That old mysterious war the SADF in Angola

[Karagatho]

I have been searching through alot of info to try and find out what exactly this was
about, and what happened, this is what I dug up

Why Pretoria decided to go into Angola is still a bit up in the air, as far as I can see from
account from the foot soldiers the SADF and Cuba were both in the country Far earlier than
they both say they were,and the Cuban side was supported by elements
from both east-Germany and the soviet union.
UNITA was getting support from the USA ,and even received stinger missiles from them
And the CIA elements were making very sure South Africa never got hold of a stinger.

So the sides were

SADF and UNITA (With UNITA getting support from the USA)
And
SWAPO,Cuba ,and combat elements from East Germany and mainly command elements
From the Soviet Union

Now both sides state that Angola /Cuba had Air superiority through out the war so no problem
there.
Now here’s the point of contention, the Cubans claim absolute victory in that typical
Sort of overzealous way people do it when they know they talking rubbish ,You know
“Our Magnificent troops crushed the weak and cowering enemy like dogs!!!”
Like that Iraqi minister dude, when there were M1A2 right behind him!!

But the accounts I’ve read of the troops on the ground match up well with
The plans of attacks and screwups the SADF said they had , some of the attacks
Like the attempted bridge crossing of SWAPO and the Cubans and the attack
On that town ,Casinga I think it was match up perfectly ,
For cassinga I’ve got a story from a parabat who got dropped off station , a
Major with the special forces and a Ratel gunner, and all these stories match to
the story the SADF has supplied and these people have never met.

So I can only assume that the SADF did kick ass like they said they did , but
They certainly did take a lot of losses , but again this matches more or less
With the stories I’ve got , so I’m going with the SADF’s version.

Now the reason Cuba was there was because Namibia was about to have a General
Election and become independent , so somewhere in the communist world somebody
Saw a chance to take the election by force and put a big Cuban/Soviet army on
The border of South Africa , no doubt with the express purpose of taking
The country by force.
There have been documents made public by Russia confirming this ,and it makes
A good deal of sense as to why they would go to all this effort to get Namibia
And to why the USA would bother to help a rebel movement in the darkest
Africa.
And since South Africa running Apartheid at the time , they would have no
Doubt claimed to be liberating the Blacks, and certainly have gotten their support.

Luckly for the Whites I suppose ,the SADF was a fighting machine that even
The soviet union was surprised by ,and even though they lacked Air power
Managed to pull off some of the most amazing victories imaginable with
Locally built equipment, though if you read through these stories you’ll
Be shocked by the racisim displayed by the SADF ,even towards UNITA
And UNITA, they are some of the bravest and most forgiving people on
The planet, there were several instances where the SADF mistook UNITA
For SWAPO and started attacking only to be asked politely by some
UNITA rank to please stop shooting at them ,leaving the involved SADF members
Dumbstruck! , I read one section where during an attack on an entrenched SWAPO
Position , the UNITA members would sit on SADF tanks and fire at SWAPO, if
One was killed ,another would jump off ,make a Quick grave ,take any weapons
And ammo and jump right back into the fight.
But then again, the SADF soldiers were like that too.

There was a lot of bad stuff done by both sides of this war, the Cubans/Angolans
Used children in their army , and chained troops into dug in tanks to ensure they
Would fight ,there are several mentions from SADF members finding corpses
Chained into tanks like this.

Nearing the end ,where Cuba claimed victory and decided to leave, their army was
Smashed , and most of the stories tell of hard fought SADF/UNITA victories during this time
And with the agreement by Cuba to withdraw Pretoria was satisfied that it had ended
The threat of the possibility of and overwhelming force on the Namibian boarder.
So was happy to withdraw and get back to Apartheid
, although , they stuck around in Namibia for that last ditch incursion By SWAPO

I’ve read of some theories from the intelligence community of the USA that this war
More than any other ,lead to the final collapse of the soviet union ,and
to say the USA was very impressed by the SADF would be an understatement
This is why our military equipment is respected by the military world.
Remember they had only 10 years before lost a very similar war (Vietnam)

