that South Africa would annex the mandate before surrendering it to an international trusteeship.[ The following year a formal statement was issued to the General Assembly which proclaimed that South Africa had no intention of complying with trusteeship, nor was it obligated to release new information or reports pertaining to its administration.] Simultaneously, the South West Africa Affairs Administration Act, 1949, was passed by South African parliament. The new legislation gave white South West Africans parliamentary representation and the same political rights as white South Africans.[
The UN General Assembly responded by deferring to the ]International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordan ...
(ICJ), which was to issue an advisory opinion on the international status of South West Africa.[ The ICJ ruled that South West Africa was still being governed as a mandate; hence, South Africa was not legally obligated to surrender it to the UN trusteeship system if it did not recognise the mandate system had lapsed, conversely, however, it was still bound by the provisions of the original mandate. Adherence to these provisions meant South Africa was not empowered to unilaterally modify the international status of South West Africa.][ Malan and his government rejected the court's opinion as irrelevant.][ The UN formed a Committee on South West Africa, which issued its own independent reports regarding the administration and development of that territory. The Committee's reports became increasingly scathing of South African officials when the National Party imposed its harsh system of racial segregation and stratification—'']apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
''—on South West Africa.[
In 1958, the UN established a Good Offices Committee which continued to invite South Africa to bring South West Africa under trusteeship.][ The Good Offices Committee proposed a partition of the mandate, allowing South Africa to annex the southern portion while either granting independence to the north, including the densely populated Ovamboland region, or administering it as an international trust territory.][ The proposal met with overwhelming opposition in the General Assembly; fifty-six nations voted against it. Any further partition of South West Africa was rejected out of hand.][
]
Internal opposition to South African rule
Mounting internal opposition to apartheid played an instrumental role in the development and militancy of a South West African nationalist movement throughout the mid to late 1950s. The 1952 Defiance Campaign, a series of nonviolent protests launched by the African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
against pass laws
In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, manage urbanization and allocate migrant labor. Also known as the natives' law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only blac ...
, inspired the formation of South West African student unions opposed to apartheid.[ In 1955, their members organised the South West African Progressive Association (SWAPA), chaired by Uatja Kaukuetu, to campaign for South West African independence. Although SWAPA did not garner widespread support beyond intellectual circles, it was the first nationalist body claiming to support the interests of all black South West Africans, irrespective of tribe or language.] SWAPA's activists were predominantly Herero
Herero may refer to:
* Herero people
The Herero ( hz, Ovaherero) are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. There were an estimated 250,000 Herero people in Namibia in 2013. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language. Though t ...
students, schoolteachers, and other members of the emerging black intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...
in Windhoek.[ Meanwhile, the ]Ovamboland People's Congress
The Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) was a nationalist organization that existed between 1959 and 1960 in South West Africa (now present day Namibia). The aim of the organization was to end the South African colonial administration, and th ...
(later the ''Ovamboland People's Organisation'', or OPO) was formed by nationalists among partly urbanised migrant Ovambo Ovambo may refer to:
*Ovambo language
*Ovambo people
*Ovamboland
Ovamboland, also referred to as Owamboland, was a Bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland ...
labourers in Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
. The OPO's constitution cited the achievement of a UN trusteeship and ultimate South West African independence as its primary goals.[ A unified movement was proposed that would include the politicisation of Ovambo contract workers from northern South West Africa as well as the Herero students, which resulted in the unification of SWAPA and the OPO as the ]South West African National Union
The South West Africa National Union (SWANU) is a Namibian political party founded in 1959. Most of its members came from the Herero people, while fellow independence movement SWAPO was mostly an Ovambo party. The party's president is Charles ...
(SWANU) on 27 September 1959.
In December 1959, the South African government announced that it would forcibly relocate all residents of Old Location, a black neighbourhood located near Windhoek's city center, in accordance with apartheid legislation. SWANU responded by organising mass demonstrations and a bus boycott on 10 December, and in the ensuing confrontation South African police opened fire, killing eleven protestors. In the wake of the Old Location incident, the OPO split from SWANU, citing differences with the organisation's Herero leadership, then petitioning UN delegates in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. As the UN and potential foreign supporters reacted sensitively to any implications of tribalism and had favoured SWANU for its claim to represent the South West African people as a whole, the OPO was likewise rebranded the South West African People's Organisation
The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...
. It later opened its ranks to all South West Africans sympathetic to its aims.[
SWAPO leaders soon went abroad to mobilise support for their goals within the international community and newly independent African states in particular. The movement scored a major diplomatic success when it was recognised by ]Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
and allowed to open an office in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
. SWAPO's first manifesto, released in July 1960, was remarkably similar to SWANU's. Both advocated the abolition of colonialism and all forms of racialism, the promotion of Pan-Africanism, and called for the "economic, social, and cultural advancement" of South West Africans. However, SWAPO went a step further by demanding immediate independence under black majority rule, to be granted at a date no later than 1963.[ The SWAPO manifesto also promised ]universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political sta ...
, sweeping welfare programmes, free healthcare, free public education, the nationalisation of all major industry, and the forcible redistribution of foreign-owned land "in accordance with African communal ownership principles".[
Compared to SWANU, SWAPO's potential for wielding political influence within South West Africa was limited, and it was likelier to accept armed insurrection as the primary means of achieving its goals accordingly.] SWAPO leaders also argued that a decision to take up arms against the South Africans would demonstrate their superior commitment to the nationalist cause. This would also distinguish SWAPO from SWANU in the eyes of international supporters as the genuine vanguard of the Namibian independence struggle, and the legitimate recipient of any material assistance that was forthcoming.[ Modelled after Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress,] the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA) was formed by SWAPO in 1962. The first seven SWALA recruits were sent from Dar es Salaam to Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
and the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, where they received military instruction.[ Upon their return they began training guerrillas at a makeshift camp established for housing South West African refugees in Kongwa, Tanzania.][
]
Cold War tensions and the border militarisation
The increasing likelihood of armed conflict in South West Africa had strong international foreign policy implications, for both Western Europe and the Soviet bloc. Prior to the late 1950s, South Africa's defence policy had been influenced by international Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
politics, including the domino theory and fears of a conventional Soviet military threat to the strategic Cape trade route between the south Atlantic and Indian oceans. Noting that the country had become the world's principal source of uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
, the South African Department of External Affairs reasoned that "on this account alone, therefore, South Africa is bound to be implicated in any war between East and West".[ Prime Minister Malan took the position that colonial Africa was being directly threatened by the Soviets, or at least by Soviet-backed communist agitation, and this was only likely to increase whatever the result of another European war.][ Malan promoted an African Pact, similar to NATO, headed by South Africa and the Western colonial powers accordingly. The concept failed due to international opposition to apartheid and suspicion of South African military overtures in the ]British Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
.[
South Africa's involvement in the ]Korean War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Korean War
, partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict
, image = Korean War Montage 2.png
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...
produced a significant warming of relations between Malan and the United States, despite American criticism of apartheid.[ Until the early 1960s, South African strategic and military support was considered an integral component of U.S. foreign policy in Africa's southern subcontinent, and there was a steady flow of defence technology from Washington to Pretoria.][ American and Western European interest in the defence of Africa from a hypothetical, external communist invasion dissipated after it became clear that the nuclear arms race was making global conventional war increasingly less likely.][ Emphasis shifted towards preventing communist subversion and infiltration via ]proxy
Proxy may refer to:
* Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act
* Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate re ...
rather than overt Soviet aggression.[
The advent of global ]decolonisation
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
and the subsequent rise in prominence of the Soviet Union among several newly independent African states was viewed with wariness by the South African government. National Party politicians began warning it would only be a matter of time before they were faced with a Soviet-directed insurgency on their borders.[ Outlying regions in South West Africa, namely the Caprivi Strip, became the focus of massive SADF air and ground training manoeuvres, as well as heightened border patrols.][ A year before SWAPO made the decision to send its first SWALA recruits abroad for guerrilla training, South Africa established fortified police outposts along the Caprivi Strip for the express purpose of deterring insurgents.][ When SWALA cadres armed with Soviet weapons and training began to make their appearance in South West Africa, the National Party believed its fears of a local Soviet proxy force had finally been realised.][
The Soviet Union took a keen interest in Africa's independence movements and initially hoped that the cultivation of socialist client states on the continent would deny their economic and strategic resources to the West.] Soviet training of SWALA was thus not confined to tactical matters but extended to Marxist–Leninist political theory, and the procedures for establishing an effective political-military infrastructure.[ In addition to training, the Soviets quickly became SWALA's leading supplier of arms and money.] Weapons supplied to SWALA between 1962 and 1966 included PPSh-41
The PPSh-41 () is a Soviet submachine gun designed by Georgy Shpagin as a cheaper and simplified alternative to the PPD-40. A common Russian nickname for the weapon is "''papasha''" (), meaning "daddy", and it was sometimes called the "burp gun" ...
submachine guns, SKS
The SKS (russian: Самозарядный карабин системы Симонова, Samozaryadny Karabin sistemy Simonova, 1945, self-loading carbine of (the) Simonov system, 1945) is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms ...
carbines, and TT-33 pistols, which were well-suited to the insurgents' unconventional warfare strategy.
