was his intention, Breytenbach wrote, “to turn the southern Angolan bush into a menacing, hostile environment for SWAPO”. In short, he wanted to “out-guerrilla the guerrillas”. The purpose was “to get them off balance and keep them on the wrong foot until they began to collapse psychologically and subsequently also militarily”.[30] (This approach was behind all SADF cross-border operations in the late 1970s and early 1980s.) The army allowed him to undertake clandestine operations – as the command directive put it, “to deny SWAPO an area of 50 kilometres north of the South West African border”.[31] Nevertheless, by the end of 1977 it was clear to the SADF that even 32 Battalion’s operations across the border were not enough.[32]
According to James Roherty, Geldenhuys noted, after taking over command in Windhoek,
[t]hat while South Africa was in a strategic defensive posture this must be understood in operational terms as requiring aggressive, offensive operations. It would be folly, he informed his superiors in Pretoria, to rely on defensive operations (or a defensive mind-set) in what would certainly be a protracted conflict. It reduces very simply, Geldenhuys argued, to a matter of casualties. The SADF cannot and must not sustain the casualties that would be an inevitable concomitant of manpower-intensive, counterinsurgency and conventional warfare. By carrying the war to the enemy – by inflicting disproportionally heavy casualties – the task becomes manageable. SADF units will have again to be trained in “the way of their forebears”.[33]
Geldenhuys’s approach, which was built on Breytenbach’s example, was adopted by the SADF high command. In a document entitled “The SADF basic doctrine for counter insurgency (rural)”, dated November 1977 and generated by the office of the Chief of Staff Operations, it was stated that hitherto the Defence Force’s strategic doctrine “was based on defensive reaction”. This meant that the insurgents, with their bases outside South Africa’s borders, retained the initiative. Because of political considerations, the SADF could not go after them. “Freedom of action was thus largely the prerogative of the enemy and the SADF had perforce to dance to their tune.”[34]
This had to change, the document stated. If the SADF remained on the defensive, offensive tactics notwithstanding, “it will not win the war against terrorism”. Consequently, the SADF “must now go over to the strategic offensive if it hopes for any success against the communist insurgent strategy being employed against it”. The object of such operations should be “destroying the terrorists, their organisation and infrastructure”. The basic theme in counterinsurgency strategic doctrine, the document declared, “is to wrest the initiative from the terrorists by offensive action”.[35] Here, in a nutshell, is the rationale for the series of cross-border offensives the SADF conducted into Angola in the decade between 1978 and 1988.
This type of posture was in line with South Africa’s history. Successive governments had always seen the country’s first defence line, not on its northern borders, but far northwards in Africa. This was, for instance, one of the rationales of Prime Minister Jan Smuts in taking South Africa to war against Italy and Germany in 1939.[36] This point of view was, of course, articulated with a view to the threat posed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, but the idea took root that South Africa’s true defence line should be as far to the north as possible. And this influenced thinking during the 1970s and 1980s as well.
How did all of this influence South Africa’s view of Angola and the war between the MPLA and UNITA? In March 1978, Magnus Malan, then still Chief of the SADF, visited Salisbury and told the Rhodesians that South Africa’s course was changing. He said that the military would in future dominate Pretoria’s security policy, that a realpolitik approach would be followed, and that the interests of his country would be followed above all else. He said there would be no further compromise regarding South West Africa, and that the idea was to keep southern Angola destabilised, to assist UNITA and to attack SWAPO whenever the opportunity arose.[37]
A year later, Malan’s thoughts crystallised in two documents for the State Security Council (SSC), in which a strategy regarding Angola was proposed. The second document made provision for the following: “The political situation in Angola must be kept as unstable and fluid as possible . . .” This aggressive thought was, however, motivated by a defensive purpose: “[T]o ensure the national security of SWA against the Marxist onslaught from without Angola.” Therefore, the Angolan government had to be forced to “prevent SWAPO from deploying in South Angola”.
The document refers to a future state “when the political situation, especially in South Angola, has improved to the extent that a stable anti-communist government can be brought to power to the advantage of Southern Africa”. It further states that the Angolan rebel movements – UNITA, FNLA and FLEC – “should operate under the leadership of UNITA as a united front with the end objective to create an anti-Marxist government in Angola”. South Africa also had to support UNITA, according to Malan.[38]
Not everyone agreed with Malan’s aggressive stance. The reaction of the Department of Foreign Affairs was distinctly unenthusiastic: whatever their ideological preferences, the Angolan and Mozambican governments were both internationally recognised, and South Africa had to act circumspectly. “Our freedom of movement to bring about changes to the governments of these two countries is limited . . . We have to apply more orthodox diplomatic methods, of which the economic weapon constitutes an important part,” the diplomats said.[39]
At about the same time, an agreement was reached between Jonas Savimbi, leader of UNITA, and senior officers of the SADF, according to which UNITA would clear the southeastern part of Angola and restore the lines of communication with South West Africa, while the SADF would take responsibility for the southwestern part.[40] This went hand in hand with a massive SADF aid programme to UNITA. According to a top-secret Military Intelligence report of 1979, South Africa had transferred about 1 400 tonnes of equipment to UNITA in the two previous years. In fact, “UNITA can thank the RSA for about 90% of its present force,” the report stated. In addition “[i]f the RSA did not aid UNITA, UNITA would have vanished from the vicinity”.[41]
South Africa’s limited economic power over Angola may have been another factor that contributed to its more aggressive posture. In the mid-1970s, South Africa had accepted FRELIMO rule in Mozambique and refused to aid attempts by white Portuguese colonialists to prevent the liberation movement from coming to power. In this case, Pretoria had a powerful weapon – Mozambique’s integration into the South African-dominated regional economy. Maputo’s role as a port city was largely dependent on South African expertise and its position as the nearest import point to the Witwatersrand, South Africa’s economic heart. A sizeable portion of the Mozambican working population were migrant labourers in the Republic. After the end of white rule in Rhodesia, South Africa supported the Mozambican rebel movement RENAMO, but this was in part a response to ANC terrorist attacks emanating from Mozambican soil. Its economic leverage enabled South Africa to intimidate Mozambique into signing a non-aggression pact early in 1984, restricting the ANC’s ability to operate from that country.
In the case of Angola, South Africa possessed no comparable economic card. The country had its own railways, there were very few Angolan migrant labourers in South Africa, and its oil industry made Angola relatively independent.[42] This meant that not much else but military measures remained for Pretoria to exert pressure on Angola to stop its support for SWAPO. All these considerations meant that the SADF’s approach, on the levels of military strategy, operations and tactics, was often aggressive and offensive. Nevertheless, the government remained on the defensive in terms of its security strategy.
The new South African strategy was part of a comprehensive reappraisal of South Africa’s geostrategic position, of which the navy became an unfortunate but understandable victim. Traditionally, the navy was, like the rest of the Defence Force, almost a clone of the British mother service. Whereas the army and air force were fast changing their cultures, the navy could still not really be distinguished from the Royal Navy. This did not exactly endear the navy to the army