Any other theories just don’t make sense! The south Africa wanted to conquer
Angola is a bit hard to believe as this was a country under siege by its
Own people , and could hardly afford to hold even more territory and be
Even more under siege.
And why would the USA support UNITA if this is what it was ?
The USA and South Africa were hardly friends , hence there care
At ensuring South Africa never got hold of any of their stingers.
Heck they would probably have had to eventually kick South Africa out if
South Africa did that and I’m sure Pretoria was well aware of that

No, next time you see a G5 or a G6 or a Ratel ,know that that is one of the main
reasons there are any living whites in this country ,although I suppose
for some that would be a good thing , and everybody here isn’t
calling each other Comrade and this isn’t just another Communist mud
hole of the Soviet Union ,war has a way of doing that! Turning a place
into a mud hole.

[Karagatho]

I was checking out some cuban sites , for more on their side
of the story , and really its a bit of a stretch of the
Imagination , Their Claim to fame that they defeated the
SADF is a picture of their general standing in front of
1 tank , one picture! of one tank!
I mean the SADF side is riddled with pictures from the
ground ,lots of the troops took cameras along

No! I hate lies , and I like to uncover them ,and I
can safely say the SADF won that!,sure ,there stories
have lies too,Like the no casualties on an MRLS attack
on a headquaters in Namibia, but the cuban victory story is rubbish.

[Nubianman]

There was no decisive victory in that war, and neither the SADF/UNITA/USA or even the SWAPO/CUBA/SOVIET sides could rightly claim to have won the war. And if at all one side can lay claims to winning the war, one would expect it to be the SWAPO/CUBAN/SOVIET side for the mere fact that they ran the government of that country without losing power throughout the war and even upto today.

So please do us all a favour and take your falsehood elsewhere.

[Karagatho]

Yes thats right, they did maintain the hold on the Goverment
But this was not a war to conquer the country ,the SADF had
no illusions about their military might, this is why from
the beginning they severly curtailed incursions by their
airforce ,to ensure they lost no planes ,and their
helicopter pilots were instructed to ensure the survival of
their machines, to the point where troops had to jump from
the helicopters while they were still airborn! there's some
funny stories about stuff ups made by jumping troops.
I believe this war was an act of desperation from Pretoria
realising that if they did nothing ,and allowed the
Cuban/Soviet build up ,they were finished!

and it was certainly not decisive! it was the fact that the
SADF managed to pull off a victory at all that was
suprising, There is no doubt in my mind about the reason
for this war, anything else is just stupid.
A country under heavy sanctions is not going to send a
sizeable portion of its army into an undefendable country
right before it is about to be cut off from the SADF's
access by South west africa becoming independent!
Using up a large portion of its stored oil reserves
that it would not be able to recover from angola.
If that was the case ,they would never agreed to
losing South west africa in the first place!.

[Woestynryer]

You can find more info here:

http://www.airbornesoldier.com

Also look at the links section.

[ches]

Oh man, you give the apartheid government too much credit!

You also have your organisations wrong: SWAPO is the South West African People's Oragnisation, who were fighting for the liberation of Namibia. They are now the ruling party of Namibia. The war in Angola was between UNITA and MPLA, the Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

My main source of information on the SADF in Angola was gleened from a book by South Africans in exile in the US in the 1970's.

The apartheid government was trying to make South Africa's independent neighbours ungovernable. This is why they got involved in the Angolan, Mozambican and Zimbabwean civil wars. Zimbabwe was not all rosy after independence, with violence flaring up in the mid-1980's which led to the ZANU and ZAPU parties merging into today's ZANU-PF. You can thank South Africa for some of this instability in Zimbabwe, and you can thank Old Man Bob for the rest of it.

The US supported South Africa's invasion of Angola because they were (nominally) fighting against Communism. This is also why the US supported Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party in the early years. (Or, more likely, up until the end of the Iran-Iraq war, during which the US supplied weapons to both sides. Way to forge a peace, winners!)