Despite its burgeoning relationship with SWAPO, the Soviet Union did not regard Southern Africa as a major strategic priority in the mid 1960s, due to its preoccupation elsewhere on the continent and in the Middle East.[ Nevertheless, the perception of South Africa as a regional Western ally and a bastion of neocolonialism helped fuel Soviet backing for the nationalist movement.][ Moscow also approved of SWAPO's decision to adopt guerrilla warfare because it was not optimistic about any solution to the South West Africa problem short of revolutionary struggle.][ This was in marked contrast to the Western governments, which opposed the formation of SWALA and turned down the latter's requests for military aid.]
The insurgency begins, 1964–1974
Early guerrilla incursions
In November 1960, Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast� ...
had formally petitioned the ICJ for a binding judgement, rather than an advisory opinion, on whether South Africa remained fit to govern South West Africa. Both nations made it clear that they considered the implementation of ''apartheid'' to be a violation of Pretoria's obligations as a mandatory power.[ The National Party government rejected the claim on the grounds that Ethiopia and Liberia lacked sufficient legal interest to present a case concerning South West Africa.][ This argument suffered a major setback on 21 December 1962 when the ICJ ruled that as former League of Nations member states, both parties had a right to institute the proceedings.]
Around March 1962 SWAPO President Sam Nujoma visited the party's refugee camps across Tanzania, describing his recent petitions for South West African independence at the Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath ...
and the UN. He pointed out that independence was unlikely in the foreseeable future, predicting a "long and bitter struggle". Nujoma personally directed two exiles in Dar es Salaam, Lucas Pohamba and Elia Muatale, to return to South West Africa, infiltrate Ovamboland and send back more potential recruits for SWALA. Over the next few years Pohamba and Muatale successfully recruited hundreds of volunteers from the Ovamboland countryside, most of whom were shipped to Eastern Europe for guerrilla training. Between July 1962 and October 1963 SWAPO negotiated military alliances with other anti-colonial movements, namely in Angola.[ It also absorbed the separatist ''Caprivi African National Union'' (CANU), which was formed to combat South African rule in the Caprivi Strip.][ Outside the Soviet bloc, Egypt continued training SWALA personnel. By 1964 others were also being sent to ]Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...
, Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, and North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
for military instruction. In June of that year, SWAPO confirmed that it was irrevocably committed to the course of armed revolution.[
The formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)'s Liberation Committee further strengthened SWAPO's international standing and ushered in an era of unprecedented political decline for SWANU.] The Liberation Committee had obtained approximately £20,000 in obligatory contributions from OAU member states; these funds were offered to both South West African nationalist movements. However, as SWANU was unwilling to guarantee its share of the £20,000 would be used for armed struggle, this grant was awarded to SWAPO instead. The OAU then withdrew recognition from SWANU, leaving SWAPO as the sole beneficiary of pan-African legitimacy.[ With OAU assistance, SWAPO opened diplomatic offices in ]Lusaka
Lusaka (; ) is the capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was about 3.3 millio ...
, Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
, and London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. SWANU belatedly embarked on a ten-year programme to raise its own guerrilla army.[
In September 1965, the first unit of six SWALA guerrillas, identified simply as ''"Group 1"'', departed the Kongwa refugee camp to infiltrate South West Africa.][ Group 1 trekked first into Angola, before crossing the border into the Caprivi Strip.][ Encouraged by South Africa's apparent failure to detect the initial incursion, larger insurgent groups made their own infiltration attempts in February and March 1966.][ The second unit, ''"Group 2"'', was led by Leonard Philemon Shuuya,][ also known by the ''nom de guerre'' "Castro" or "Leonard Nangolo".][ Group 2 apparently become lost in Angola before it was able to cross the border, and the guerrillas dispersed after an incident in which they killed two shopkeepers and a vagrant.][ Three were arrested by the Portuguese colonial authorities in Angola, working off tips received from local civilians.][ Another eight, including Shuuya,][ had been captured between March and May by the South African police, apparently in ]Kavangoland
Kavangoland was a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the Kavango people. It was set up in 1970 and self-government was granted in 1973. The Kavango Le ...
.[ Shuuya later resurfaced at Kongwa, claiming to have escaped his captors after his arrest. He helped plan two further incursions: a third SWALA group entered Ovamboland that July, while a fourth was scheduled to follow in September.][
On 18 July 1966, the ICJ ruled that it had no authority to decide on the South West African affair. Furthermore, the court found that while Ethiopia and Liberia had ''locus standi'' to institute proceedings on the matter, neither had enough vested legal interest in South West Africa to entitle them to a judgement of merits.][ This ruling was met with great indignation by SWAPO and the OAU.][ SWAPO officials immediately issued a statement from Dar es Salaam declaring that they now had "no alternative but to rise in arms" and "cross rivers of blood" in their march towards freedom.] Upon receiving the news SWALA escalated its insurgency.[ Its third group, which had infiltrated Ovamboland in July, attacked white-owned farms, traditional Ovambo leaders perceived as South African agents, and a border post.][ The guerrillas set up camp at Omugulugwombashe, one of five potential bases identified by SWALA's initial reconnaissance team as appropriate sites to train future recruits.][ Here, they drilled up to thirty local volunteers between September 1965 and August 1966.][ South African intelligence became aware of the camp by mid 1966 and identified its general location.] On 26 August 1966, the first major clash of the conflict took place when South African paratroops and paramilitary police units executed Operation Blouwildebees to capture or kill the insurgents. SWALA had dug trenches around Omugulugwombashe for defensive purposes, but was taken by surprise and most of the insurgents quickly overpowered. SWALA suffered 2 dead, 1 wounded, and 8 captured; the South Africans suffered no casualties. This engagement is widely regarded in South Africa as the start of the Border War, and according to SWAPO, officially marked the beginning of its revolutionary armed struggle.
Operation Blouwildebees triggered accusations of treachery within SWALA's senior ranks. According to SADF accounts, an unidentified informant had accompanied the security forces during the attack. Sam Nujoma asserted that one of the eight guerrillas from the second group who were captured in Kavangoland was a South African mole.[ Suspicion immediately fell on Leonard "Castro" Shuuya.][ SWALA suffered a second major reversal on 18 May 1967, when Tobias Hainyeko, its commander, was killed by the South African police.][ Heinyeko and his men had been attempting to cross the Zambezi River, as part of a general survey aimed at opening new lines of communication between the front lines in South West Africa and SWAPO's political leadership in Tanzania.][ They were intercepted by a South African patrol, and the ensuing firefight left Heinyeko dead and two policemen seriously wounded.][ Rumours again abounded that Shuuya was responsible, resulting in his dismissal and subsequent imprisonment.][
In the weeks following the raid on Omugulugwombashe, South Africa had detained thirty-seven SWAPO politicians, namely Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, Johnny Otto, Nathaniel Maxuilili, and Jason Mutumbulua.] Together with the captured SWALA guerrillas they were jailed in Pretoria and held there until July 1967, when all were charged retroactively under the Terrorism Act.[ The state prosecuted the accused as Marxist revolutionaries seeking to establish a Soviet-backed regime in South West Africa.] In what became known as the "1967 Terrorist Trial", six of the accused were found guilty of committing violence in the act of insurrection, with the remainder being convicted for armed intimidation, or receiving military training for the purpose of insurrection. During the trial, the defendants unsuccessfully argued against allegations that they were privy to an external communist plot.[ All but three received sentences ranging from five years to life imprisonment on Robben Island.][
]
Expansion of the war effort and mine warfare
The defeat at Omugulugwombashe and subsequent loss of Tobias Hainyeko forced SWALA to reevaluate its tactics. Guerrillas began operating in larger groups to increase their chances of surviving encounters with the security forces, and refocused their efforts on infiltrating the civilian population.[ Disguised as peasants, SWALA cadres could acquaint themselves with the terrain and observe South African patrols without arousing suspicion.][ This was also a logistical advantage because they could only take what supplies they could carry while in the field; otherwise, the guerrillas remained dependent on sympathetic civilians for food, water, and other necessities.][ On 29 July 1967, the SADF received intelligence that a large number of SWALA forces were congregated at Sacatxai, a settlement almost a hundred and thirty kilometres north of the border inside Angola.] South African T-6 Harvard
The North American Aviation T-6 Texan is an American single-engined advanced trainer aircraft used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), United States Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and other air forces ...
warplanes bombed Sacatxai on 1 August. Most of their intended targets were able to escape, and in October 1968 two SWALA units crossed the border into Ovamboland.[ This incursion was no more productive than the others and by the end of the year 178 insurgents had been either killed or apprehended by the police.][
Throughout the 1950s and much of the 1960s, a limited military service system by lottery was implemented in South Africa to comply with the needs of national defence.] Around mid 1967 the National Party government established universal conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...
for all white South African men as the SADF expanded to meet the growing insurgent threat.[ From January 1968 onward there would be two yearly intakes of national servicemen undergoing nine months of military training.][ The air strike on Sacatxai also marked a fundamental shift in South African tactics, as the SADF had for the first time indicated a willingness to strike at SWALA on foreign soil.] Although Angola was then an overseas province of Portugal, Lisbon granted the SADF's request to mount punitive campaigns across the border. In May 1967 South Africa established a new facility at Rundu to coordinate joint air operations between the SADF and the Portuguese Armed Forces
The Portuguese Armed Forces ( pt, Forças Armadas) are the military of Portugal. They include the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the other unified bodies and the three service branches: Portuguese Navy, Portuguese Army and Portuguese Air ...
