TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 2

Subsection 2

■ CONVENTIONAL WARFARE

The war in Angola

I was then in the military, you know in the paratroopers and the Special Forces, and I was decorated for a couple of operations in South West Africa. I don’t know if I must apply for amnesty for Kassinga … It was probably the most bloody exercise that we ever launched, according to me … we were parachuted into that target ... It was a terrible thing … I saw many things that happened there but I don’t want to talk about it now because I always start crying about it. It’s damaged my life. (Lieutenant Johan Frederich Verster, ex-SADF Special Forces officer, testimony to the Commission, 4 July 1997.)

It (Kassinga) was a jewel of military craftsmanship. (General J Geldenhuys, A General’s Story: From an Era of War and Peace, 1995. p. 93.)

10 The targets and objectives of the various security operations conducted in Angola by the security forces of the former South African state were two-fold.

11 First, the possibility of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) taking power in Angola was regarded by the former government as a threat to South Africa’s security, as the MPLA was viewed as a Soviet surrogate. The introduction of Cuban forces into Angola in support of the MPLA simply confirmed that view. The South African government’s initial objective, therefore, was to prevent the MPLA from taking power at independence. When this failed, the goal became its overthrow and replacement by a ‘friendly’ anti-Communist government led by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

12 Second, the movement of the forces of the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) into bases in Angola was regarded as escalating the threat to South Africa’s position in South West Africa. Aware that it would ultimately have to implement UN Resolution 435, the South African government was determined to weaken or cripple SWAPO’s military capacity in preparation for the time when SWAPO would enter the electoral stakes inside South West Africa.

13 South Africa’s active involvement in Angolan politics after the collapse of Portuguese colonial rule escalated with the SADF’s invasion of Angola, through Operation Savannah, in the second half of 1975. Though the operation was undertaken with the covert support of the US State Department, this undeclared act of war did not receive the approval of the South African cabinet. Indeed, the issue was not even raised at cabinet level until the invasion was several months old and no longer a secret.

14 The invasion was also illegal in terms of the 1957 Defence Act, which made no provision for the deployment of non-voluntary forces (conscripts) beyond South Africa’s borders. To override this legal difficulty, Parliament passed an amendment to the Act in January 1976, sanctioning the deployment of non-voluntary South African troops outside of the Republic’s borders. It was made retroactive to August 1975, the month in which Savannah was launched.

15 The Commission was not able to access any files on Operation Savannah in the SADF archives, nor did it have access to any Angolan data. There is no doubt, however, that the human and economic cost of the operation, involving over 2 000 men in mobile columns, was immense. In three to four months, the SADF swept through vast areas of central and eastern Angola, capturing numerous towns, until it was halted on the outskirts of Luanda by stiff Cuban-led resistance.

16 Civilian and military casualties on the Angolan side were considerable, given the known extent of damage to the social infrastructure. Thousands of people were displaced internally.

17 Though the SADF’s intervention failed to prevent the MPLA from taking power at independence in November 1975, and even though SADF forces were withdrawn in March 1976, South African military and political involvement in Angolan affairs continued for the next thirteen years, with human and other consequences of varying degrees of severity for all the parties involved – Angolan, South West African, South African, Cuban and Soviet. South Africa’s forces were not entirely withdrawn; the SADF created an eighteen-kilometre-wide demilitarised zone (DMZ) along a 1 000 kilometre stretch of the border, which it retained after the termination of the invasion. By creating a ‘free-fire’ zone, the SADF effected further large-scale displacement of people, this time of residents from both sides of the border.

18 Between 1976 and 1978, the SADF’s strategy in respect of Angola focused on establishing a string of bases along the border, on rearming and strengthening UNITA’s fighting capacity through the launch of Operation Silwer and on preventing SWAPO from moving south. This it did by deploying the 32 Battalion in frequent forays against SWAPO in the south of Angola.

19 Despite these efforts, by the end of 1977 the SADF believed that SWAPO had established a significant presence in the south and sought authorisation from Prime Minister Vorster for large-scale SADF operations. The concern of the SADF was shared by the administration in South West Africa, where there were plans to hold elections leading to the installation of an interim administration of which SWAPO was not to be a part. Were SWAPO to succeed in establishing a permanent foothold in the south of Angola, both the South African government and the administration in Windhoek feared that its capacity to disrupt the election would be enhanced.