There was no victory in Angola: South Africa withdrew because apartheid was crumbling and conscription was about to end. It was not possible for South Africa to wage war in Angola after granting Namibia independence. At around the same time, the Soviet Union collapsed. Both sides in the Angolan war lost their backers who had the boodle. It's hard to fight a war with no weapons. I wouldn't be surprised if both Angolan sides weren't a little confused as to why they were still fighting anyway.

South Africa illegally occupied Namibia for much of the latter half of their time in "South West Africa". Much like Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, however, the US were little inclined to enforce the UN resolutions (or veto'ed them) that required South Africa to withdraw from Namibia. The US likes political stability, even if that means illegal occupation or dictatorships, to protect her investments. Namibia has some of the largest deposits of uranium and was happy for those deposits to stay in apartheid hands.

The only time there has been an imminent democratic election in Namibia is at or subsequent to her independence. This is after the end of the conflict in Angola, or at least at the end of it, and is not timed to coincide with the Cuban involvement in Angola as far as I am aware. I could, of course, be very wrong about that though. If you have a date when Cuba became involved, it would help.

In any event, SWAPO were always going to win elections in Namibia, just as they are a shoe-in for the upcoming elections (whether or not Sam Nujoma modifies the constitution again to give himself a 4th term).

I am not surprised at your accounts of the confusion the SADF soldiers felt. The Angolan war was never discussed boys were conscripted after school or university and sent "to the border". That was as much as we knew. Nobody knew the why's or the what's. Those who didn't go to "the border" were often sent into the townships. Conscription was not a happy time for the majority of white South Africans.

[ches]

With book in hand, here's the skinny, circa 1976 and with thanks to Louise Stack and Don Morton, South Africans in exile in the USA.

Western Influence

US Oil Company (surprise, surprise) Gulf Oil was real cosy with the Portuguese rulers of Angola. By all accounts, the Portuguese made Rhodes look benevolent, and the people of Angola were beginning to get a little tired of it by the 1970's.

European farmers (and in this case, they really were "European", because Portuguese policy in its colonies was to treat the locals like pond scum unless they pledged allegiance to the Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar and became fully-fledged Portuguese citizens) occupied 60% of the arable land. They made up between 5 and 10% of the population.

The Portuguese and South Africans went halvies on the Cunene River scheme, a project that involved construction of 27 dams and hydroelectric plants on the Cunene River. The Cunene forms the border between Angola and Namibia. Presumably, the apartheid government's plan was to use the hydroelectric power to power the mines in Namibia, which they were planning, on mining empty before granting Namibia independence.

In the early 1960's, MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) guerrillas (freedom fighters) occupied ninety percent of the Cabinda Enclave. In 1966, the Gulf Oil Company discovered oil there and the Portuguese sent in the army. People were driven into aldeamentos, "strategic camps" (anybody hear "concentration camps"?) and hundreds were killed. The Portuguese referred to this as a "Pacification Program".

Gulf and the Portuguese government (dictatorship) contracted to give Gulf the exclusive right to the oil, while the government protected Gulf's costs. In other words, the Portuguese government guaranteed unfair wages, no competition and free and easy access to the oil for Gulf. In exchange, the Portuguese government received almost $100 million in 1974 in taxes. Effectively, the blood and sweat of the Angolans was funding the Portuguese in Europe.

In case you still think that Gulf Oil is just a good old capitalist company, think again! They were discovered to have made an illegal contribution to Nixon's re-election campaign.

If Gulf was paying almost $100 million a year in taxes to the Portuguese, imagine how much it was taking back to the US of A. Meanwhile, the South African diamond monopoly, De Beers, had the lion's share of the Angolan diamond industry. Iron ore production was mainly subsidised by West German companies.

February 1974, MPLA condemned the activities of the oil companies and warned them that they would be expelled and their assets nationalised when Angola achieved independence.