, and posted two permanent liaison officers at Menongue
Menongue, formerly Serpa Pinto, is a town, a municipality, and the capital of Cuando Cubango Province in Angola. The municipality had a population of 320,914 in 2014. It is one of the four municipalities in Angola whose inhabitants are predominan ...
and Cuito Cuanavale
Cuito Cuanavale is a town and municipality in Cuando Cubango (Kuando-Kubango) province in Angola. The names Kuito Kuanavale or Kwito Kwanavale are sometimes used, although this is a mutation of the original Portuguese name.
It covers an area of ...
.
As the war intensified, South Africa's case for annexation in the international community continued to decline, coinciding with an unparalleled wave of sympathy for SWAPO.[ Despite the ICJ's advisory opinions to the contrary, as well as the dismissal of the case presented by Ethiopia and Liberia, the UN declared that South Africa had failed in its obligations to ensure the moral and material well-being of the indigenous inhabitants of South West Africa, and had thus disavowed its own mandate.] The UN thereby assumed that the mandate was terminated, which meant South Africa had no further right to administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa would come under the direct responsibility of the General Assembly.[ The post of United Nations Commissioner for South West Africa was created, as well as an ad hoc council, to recommend practical means for local administration.][ South Africa maintained it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the UN with regards to the mandate and refused visas to the commissioner or the council.][ On 12 June 1968, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which proclaimed that, in accordance with the desires of its people, South West Africa be renamed ''Namibia''.][ ]United Nations Security Council Resolution 269
United Nations Security Council Resolution 269, adopted on August 12, 1969, condemned the government of South Africa for its refusal to comply with resolution 264, deciding that the continued occupation of South West Africa (now Namibia) was an ...
, adopted in August 1969, declared South Africa's continued occupation of "Namibia" illegal. In recognition of the UN's decision, SWALA was renamed the People's Liberation Army of Namibia.[
To regain the military initiative, the adoption of ]mine warfare Mine warfare refers to the use of different types of explosive devices:
*Land mine, a weight-triggered explosive device intended to maim or kill people or to disable or destroy vehicles
*Minelaying, deployment of explosive mines at sea
**Naval mine ...
as an integral strategy of PLAN was discussed at a 1969–70 SWAPO consultative congress held in Tanzania. PLAN's leadership backed the initiative to deploy land mines as a means of compensating for its inferiority in most conventional aspects to the South African security forces. Shortly afterwards, PLAN began acquiring TM-46 mines from the Soviet Union, which were designed for anti-tank purposes, and produced some homemade "box mines" with TNT for anti-personnel use. The mines were strategically placed along roads to hamper police convoys or throw them into disarray prior to an ambush; guerrillas also laid others along their infiltration routes on the long border with Angola. The proliferation of mines in South West Africa initially resulted in heavy police casualties and would become one of the most defining features of PLAN's war effort for the next two decades.[
On 2 May 1971 a police van struck a mine, most likely a TM-46, in the Caprivi Strip.] The resulting explosion blew a crater in the road about two metres in diameter and sent the vehicle airborne, killing two senior police officers and injuring nine others. This was the first mine-related incident recorded on South West African soil. In October 1971, another police vehicle detonated a mine outside Katima Mulilo, wounding four constables. The following day, a fifth constable was mortally injured when he stepped on a second mine laid directly alongside the first. This reflected a new PLAN tactic of laying anti-personnel mines parallel to their anti-tank mines to kill policemen or soldiers either engaging in preliminary mine detection or inspecting the scene of a previous blast. In 1972, South Africa acknowledged that two more policemen had died and another three had been injured as a result of mines.
The proliferation of mines in the Caprivi and other rural areas posed a serious concern to the South African government, as they were relatively easy for a PLAN cadre to conceal and plant with minimal chance of detection.[ Sweeping the roads for mines with hand held mine detectors was possible, but too slow and tedious to be a practical means of ensuring swift police movement or keeping routes open for civilian use.][ The SADF possessed some mine clearance equipment, including flails and ploughs mounted on tanks, but these were not considered practical either.][ The sheer distances of road vulnerable to PLAN sappers every day was simply too vast for daily detection and clearance efforts.][ For the SADF and the police, the only other viable option was the adoption of armoured personnel carriers with mine-proof hulls that could move quickly on roads with little risk to their passengers even if a mine was encountered.][ This would evolve into a new class of military vehicle, the mine resistant and ambush protected vehicle (MRAP).][ By the end of 1972, the South African police were carrying out most of their patrols in the Caprivi Strip with mineproofed vehicles.][
]
Political unrest in Ovamboland
United Nations Security Council Resolution 283 was passed in June 1970 calling for all UN member states to close, or refrain from establishing, diplomatic or consular offices in South West Africa. The resolution also recommended disinvestment, boycotts, and voluntary sanctions of that territory as long as it remained under South African rule.[ In light of these developments, the Security Council sought the advisory opinion of the ICJ on the "legal consequences for states of the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia".][ There was initial opposition to this course of action from SWAPO and the OAU, because their delegates feared another inconclusive ruling like the one in 1966 would strengthen South Africa's case for annexation.] Nevertheless, the prevailing opinion at the Security Council was that since the composition of judges had been changed since 1966, a ruling in favour of the nationalist movement was more likely.[ At the UN's request, SWAPO was permitted to lobby informally at the court and was even offered an observer presence in the courtroom itself.][
On 21 June 1971, the ICJ reversed its earlier decision not to rule on the legality of South Africa's mandate, and expressed the opinion that any continued perpetuation of said mandate was illegal.][ Furthermore, the court found that Pretoria was under obligation to withdraw its administration immediately and that if it failed to do so, UN member states would be compelled to refrain from any political or business dealings which might imply recognition of the South African government's presence there.][ On the same day the ICJ's ruling was made public, South African prime minister ]B. J. Vorster
Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (; also known as John Vorster; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983) was a South African apartheid politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the fourth state presiden ...
rejected it as "politically motivated", with no foundation in fact.[ However, the decision inspired the bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambo-Kavango Church to draw up an open letter to Vorster denouncing apartheid and South Africa's continued rule.] This letter was read in every black Lutheran congregation in the territory, and in a number of Catholic and Anglican parishes elsewhere. The consequence of the letter's contents was increased militancy on the part of the black population, especially among the Ovambo people, who made up the bulk of SWAPO's supporters. Throughout the year there were mass demonstrations against the South African government held in many Ovamboland schools.
In December 1971, Jannie de Wet, Commissioner for the Indigenous Peoples of South West Africa, sparked off a general strike by 15,000 Ovambo workers in Walvis Bay when he made a public statement defending the territory's controversial contract labour regulations. The strike quickly spread to municipal workers in Windhoek, and from there to the diamond, copper and tin mines, especially those at Tsumeb, Grootfontein, and Oranjemund
Oranjemund (German for ''"Mouth of Orange"'') is a diamond mining town of 4,000 inhabitants situated in the ǁKaras Region of the extreme southwest of Namibia, on the northern bank of the Orange River mouth at the border to South Africa.
Histor ...
