this is not how the South Africans – or the Americans, for that matter – saw it. In SADF documents, the Cubans are often referred to as “surrogate forces”. And so, in 1981, South Africa and the US concluded an informal pact to demand the departure of the Cubans from Angola as a prerequisite for the SADF’s withdrawal from Angola and the implementation of Namibian independence – the much-maligned concept of “linkage”.[61] In view of the perceived Cuban/Soviet threat, the South Africans definitely saw their military presence in Angola and SWA as defensive in nature.[62] As General Malan – then still Chief of the SADF – explained in 1979 at a meeting of the SSC,
[t]he question was whether we are going to implement a forward defensive strategy or a close strategy. We want to ensure the RSA’s national security outside the RSA . . . If we look at the Rhodesian front, the Mozambican front and the Angolan front, we see that the crisis is coming. The most forward defence line should be outside the Republic. We should be able to choose the time and place.[63]
PW Botha, then still prime minister, agreed. As long as he was prime minister, he assured the meeting, “he was not going to engage South Africa’s battle on its own territory. We now know what the Russian intentions are and that they have the ability to bring troops quickly to Southern Africa”[64] – a reference to the influx of Cuban troops into Angola in 1975.
The Americans did not always agree with the South Africans’ blunt approach, but there certainly was a convergence of interests, as perceived in Washington and Pretoria. In his memoirs, Chester Crocker explained the US thinking:
The Cuban troop withdrawal link would bring pressure on Luanda to reconcile with UNITA. It would prevent a Namibia settlement from occurring at UNITA’s expense. Cuban withdrawal from Southern Africa was inherently attractive in its own right and in terms of US–Soviet relations. Finally, it would give us the leverage we would need to obtain South African cooperation on Namibian independence.[65]
The question of linkage would become the central issue surrounding the international wrangling about South West Africa and Angola. It would also, in the end, provide the excuse for South Africa to leave SWA, and for Cuba to withdraw its troops from Angola. But all of this lay in the future.
One final point to make is that, obviously, the world looked very different when viewed from Luanda. In 1977, UNITA proclaimed a “Black African and Socialist Republic of Angola” in the areas under its control, but, according to an American researcher, this “was not designed as a secessionist move”. Nevertheless, the fear in Luanda was not only that this “UNITA state” would gain international recognition, but that South Africa “was once again attempting to create a ‘Great Ovambo State’ under its own aegis that would unify the Cuanhama [Kwanyama] speaking communities of northern Namibia and southern Angola”. The researcher described “tremendous alarm and paranoia in Luanda”. Late in 1978, the Angolan Minister of Defence, Iko Carreira, even publicly alleged that South Africa was on the verge of invading Angola again in order to capture Lubango, Huambo and Luanda itself.[66]
As we have seen, however, this fear did not rest on facts. The story emerging from secret South African documents is very different. But that did not make the fear less real.
5
By the beginning of 1978, the South African government was in deep trouble on a number of fronts. Only two years before, the black township of Soweto had exploded in an orgy of violence because of anger and resentment about the injustices of apartheid and the petty restrictions it imposed on black South Africans. In late 1977, the UN had imposed an arms embargo on the Republic. The cracks were even beginning to show in the united façade of the governing National Party, which would split within four years. The Vorster government’s reach-out programme to black African states had been shattered by the Savannah debacle. In these circumstances, it was logical that the influence of the hawks within government, with Minister of Defence PW Botha at the helm, would increase. This led to a more aggressive strategy, which resulted in a whole series of large and small cross-border operations into Angola and other neighbouring states to smoke out the insurgent movements sheltering there. Within a decade, South Africa would find itself teetering on the brink of an all-out war with Cuba and Angola.
After Operation Savannah, the government at first forbade SADF forces to cross the border into Angola. SAAF aircraft had to take care to stay out of Angolan airspace. An exception was made for 32 Battalion, whose black Angolan soldiers could infiltrate their home country clandestinely and could attack SWAPO in the “shallow” areas near the border without political ramifications. Under Colonel Jan Breytenbach, the unit repeatedly attacked across the border: “We had to get them off balance, take away the initiative and act as the spoiler in their attempts to overrun Ovamboland.” As 32 Battalion at this time operated mostly in southeastern Angola, SWAPO vacated the area and moved westwards to Cunene province, where the SADF did not have a big presence.[1] In addition, the Special Forces, the Reconnaissance regiments (generally known as the Recces), carried out small-scale clandestine operations against SWAPO north of the border.[2]
But these actions proved to be insufficient. As Brigadier General As Kleynhans explained: “The area was too big and the border was too long. The terrain made it difficult too, [it was] flat with no natural lookout points. We did not have the capacity to close the border, it always remained permeable.”[3] At the end of January 1978, Commandant Gert Nel, who took over from Breytenbach as commander of 32 Battalion, reported that SWAPO “had the initiative in this area [eastern Ovamboland] and also throughout enjoys the support and aid of the local population”.[4]
There was only one way to recapture the strategic initiative: escalation. In a report dated 27 February 1978, the first of a series of SADF analyses of the military situation in South West Africa, it was argued that SWAPO had been successful in building up its strength in Ovamboland and the Eastern Caprivi. It was expected that SWAPO would have a force of 5 000 by the end of 1978, although only 1 000 of these were operationally deployable in the short term. Between 250 and 300 insurgents were active in Ovamboland. It therefore became imperative to employ the SADF’s full force against SWAPO across the border, instead of relying only on the defensive “hearts and minds” strategy.[5] In fact, Military Intelligence started getting reports of an increasing SWAPO presence in Angola’s Cunene province, and it became clear that the area was being developed – in Jan Breytenbach’s words – “as an extensive guerrilla base area”.[6]
In a second document, undated but apparently written in March or April 1978, it was bluntly stated that the situation in SWA was entering “an unacceptable turn” due to SWAPO’s military activity. The movement was becoming “ever more audacious with well-planned operations”. SWAPO’s political influence was high, and for this to change meaningfully, its “military capability had to be given a knock-out blow”.[7]
In his MA thesis on the battle of Cassinga, Brigadier General McGill Alexander summarised a third, even more important, document of 1 April 1978:
SWAPO was clearly capable of acting in the “traditional terrorist manner”, but also where necessary to act more aggressively and in larger groups with the required firepower and mobility in a reasonably effective way. SWAPO, claimed the document, had established a considerable number of bases in southern Angola from which it conducted military operations across the border as well as doing limited training and delivering logistical support. SWAPO actions north of the border were displaying a tendency to make more use of conventional weapons.
In sharp contrast to this, it was stated in the document, the SADF had concentrated in the past few years on “counter-terrorist” operations and had to a degree fallen into the rut of carrying out specific, elementary actions because it was seldom possible, and was in any case not permitted, to employ the full military potential of the Army