Resistance

By many accounts, the oppression by the Portuguese government in Angola and Mozambique was worse than that of the South African apartheid government.

In 1956, the Party of the United Struggle of Angolan Africans (PLUA) joined the Movement for the Independence of Angola (MIA) to form MPLA. MPLA was led by Dr. Agostinho Neto. In 1958, the Movement for National Independence of Angola (MINA) joined the bandwagon, but the name didn't change.

In 1961, MPLA tried to join forces with the Union of the Populations of Angola (UPA), but, ironically, they wouldn't have any of it. Instead, in 1962, UPA teamed up with the Democratic Party of Angola (PDA) instead to form the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto.

Roberto established the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE) in Kinshasa, in the (present-day) Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 1963, a split developed within MPLA, and the divide between MPLA and the GRAE deepened. The following year, FNLA also had trouble within the ranks, leading to Jonas Savimbi's desertion of FNLA and his creation of the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

There were now three liberation movements in Angola, they all hated each other, and they were soon to get guns. Of course they hated the Portuguese even more, but in 1974 when Portuguese prime minister Caetano's regime was overthrown in a coup d'etat by the Armed Forces Movement in Portugal. The movement had been inspired by its revulsion at the way the colonies in Africa had descended into civil war, with Portugal spending a quarter of its total budget on the military in Angola alone. (They were simultaneously fighting in Mozambique.)

The Armed Forces Movement in Portugal's main goal was to establish democracy in Portugal and to give the African colonies their independence. Six months after the coup, Portugal signed cease-fire agreements with FNLA and MPLA. There was a brief (euphoric?) moment of common ground between Neto, Roberto and Sahib on how to handle talks with the Portuguese government.

In January 1975, an interim government was established that included representatives from all three liberation movements. The interim government was to rule until independence. Elections would take place prior to independence. Angola's first president would be chosen from Neto, Roberto and Savimbi.

The party ended when MPLA decided that FNLA and UNITA were not liberation movements.

On November 11, 1975, the Portuguese left. Just after midnight, MPLA proclaimed Angola a People's Republic with Agostinho Neto president and Luanda the capital. At the same time, FNLA and UNITA announced a 24-member "national revolutionary council" and Nova Lisboa the capital.

By the time of writing, MPLA's government had been recognised by 46 countries - 26 of them African - and also by the Organisation of African Unity. FNLA and UNITA's government was not recognised by any country (not even Israel, who were happy to recognise the sovereignty of the Transkei!)

Why MPLA didn't get to govern

The real divide between MPLA and UNITA/FNLA was ideological: MPLA was communist. This did not sit well with UNITA/FNLA, and it especially did not sit well with Washington, DC. The New York Times of December 16, 1975 claimed that it was only the US government's "assistance" to UNITA and FNLA that stopped MPLA from taking the whole country.

The US were worried about two things in 1975: the communist leanings of MPLA, and the falling of the minerals of Angola and Gulf Oil's investment into communist hands. MPLA had already told Gulf Oil what its fate would be should they get control of the country. In June of 1975, Ford's goverment decided to send $70 million Angola's way, on condition that it would be used to keep the smelly commies away from the oil.

The Soviets are believed to have supported MPLA since they first began to grumble about the Portuguese.

The US shipped weapons, but don't appear to have deployed their troops. Hundreds of Americans fought as mercenaries, however, and US spotter planes flew missions over Angola from Zaire (now DRC).

The South Africans invaded Angola in October 1975, with orders to support the (US) mercenaries in combat. On December 17, 1975, South African reservists (who were also conscripted) were deployed.

The apartheid goverment claimed that it invaded Angola because it had a right to protect Africa from communist domination. It claimed it had been requested to intervene by the Zaire and Zambian governments. This claim is somewhat dubious, given that the ANC leadership were at the time holed up in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. The US government held the same line.

There is no record of Cuba's involvement at the time of writing the book.

Learn more: Torment to Triumph in Southern Africa by Louise Stack and Don Morton, Friendship Press, New York, 1976.