. Later in the month, 25,000 Ovambo farm labourers joined what had become a nationwide strike affecting half the total workforce. The South African police responded by arresting some of the striking workers and forcibly deporting the others to Ovamboland. On 10 January 1972, an ''ad hoc'' strike committee led by Johannes Nangutuuala, was formed to negotiate with the South African government; the strikers demanded an end to contract labour, freedom to apply for jobs according to skill and interest and to quit a job if so desired, freedom to have a worker bring his family with him from Ovamboland while taking a job elsewhere, and for equal pay with white workers.[
The strike was later brought to an end after the South African government agreed to several concessions which were endorsed by Nangutuuala, including the implementation of uniform working hours and allowing workers to change jobs.] Responsibility for labour recruitment was also transferred to the tribal authorities in Ovamboland. Thousands of the sacked Ovambo workers remained dissatisfied with these terms and refused to return to work. They attacked tribal headmen, vandalised stock control posts and government offices, and tore down about a hundred kilometres of fencing along the border, which they claimed obstructed itinerant Ovambos from grazing their cattle freely. The unrest also fueled discontent among Kwanyama-speaking Ovambos in Angola, who destroyed cattle vaccination stations and schools and attacked four border posts, killing and injuring some SADF personnel as well as members of a Portuguese militia unit. South Africa responded by declaring a state of emergency
A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
in Ovamboland on 4 February.[ A media blackout was imposed, white civilians evacuated further south, public assembly rights revoked, and the security forces empowered to detain suspicious persons indefinitely.][ Police reinforcements were sent to the border, and in the ensuing crackdown they arrested 213 Ovambos.] South Africa was sufficiently alarmed at the violence to deploy a large SADF contingent as well. They were joined by Portuguese troops who moved south from across the border to assist them.[ By the end of March order had been largely restored and most of the remaining strikers returned to work.][
South Africa blamed SWAPO for instigating the strike and subsequent unrest.][ While acknowledging that a significant percentage of the strikers were SWAPO members and supporters, the party's acting president ]Nathaniel Maxuilili
Nathaniel Maxuilili (10 October 1927 – 23 June 1999) was a Namibian politician, a member of SWAPO, and veteran of the struggle for the independence of the former South West Africa, he fought alongside today's Namibian prominent political figures ...
noted that reform of South West African labour laws had been a longstanding aspiration of the Ovambo workforce, and suggested the strike had been organised shortly after the crucial ICJ ruling because they hoped to take advantage of its publicity to draw greater attention to their grievances.[ The strike also had a politicising effect on much of the Ovambo population, as the workers involved later turned to wider political activity and joined SWAPO.][ Around 20,000 strikers did not return to work but fled to other countries, mostly Zambia, where some were recruited as guerrillas by PLAN.] Support for PLAN also increased among the rural Ovamboland peasantry, who were for the most part sympathetic with the strikers and resentful of their traditional chiefs' active collaboration with the police.
The following year, South Africa transferred self-governing authority to Chief Fillemon Elifas Shuumbwa and the Ovambo legislature, effectively granting Ovamboland a limited form of home rule
Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wi ...
. Voter turnout at the legislative elections was exceedingly poor, due in part to antipathy towards the local Ovamboland government and a SWAPO boycott of the polls.
The police withdrawal
Swelled by thousands of new recruits and an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of heavy weapons, PLAN undertook more direct confrontations with the security forces in 1973. Insurgent activity took the form of ambushes and selective target attacks, particularly in the Caprivi near the Zambian border. On the evening of 26 January 1973 a heavily armed group of about 50 PLAN insurgents attacked a police base at Singalamwe, Caprivi with mortars, machine guns, and a single tube, man portable rocket launcher. The police were ill-equipped to repel the attack and the base soon caught fire due to the initial rocket bombardment, which incapacitated both the senior officer and his second in command.[ This marked the beginning of a new phase of the South African Border War in which the scope and intensity of PLAN raids were greatly increased.] By the end of 1973, PLAN's insurgency had engulfed six regions: Caprivi, Ovamboland, Kaokoland
Kaokoland was an administrative unit and a ''bantustan'' in northern South West Africa (now Namibia). Established during the apartheid era, it was intended to be a self-governing homeland of the OvaHimba, but an actual government was never ...
, and Kavangoland. It also had successfully recruited another 2,400 Ovambo and 600 Caprivian guerrillas. PLAN reports from late 1973 indicate that the militants planned to open up two new fronts in central South West Africa and carry out acts of urban insurrection in Windhoek, Walvis Bay, and other major urban centres.
Until 1973, the South African Border War was perceived as a matter of law enforcement rather than a military conflict, reflecting a trend among Anglophone Commonwealth states to regard police as the principal force in the suppression of insurgencies.[ The South African police did have paramilitary capabilities, and had previously seen action during the ]Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe-Rh ...
.[ However, the failure of the police to prevent the escalation of the war in South West Africa led to the SADF assuming responsibility for all counter-insurgency campaigns on 1 April 1974.] The last regular South African police units were withdrawn from South West Africa's borders three months later, in June. At this time there were about 15,000 SADF personnel being deployed to take their place. The SADF's budget was increased by nearly 150% between 1973 and 1974 accordingly. In August 1974, the SADF cleared a buffer strip about five kilometres wide which ran parallel to the Angolan border and was intensely patrolled and monitored for signs of PLAN infiltration. This would become known as "the Cutline".
The Angolan front, 1975–1977
On 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...
ousted Marcelo Caetano and Portugal's right-wing '' Estado Novo'' government, sounding the death knell for the Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...
. The Carnation Revolution was followed by a period of instability in Angola, which threatened to erupt into civil war, and South Africa was forced to consider the unpalatable likelihood that a Soviet-backed regime there allied with SWAPO would in turn create increased military pressure on South West Africa. PLAN incursions from Angola were already beginning to spike due to the cessation of patrols and active operations there by the Portuguese.
In the last months of 1974, Portugal announced its intention to grant Angola independence and embarked on a series of hasty efforts to negotiate a power-sharing accord, the Alvor Agreement
The Alvor Agreement, signed on 15 January 1975 in Alvor, Portugal, granted Angola independence from Portugal on 11 November and formally ended the 13-year-long Angolan War of Independence.
The agreement was signed by the Portuguese governme ...
, between rival Angolan nationalists. There were three disparate nationalist movements then active in Angola, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola
The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Abbreviation, abbr. MPLA), for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan left-wi ...
(MPLA), the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and the National Liberation Front of Angola
The National Front for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; abbreviated FNLA) is a political party and former militant organisation that fought for Angolan independence from Portugal in the war of independe ...
(FNLA).[ The three movements had all participated in the Angolan War of Independence and shared a common goal of liberating the country from colonial rule, but also claimed unique ethnic support bases, different ideological inclinations, and their own conflicting ties to foreign parties and governments.][ Although each possessed vaguely socialist leanings, the MPLA was the only party which enjoyed close ties to the Soviet Union and was openly committed to Marxist policies.][ Its adherence to the concept of an exclusive one-party state alienated it from the FNLA and UNITA, which began portraying themselves as anti-communist and pro-Western in orientation.][
South Africa believed that if the MPLA succeeded in seizing power, it would support PLAN militarily and lead to an unprecedented escalation of the fighting in South West Africa.] While the collapse of the Portuguese colonial state was inevitable, Pretoria hoped to install a moderate anti-communist government in its place, which in turn would continue cooperating with the SADF and work to deny PLAN bases on Angolan soil. This led Prime Minister Vorster and South African intelligence chief Hendrik van den Bergh to embark on a major covert action programme in Angola, Operation Savannah.[ Arms and money were secretly funnelled to the FNLA and UNITA, in exchange for their promised support against PLAN.][ ]Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary politician and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA waged a guerrilla war agai ...
, UNITA's president, claimed he knew where PLAN's camps in southern Angola were located and was prepared to "attack, detain, or expel" PLAN fighters. FNLA President Holden Roberto
Álvaro Holden Roberto (January 12, 1923 – August 2, 2007) was an Angolan politician who founded and led the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) from 1962 to 1999. His memoirs are unfinished.
Early life
Roberto, son of Garcia Diasiwa ...
made similar assurances and promised that he would grant the SADF freedom of movement in Angola to pursue PLAN.[
]
Operation Savannah
Within days of the Alvor Agreement, the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
launched its own programme, Operation IA Feature Operation IA Feature, a covert Central Intelligence Agency operation, authorized U.S. government support for Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and Holden Roberto's National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) ...
, to arm the FNLA, with the stated objective of "prevent ngan easy victory by Soviet-backed forces in Angola". The United States was searching for regional allies to take part in Operation IA Feature and perceived South Africa as the "ideal solution" in defeating the pro-Soviet MPLA. With tacit American encouragement, the FNLA and UNITA began massing large numbers of troops in northern and southern Angola, respectively, in an attempt to gain tactical superiority. The transitional government installed by the Alvor Agreement disintegrated and the MPLA requested support from its communist allies.[ Between February and April 1975, the MPLA's armed wing, the ]People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola
The People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola ( pt, Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola) or FAPLA was originally the armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) but later (1975–1991) became Ango ...
(FAPLA), received shipments of Soviet arms, mostly channelled through Cuba or the People's Republic of the Congo.[ At the end of May, FAPLA personnel were being instructed in their use by a contingent of about 200 Cuban military advisers.] Over the next two months, they proceeded to inflict a series of crippling defeats on the FNLA and UNITA, which were driven out of the Angolan capital, Luanda
Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seapo ...
.[
To South African Minister of Defence ]P.W. Botha
Pieter Willem Botha, (; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006), commonly known as P. W. and af, Die Groot Krokodil (The Big Crocodile), was a South African politician. He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and ...
, it was evident that the MPLA had gained the upper hand; in a memo dated late June 1975, he observed that the MPLA could "for all intents and purposes be considered the presumptive ultimate rulers of Angola...only drastic and unforeseeable developments could alter such an income."[ Skirmishes at the ]Calueque
Calueque is a town next to a dam and pumping station of the same name on the Kunene River in the Kunene Province of southern Angola. The water project is linked to Ruacana, away in Namibia, where the Ruacana Power Station is. This dam is one of ...
hydroelectric dam, which supplied electricity to South West Africa, gave Botha the opportunity to escalate the SADF's involvement in Angola.[ On 9 August, a thousand South African troops crossed into Angola and occupied Calueque.] While their public objective was to protect the hydroelectric installation and the lives of the civilian engineers employed there, the SADF was also intent on searching out PLAN cadres and weakening FAPLA.
A watershed in the Angolan conflict was the South African decision on 25 October to commit 2,500 of its own troops to battle. Larger quantities of more sophisticated arms had been delivered to FAPLA by this point, such as T-34-85
The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank introduced in 1940. When introduced its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was less powerful than its contemporaries while its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against anti-tank weapons. The Chri ...
tanks, wheeled armoured personnel carriers, towed rocket launchers and field guns. While most of this hardware was antiquated, it proved extremely effective, given the fact that most of FAPLA's opponents consisted of disorganised, under-equipped militias. In early October, FAPLA launched a major combined arms offensive on UNITA's national headquarters at Nova Lisboa
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...
, which was only repelled with considerable difficulty and assistance from a small team of SADF advisers. It became evident to the SADF that neither UNITA or the FNLA possessed armies capable of taking and holding territory, as their fighting strength depended on militias which excelled only in guerrilla warfare. South Africa would need its own combat troops to not only defend its allies, but carry out a decisive counter-offensive against FAPLA. This proposal was approved by the South African government on the condition that only a small, covert task force would be permitted. SADF personnel participating in offensive operations were told to pose as mercenaries. They were stripped of any identifiable equipment, including their dog tags, and re-issued with nondescript uniforms and weapons impossible to trace.
On 22 October the SADF airlifted more personnel and a squadron of Eland armoured cars to bolster UNITA positions at Silva Porto. Within days, they had overrun considerable territory and captured several strategic settlements. The SADF's advance was so rapid that it often succeeding in driving FAPLA out of two or three towns in a single day. Eventually the South African expeditionary force split into three separate columns of motorised infantry and armoured cars to cover more ground. Pretoria intended for the SADF to help the FNLA and UNITA win the civil war before Angola's formal independence date, which the Portuguese had set for 11 November, then withdraw quietly. By early November, the three SADF columns had captured eighteen major towns and cities, including several provincial capitals, and penetrated over five hundred kilometres into Angola. Upon receiving intelligence reports that the SADF had openly intervened on the side of the FNLA and UNITA, the Soviet Union began preparations for a massive airlift of arms to FAPLA.
Cuba responds with Operation Carlota
On 3 November, a South African unit advancing towards Benguela
Benguela (; Umbundu: Luombaka) is a city in western Angola, capital of Benguela Province. Benguela is one of Angola's most populous cities with a population of 555,124 in the city and 561,775 in the municipality, at the 2014 census.
History
P ...
, Angola paused to attack a FAPLA base which housed a substantial training contingent of Cuban advisers.[ When reports reached Cuban President ]Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 20 ...
that the advisers had been engaged by what appeared to be SADF regulars, he decided to approve a request from the MPLA leadership for direct military assistance.[ Castro declared that he would send all "the men and weapons necessary to win that struggle",][ in the spirit of ]proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...
and solidarity with the MPLA.[ Castro named this mission Operation Carlota after an African woman who had organised a slave revolt on Cuba.][
The first Cuban combat troops began departing for Angola on 7 November, and were drawn from a special paramilitary battalion of the Cuban Ministry of Interior.] These were followed closely by one mechanised and one artillery battalion of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, which set off by ship and would not reach Luanda until 27 November.[ They were kept supplied by a massive airlift carried out with Soviet aircraft.][ The Soviet Union also deployed a small naval contingent and about 400 military advisers to Luanda.][ Heavy weapons were flown and transported by sea directly from various Warsaw Pact member states to Angola for the arriving Cubans, including tanks, helicopters, armoured cars, and even 10 ]Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nickn ...
fighter aircraft, which were assembled by Cuban and Soviet technicians in Luanda. By the end of the year, there were 12,000 Cuban soldiers inside Angola, nearly the size of the entire SADF presence in South West Africa. The FNLA suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Quifangondo
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
when it attempted to take Luanda on 10 November, and the capital remained in FAPLA hands by independence.
Throughout late November and early December, the Cubans focused on fighting the FNLA in the north, and stopping an abortive incursion by Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
on behalf of that movement. Thereafter, they refocused on putting an end to the SADF advances in the south. The South African and Cuban forces engaged in a series of bloody, but inconclusive skirmishes and battles throughout late December. However, by this point word of the SADF's involvement had been leaked to the international press, and photographs of SADF armour behind UNITA lines were appearing in several European newspapers. This proved to be a major political setback for the South African government, which was almost universally condemned for its interference in a black African country. Moreover, it spurred influential African states such as Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
and Tanzania to recognise the MPLA as the sole legitimate government of Angola, as that movement's struggle against an apparent act of South African aggression gave it legitimacy at the OAU.[
South Africa appealed to the United States for more direct support, but when the CIA's role in arming the FNLA also became public, the US Congress terminated and disavowed the programme.] In the face of regional and international condemnation, the SADF made the decision around Christmas of 1975 to begin withdrawing from Angola.[ The withdrawal commenced in February 1976 and formally ended a month later.] As the FNLA and UNITA lost their logistical backing from the CIA and the direct military support of the SADF, they were forced to abandon much of their territory to a renewed FAPLA offensive. The FNLA was almost completely wiped out, but UNITA succeeded in retreating deep into the country's wooded highlands, where it continued to mount a determined insurgency.[ Operation Savannah was widely regarded as a strategic failure.] South Africa and the US had committed resources and manpower to the initial objective of preventing a FAPLA victory prior to Angolan independence, which was achieved.[ But the early successes of Savannah provided the MPLA politburo with a reason to increase the deployment of Cuban troops and Soviet advisers exponentially.]
The CIA correctly predicted that Cuba and the Soviet Union would continue to support FAPLA at whatever level was necessary to prevail, while South Africa was inclined to withdraw its forces rather than risk incurring heavy casualties.[ The SADF had suffered between 28 and 35 killed in action.] An additional 100 were wounded. Seven South Africans were captured and displayed at Angolan press briefings as living proof of the SADF's involvement. Cuban casualties were known to be much higher; several hundred were killed in engagements with the SADF or UNITA. Twenty Cubans were taken prisoner: 17 by UNITA, and 3 by the South Africans. South Africa's National Party suffered some domestic fallout as a result of Savannah, as Prime Minister Vorster had concealed the operation from the public for fear of alarming the families of national servicemen deployed on Angolan soil. The South African public was shocked to learn of the details, and attempts by the government to cover up the debacle were slated in the local press.
The Shipanga Affair and PLAN's exit to Angola
In the aftermath of the MPLA's political and military victory, it was recognised as the official government of the new People's Republic of Angola by the European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...
and the UN General Assembly. Around May 1976 the MPLA concluded several new agreements with Moscow for broad Soviet-Angolan cooperation in the diplomatic, economic, and military spheres; simultaneously both countries also issued a joint expression of solidarity with the Namibian struggle for independence.
Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other Warsaw Pact member states specifically justified their involvement with the Angolan Civil War as a form of proletarian internationalism. This theory placed an emphasis on socialist solidarity between all left-wing revolutionary struggles, and suggested that one purpose of a successful revolution was to likewise ensure the success of another elsewhere. Cuba in particular had thoroughly embraced the concept of internationalism, and one of its foreign policy objectives in Angola was to further the process of national liberation in southern Africa by overthrowing colonial or white minority regimes. Cuban policies with regards to Angola and the conflict in South West Africa thus became inexorably linked. As Cuban military personnel had begun to make their appearance in Angola in increasing numbers, they also arrived in Zambia to help train PLAN. South Africa's defence establishment perceived this aspect of Cuban and to a lesser extent Soviet policy through the prism of the domino theory: if Havana and Moscow succeeded in installing a communist regime in Angola, it was only a matter of time before they attempted the same in South West Africa.[
Operation Savannah accelerated the shift of SWAPO's alliances among the Angolan nationalist movements.][ Until August 1975, SWAPO was theoretically aligned with the MPLA, but in reality PLAN had enjoyed a close working relationship with UNITA during the Angolan War of Independence.][ In September 1975, SWAPO issued a public statement declaring its intention to remain neutral in the Angolan Civil War and refrain from supporting any single political faction or party.] With the South African withdrawal in March, Sam Nujoma retracted his movement's earlier position and endorsed the MPLA as the "authentic representative of the Angolan people". During the same month, Cuba began flying in small numbers of PLAN recruits from Zambia to Angola to commence guerrilla training. PLAN shared intelligence with the Cubans and FAPLA, and from April 1976 even fought alongside them against UNITA. FAPLA often used PLAN cadres to garrison strategic sites while freeing up more of its own personnel for deployments elsewhere.
The emerging MPLA-SWAPO alliance took on special significance after the latter movement was wracked by factionalism and a series of PLAN mutinies in Western Province, Zambia between March and April 1976, known as the Shipanga Affair. Relations between SWAPO and the Zambian government were already troubled due to the fact that the growing intensity of PLAN attacks on the Caprivi often provoked South African retaliation against Zambia. When SWAPO's executive committee proved unable to suppress the PLAN revolt, the Zambian National Defence Force (ZNDF) mobilised several army battalions and drove the dissidents out of their bases in South West African refugee camps, capturing an estimated 1,800. SWAPO's Secretary for Information, Andreas Shipanga, was later held responsible for the revolt. Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda deported Shipanga and several other high-ranking dissidents to Tanzania, while incarcerating the others at remote army facilities.[ Sam Nujoma accused them of being South African agents and carried out a purge of the surviving political leadership and PLAN ranks.] Forty mutineers were sentenced to death by a PLAN tribunal in Lusaka, while hundreds of others disappeared. The heightened tension between Kaunda's government and PLAN began to have repercussions in the ZNDF. Zambian officers and enlisted men confiscated PLAN arms and harassed loyal insurgents, straining relations and eroding morale.
The crisis in Zambia prompted PLAN to relocate its headquarters from Lusaka to Lubango
Lubango, formerly known as Sá da Bandeira, is a municipality in Angola, capital of the Huíla Province, with a population of 914,456 in 2022. The city center had a population of 600,751 in 2014 making it the second-most populous city in Angola a ...
, Angola, at the invitation of the MPLA.[ It was joined shortly afterwards by SWAPO's political wing, which relocated to Luanda.] SWAPO's closer affiliation and proximity to the MPLA may have influenced its concurrent slide to the left;[ the party adopted a more overtly Marxist discourse, such as a commitment to a classless society based on the ideals and principles of scientific socialism.] From 1976 onward, SWAPO considered itself the ideological as well as the military ally of the MPLA.
In 1977 Cuba and the Soviet Union established dozens of new training camps in Angola to accommodate PLAN and two other guerrilla movements in the region, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a Marxist–Leninist political party in Rhodesia. It participated in the Rhodesian Bush War against white minority rule of Rhod ...
(ZIPRA) and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). The Cubans provided instructors and specialist officers, while the Soviets provided more hardware for the guerrillas. This convergence of interests between the Cuban and Soviet military missions in Angola proved successful as it drew on each partner's comparative strengths. The Soviet Union's strength lay in its vast military industry, which furbished the raw material for bolstering FAPLA and its allies. Cuba's strength lay in its manpower and troop commitment to Angola, which included technical advisers who were familiar with the sophisticated weaponry supplied by the Soviets and possessed combat experience. In order to reduce the likelihood of a South African attack, the training camps were sited near Cuban or FAPLA military installations, with the added advantage of being able to rely on the logistical and communications infrastructure of PLAN's allies.[
]
External South African operations, 1978–1984
Access to Angola provided PLAN with limitless opportunities to train its forces in secure sanctuaries and infiltrate insurgents and supplies across South West Africa's northern border.[ The guerrillas gained a great deal of leeway to manage their logistical operations through Angola's Moçâmedes District, using the ports, roads, and railways from the sea to supply their forward operating bases.] Soviet vessels offloaded arms at the port of Moçâmedes, which were then transshipped by rail to Lubango and from there through a chain of PLAN supply routes snaking their way south towards the border.[ "Our geographic isolation was over," Nujoma commented in his memoirs. "It was as if a locked door had suddenly swung open...we could at last make direct attacks across our northern frontier and send in our forces and weapons on a large scale."][
In the territories of Ovamboland, Kaokoland, Kavangoland and ]East Caprivi
East Caprivi or Itenge was a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the Masubiya people. It was set up in 1972, in the very corner of the Namibian panh ...
after 1976, the SADF installed fixed defences against infiltration, employing two parallel electrified fences and motion sensors.[ The system was backed by roving patrols drawn from Eland armoured car squadrons, motorised infantry, canine units, horsemen and scrambler motorcycles for mobility and speed over rough terrain; local San trackers, Ovambo paramilitaries, and ]South African special forces
The South African Special Forces Brigade, colloquially known as the Recces, is South Africa's principal special operations unit, specialising in various types of operations including; counter-insurgency, long-range-reconnaissance, unconventi ...
. PLAN attempted hit-and-run raids across the border but, in what was characterised as the "corporal's war", SADF sections
Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea
* Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents
** Section sig ...
largely intercepted them in the Cutline before they could get any further into South West Africa itself. The brunt of the fighting was shouldered by small, mobile rapid reaction forces, whose role was to track and eliminate the insurgents after a PLAN presence was detected. These reaction forces were attached on the battalion level and maintained at maximum readiness on individual bases.[
The SADF carried out mostly reconnaissance operations inside Angola, although its forces in South West Africa could fire and manoeuvre across the border in self-defence if attacked from the Angolan side.] Once they reached the Cutline, a reaction force sought permission either to enter Angola or abort the pursuit.[ South Africa also set up a specialist unit, 32 Battalion, which concerned itself with reconnoitring infiltration routes from Angola.] 32 Battalion regularly sent teams recruited from ex-FNLA militants and led by white South African personnel into an authorised zone up to fifty kilometres deep in Angola; it could also dispatch platoon-sized reaction forces of similar composition to attack vulnerable PLAN targets. As their operations had to be clandestine and covert, with no link to South African forces, 32 Battalion teams wore FAPLA or PLAN uniforms and carried Soviet weapons.
Climate shaped the activities of both sides. Seasonal variations during the summer passage of the Intertropical Convergence Zone
The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge. It encircles Earth near the thermal ...
resulted in an annual period of heavy rains over northern South West Africa between February and April. The rainy season made military operations difficult. Thickening foliage provided the insurgents with concealment from South African patrols, and their tracks were obliterated by the rain. At the end of April or early May, PLAN cadres returned to Angola to escape renewed SADF search and destroy efforts and retrain for the following year.
Another significant factor of the physical environment was South West Africa's limited road network. The main arteries for SADF bases on the border were two highways leading west to Ruacana and north to Oshikango, and a third which stretched from Grootfontein through Kavangoland to Rundu. Much of this vital road infrastructure was vulnerable to guerrilla sabotage: innumerable road culverts and bridges were blown up and rebuilt multiple times over the course of the war. After their destruction PLAN saboteurs sowed the surrounding area with land mines to catch the South African engineers sent to repair them. One of the most routine tasks for local sector troops was a morning patrol along their assigned stretch of highway to check for mines or overnight sabotage. Despite their efforts, it was nearly impossible to guard or patrol the almost limitless number of vulnerable points on the road network, and losses from mines mounted steadily; for instance, in 1977 the SADF suffered 16 deaths due to mined roads. Aside from road sabotage, the SADF was also forced to contend with regular ambushes of both military and civilian traffic throughout Ovamboland. Movement between towns was by escorted convoy, and the roads in the north were closed to civilian traffic between six in the evening and half past seven in the morning. White civilians and administrators from Oshakati
Oshakati is a town in northern Namibia. It is the regional capital of the Oshana Region and one of Namibia's largest places.
Oshakati was founded in July 1966 and proclaimed a town in 1992. The town was used as a base of operations by the S ...
, Ondangwa
Ondangwa (earlier spelling ''Ondangua'') is a town in the Oshana Region of northern Namibia, bordering the Oshikoto Region. Ondangwa was first established as a mission station of the Finnish Missionary Society (the FMS) in 1890. In 1914, it beca ...
, and Rundu began routinely carrying arms, and never ventured far from their fortified neighbourhoods.
Unharried by major South African offensives, PLAN was free to consolidate its military organisation in Angola. PLAN's leadership under Dimo Hamaambo
Lieutenant General Mweukefina Kulaumone Jerobeam Dimo Hamaambo (27 October 1932 – 8 September 2002) was a Namibian military commander in both the Namibian War of Independence as a SWAPO member and in independent Namibia as the Chief of Defen ...
concentrated on improving its communications and control throughout that country, demarcating the Angolan front into three military zones, in which guerrilla activities were coordinated by a single operational headquarters. The Western Command was headquartered in western Huíla Province and responsible for PLAN operations in Kaokoland and western Ovamboland. The Central Command was headquartered in central Huíla Province and responsible for PLAN operations in central Ovamboland. The Eastern Command was headquartered in northern Huíla Province and responsible for PLAN operations in eastern Ovamboland and Kavangoland.
The three PLAN regional headquarters each developed their own forces which resembled standing armies with regard to the division of military labour, incorporating various specialties such as counter-intelligence, air defence, reconnaissance, combat engineering, sabotage, and artillery.[ The Eastern Command also created an elite force in 1978,] known as "''Volcano''" and subsequently, "''Typhoon''", which carried out unconventional operations south of Ovamboland.[
South Africa's defence chiefs requested an end to restrictions on air and ground operations north of the Cutline.] Citing the accelerated pace of PLAN infiltration, P.W. Botha recommended that the SADF be permitted, as it had been prior to March 1976, to send large numbers of troops into southern Angola. Vorster, unwilling to risk incurring the same international and domestic political fallout associated with Operation Savannah, repeatedly rejected Botha's proposals.[ Nevertheless, the Ministry of Defence and the SADF continued advocating air and ground attacks on PLAN's Angolan sanctuaries.][
]
Operation Reindeer
On 27 October 1977, a group of insurgents attacked a SADF patrol in the Cutline, killing 5 South African soldiers and mortally wounding a sixth. As military historian Willem Steenkamp records, "while not a large clash by World War II or Vietnam standards, it was a milestone in what was then...a low intensity conflict". Three months later, insurgents fired on patrols in the Cutline again, killing 6 more soldiers. The growing number of ambushes and infiltrations were timed to coincide with assassination attempts on prominent South West African tribal officials. Perhaps the most high-profile assassination of a tribal leader during this time was that of Herero chief Clemens Kapuuo
Clemens Kapuuo (16 March 1923 – 27 March 1978) was a Namibian school teacher, shopkeeper, president of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), now called Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), and chief of the Herero people of Namibia. Kapuuo w ...
, which South Africa blamed on PLAN.[ Vorster finally acquiesced to Botha's requests for retaliatory strikes against PLAN in Angola, and the SADF launched ]Operation Reindeer
Operation Reindeer, which began on 4 May 1978, was South Africa's second major military operation in Angola, carried out under the Apartheid regime, the first being Operation Savannah.
The South African operation consisted of an assault by 2 S ...
in May 1978.
One controversial development of Operation Reindeer helped sour the international community on the South African Border War.[ On 4 May 1978, a battalion-sized task force of the 44 Parachute Brigade conducted a sweep through the Angolan mining town of ]Cassinga
Cassinga or Kassinga is a town and commune in the municipality of Jamba, province of Huíla, Angola.
It is situated on an old and important two-track road from Jamba to Huambo.
Established as an ore mine and during the Civil War allegedly ...
, searching for what it believed was a PLAN administrative centre. Lieutenant General Constand Viljoen, the chief of the South African Army, had told the task force commanders and his immediate superior General Johannes Geldenhuys
General Johannes Jacobus (Jannie) Geldenhuys, (5 February 1935 – 10 September 2018) was a South African military commander who served as Chief of the South African Defence Force from 1985 to 1990.
Early life
Geldenhuys was born in Kroonstad ...
that Cassinga was a PLAN "planning headquarters" which also functioned as the "principal medical centre for the treatment of seriously injured guerrillas, as well as the concentration point for guerrilla recruits being dispatched to training centres in Lubango and Luanda and to operational bases in east and west Cunene."[ The task force was made up of older Citizen Force reservists, many of whom had already served tours on the border, led by experienced professional officers.]
The task force of about 370 paratroops entered Cassinga, which was known as Objective Moscow to the SADF, in the wake of an intense aerial bombardment. From this point onward, there are two differing accounts of the Cassinga incident.[ While both concur that an airborne South African unit entered Cassinga on 4 May and that the paratroopers destroyed a large camp complex, they diverge on the characteristics of the site and the casualties inflicted.][ The SWAPO and Cuban narrative presented Cassinga as a refugee camp, and the South African government's narrative presented Cassinga as a guerrilla base.][ The first account claimed that Cassinga was housing a large population of civilians who had fled the escalating violence in northern South West Africa and were merely dependent on PLAN for their sustenance and protection.][ According to this narrative, South African paratroopers opened fire on the refugees, mostly women and children; those not immediately killed were systematically rounded up into groups and bayoneted or shot.][ The alleged result was the massacre of at least 612 South West African civilians, almost all elderly men, women, and children.][ The SADF narrative concurred with a death toll of approximately 600 but claimed that most of the dead were insurgents killed defending a series of trenches around the camp.][ South African sources identified Cassinga as a PLAN installation on the basis of aerial reconnaissance photographs, which depicted a network of trenches as well as a military parade ground.][ Additionally, photographs of the parade ground taken by a Swedish reporter just prior to the raid depicted children and women in civilian clothing, but also uniformed PLAN guerrillas and large numbers of young men of military age.][ SWAPO maintained that it ordered the trenches around Cassinga dug to shelter the otherwise defenceless refugees in the event of a SADF raid, and only after camp staff had noted spotter planes overhead several weeks prior.][ It justified the construction of a parade ground as part of a programme to instill a sense of discipline and unity.][
Western journalists and Angolan officials counted 582 corpses on site a few hours after the SADF's departure.] The SADF suffered 3 dead and 1 missing in action.[
An adjacent Cuban mechanised infantry battalion stationed sixteen kilometres to the south advanced to confront the paratroops during the attack, but suffered several delays due to strafing runs by South African Dassault Mirage III and ]Blackburn Buccaneer
The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy (RN). Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, it was later officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccane ...
strike aircraft.[ In the first known engagement between South African and Cuban forces since the termination of Operation Savannah, five Cuban tanks and some infantry in BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers reached Cassinga while the paratroopers were being airlifted out by helicopter.][ This led to a protracted firefight in which Cuba acknowledged 16 dead and over 80 wounded.][ The Cassinga event was given special significance by Cuban historians such as Jorge Risquet, who noted that it marked the first time that "Cubans and Namibians shed their blood together fighting the South African ilitary"][
While Cassinga was in the process of being destroyed, a South African armoured column attacked a network of guerrilla transit camps at Chetequera, code named "Objective Vietnam", which was only about thirty kilometres from the Cutline.][ Chetequera was much more heavily fortified than Cassinga and the SADF encountered fierce resistance.][ Unlike the latter, it had been scouted thoroughly by South African reconnaissance assets on the ground,][ and they were able to verify the absence of civilians with ample photographic and documentary evidence.][ The SADF suffered another 3 dead at Chetequera, in addition to 30 wounded.] PLAN lost 248 dead and 200 taken prisoner.
On 6 May 1978, Operation Reindeer was condemned by United Nations Security Council Resolution 428
United Nations Security Council Resolution 428, adopted unanimously on May 6, 1978, after hearing representations from the People's Republic of Angola, Zambia and the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), the Council reminded Member St ...
, which described it as a violation of Angola's territorial integrity and threatened punitive measures should the SADF attempt another incursion on Angolan soil.[ The resolution attracted almost unanimous support worldwide, and was endorsed not only by the Soviet Union, but by major Western powers such as the US, the UK, France, Canada, and West Germany.][ As the Cassinga incident received publicity, American and European attitudes became one of intense criticism of South African purpose as well as the process by which it carried out the war.][ Notably, Western pressure at the UN to recognise South Africa as an equal partner in any future Namibian peace settlement evaporated.][
Cassinga was a major political breakthrough for SWAPO, which had portrayed the casualties there as martyrs of a Namibian nation in the making.][ The movement received unprecedented support in the form of humanitarian aid sent to its remaining refugee camps and offers from foreign governments to educate refugees in their countries.][
]
Botha's escalation
Vorster's failing health and his preoccupation with domestic issues such as the looming Muldergate Scandal
The Muldergate scandal, also known as the Information Scandal or Infogate, was a South African political scandal involving a secret propaganda campaign conducted by the apartheid Department of Information. It centred on revelations about the Depa ...
diverted his attention from South West Africa from May to September 1978, and no more major operations were undertaken by the SADF during that period. However, his absence from military affairs meant he was no longer in a position to counter the hawkish position of P.W. Botha and the defence establishment.[ When Vorster voluntarily stepped down late that year, he was succeeded by Botha as prime minister.][ His final act in office was to reject a proposal drafted by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim for a ceasefire and transition to Namibian independence.]
Defence chiefs such as General Magnus Malan welcomed Botha's ascension, blaming previous battlefield reversals—namely, Operation Savannah—on Vorster's indecisive and "lackluster" leadership.[ Botha had generated a reputation for being a tenacious, uncompromising leader who would use South Africa's position of military strength to strike hard at its foreign enemies, particularly to retaliate against any form of armed provocation.][ He criticised the West and the US in particular as being unwilling to stand up to Soviet expansionism, and declared that if South Africa could no longer look to the " free world" for support, then it would prevent further communist inroads into the region itself.][ Within the first three months of his premiership, the length of military service for white conscripts was doubled, and construction began on several new SADF bases near the border.][ Although little in the tactical situation had changed when Botha assumed office, patrols now crossed into Angola much more frequently to intercept and destroy PLAN cadres along their known infiltration routes.]
PLAN was attempting to rebuild its forward operating bases after the loss of Chetequera.[ The insurgents had also been incensed by the Cassinga raid and publicly threatened retribution. "Strike a hard blow which Pretoria will not forget in a long time," deputy PLAN commander ]Solomon Huwala Dumeni Solomon "Jesus" Hawala is a former Namibian lieutenant general. Hawala was the deputy commander of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia before independence. He earned the nickname "Butcher of Lubango" for allegedly running detainee camps o ...
stated in a written directive to his staff. "We have been concentrating on attacking military targets and their forces, but they have decided to kill women and children. Cassinga must be revenged."[ It was from this communique that the name of the next major PLAN offensive was derived: Operation Revenge.][ After some deliberation, Huwala chose Katima Mulilo as his target and dispatched several PLAN reconnaissance teams to obtain data on firing positions and potential artillery observation posts.][ On 23 August 1978, PLAN bombarded Katima Mulilo with mortars and rocket fire, killing 10 SADF personnel.][ The next day, General Viljoen, General Geldenhuys and the Administrator-General of South West Africa flew out to Katima Mulilo to inspect the damage.][ All three narrowly escaped death when their SA.321 Super Frelon helicopter took ground fire from PLAN anti-aircraft positions at Sesheke.][ The SADF responded by bombarding Sesheke with its own artillery and making a sweep for PLAN insurgents up to a hundred kilometers north of the Cutline.][
On 6 March 1979, Prime Minister Botha ordered retaliatory strikes on selected targets in Angola and Zambia.] The respective code names for the operations were Rekstok and Saffraan. Heliborne South African troops landed in the vicinity of four Angolan settlements: Heque, Mongua, Oncocua, Henhombe, and Muongo, which they canvassed for guerrillas. The SADF remained in Zambia for a significantly longer period, carrying out a series of uneventful combat patrols and ambushes for five weeks. While Operations Rekstok and Saffraan were unsuccessful in terms of tactical results, they did interrupt PLAN's attempts to rebuild its base camps near the border. Most of the insurgents apparently concealed their arms and vanished into the local population. This proved less successful in Zambia, where the civilians in Sesheke District
Sesheke District is a district of Zambia, located in Western Province. The capital lies at Sesheke
Sesheke is a border town in the Western Province of Zambia, in a district of the same name. It lies on the northern bank of the Zambezi Rive ...
were irritated by the constant presence of South African patrols and reconnaissance aircraft; they demanded their government remove the remaining PLAN fighters. President Kaunda subsequently bowed to pressure and ordered PLAN to close its rear base facilities in Zambia, resulting in the collapse of its Caprivian insurgency.
On 16 March, Angola lodged a formal complaint with the UN Security Council concerning the violation of its borders and airspace as a result of Operation Rekstok. United Nations Security Council Resolution 447
United Nations Security Council resolution 447, adopted on 28 March 1979, after hearing representations from the People's Republic of Angola and the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), the Council recalled resolutions 387 (1976) and ...
was passed in response.[ The resolution "condemned strongly the racist regime of South Africa for its premeditated, persistent, and sustained armed invasions of the People's Republic of Angola, which constitute a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country as well as a serious threat to international peace and security".] A UN commission of inquiry logged 415 border violations by the SADF in 1979, an increase of 419% since the previous year.[ It also made note of 89 other incidents, which were mostly airspace violations or artillery bombardments that struck targets on Angolan soil.][
US–South African relations took an unexpected turn with Ronald Reagan's electoral victory in the 1980 United States presidential election, 1980 US presidential elections. Reagan's tough anti-communist record and rhetoric was greeted with cautious optimism by Pretoria;] during his election campaign he'd described the geopolitical situation in southern Africa as "a Russian weapon" aimed at the US. President Reagan and his Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker adopted a policy of constructive engagement with the Botha government, restored military attachés to the US embassy in South Africa, and permitted SADF officers to receive technical training in the US. They believed that pressure tactics against South Africa would be contrary to US regional goals, namely countering Soviet and Cuban influence.[ In a private memo addressed to the South African foreign minister, Crocker and his supervisor Alexander Haig declared that "we [the US] share your view that Namibia must not be turned over to the Soviets and their allies. A Russian flag in Windhoek is as unacceptable to us as it is to you".] Washington also ended its condemnation of SADF cross-border raids, which was perceived as tacit support for the latter's actions in Angola and elsewhere.[ This had the effect of encouraging Botha to proceed with larger and increasingly more ambitious operations against PLAN.] Between 1980 and 1982 South African ground forces invaded Angola three times to destroy the well-entrenched PLAN logistical infrastructure near the border region. The incursions were designated Operation Sceptic, Operation Protea, and Operation Daisy, respectively.
While Operation Rekstok was underway in March 1979, PLAN cadres retreated further into Angola and regrouped. Upon the SADF's departure, they had returned to their border sanctuaries, resuming raids, ambushes, and infiltration attempts. South African outposts in Ovamboland were subjected to constant mortar and rocket attacks. A year after Rekstok's conclusion, PLAN attacked the South African Air Force base at Ondangwa, destroying several aircraft and inflicting casualties.[ FAPLA continued to open its arsenals and training camps to Nujoma's army, and with Cuban assistance PLAN established its first conventional heavy weapons units, including a mechanised brigade.][ The insurgents also reorganised a segment of eastern Ovamboland into "semi-liberated" zones, where PLAN's political and military authorities effectively controlled the countryside.][ Ovambo peasants in the semi-liberated zones received impromptu weapons instruction before being smuggled back to Angola for more specialised training.][
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Operation Protea
Between 1979 and 1980, the pace of infiltration had accelerated so greatly that the SADF was forced to mobilise its reserves and deploy another 8,000 troops to South West Africa.[ The deeper South African raids struck into Angola, the more the war spread, and by mid-1980 the fighting had extended to a much larger geographic area than before.][ Operation Sceptic, then the largest combined arms offensive undertaken by South Africa since World War II, was launched in June against a PLAN base at Chifufua, over a hundred and eighty kilometres inside Angola.][ Chifufua, codenamed ''Objective Smokeshell'', was divided into a dozen well fortified complexes ringed with trenches, defensive bunkers, and anti-aircraft positions.] The SADF killed over 200 insurgents and captured several hundred tonnes of PLAN munitions and weaponry at the cost of 17 dead.[ Operation Protea was mounted on an even larger scale and inflicted heavier PLAN casualties; unlike Sceptic, it was to involve significant FAPLA losses as well as the seizure of substantial amounts of Angolan military hardware and supplies.] Protea was planned when the SADF first became aware of PLAN's evolving conventional capabilities in August 1981.[ Its targets were suspected PLAN bases sited outside major FAPLA installations at Ondjiva and Xangongo.] Attacking either settlement was considered especially risky due to the presence of Soviet advisers and a comprehensive local FAPLA air defence network.[
Since the first formal cooperation treaties between Angola and the Soviet Union in 1976, the military sphere had constituted the pivot of Angolan-Soviet relations.] The Soviet Navy benefited from its use of Angolan ports to stage exercises throughout the southern Atlantic and even negotiated with FAPLA for the construction of permanent bases. Luanda was named the regional headquarters for the 30th Operation Squadron of the Soviet Navy's Northern Fleet, which comprised eleven warships, three of which were in the port at any given time. From January 1976 onward, it also replaced Conakry as the primary base for Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 reconnaissance flights along Africa's western coast.[ Article 16 of the Angolan constitution banned the construction of foreign military bases, but exceptions could be made if base rights were considered essential to the country's national defence.][ The Soviet Union justified its continued air and naval presence as necessary measures to protect Angola from a South African invasion.] One senior Soviet military official, General Valery Belyaev, remarked that the 30th Operational Squadron was, "by the very fact of its presence...restraining the South African aggression against Angola."[
In exchange for granting base rights, FAPLA became the beneficiary of more sophisticated Soviet arms.][ After Operation Sceptic, the Soviet Union transferred over five hundred million dollars' worth of military equipment to FAPLA,] the bulk of it apparently concentrated on air defence.[ This made South African raids costlier in terms of the need to provide heavier air cover and likely casualties.][ With the adoption of more advanced weaponry, the contribution by Soviet technical and advisory support to FAPLA's operational capabilities also became increasingly crucial.] Totalling between 1,600 and 1,850 advisers by 1981, the Soviet military mission to Angola was deployed within all branches of the Angolan armed forces.[
A few weeks prior to Operation Protea, SADF General Charles Lloyd (South Africa), Charles Lloyd warned Botha that the introduction of early-warning radar and 2K12 Kub, 2K12 Kub "SA-6" missiles][ in southern Angola was making it difficult to provide air support to ground operations there.]