South African troops have been using poison gas to prevent the Angolan military forces, FAPLA, from recapturing areas occupied by the South African army since Operation Protea in August 1981. According to a communique issued by the Angolan Ministry of Defence, Angolan troops had reoccupied the localities of Humbe, Peu-Peu, Mongua and Ngiva on 2 and 3 December 1981. In a massive counter offensive, using large numbers of troops, aircraft and poison gas, the South Africans forced FAPLA to abandon all the areas they had recaptured. The use of poison gas, which is banned by international convention, caused the death of an Angolan soldier and paralysed ten others, the communique stated. It stressed that the South African armed forces had continued to occupy large parts of Kunene Province since the start of Operation Protea, an action aimed at creating a buffer state in the south of the country and installing the South African-sponsored UNITA group.
The Angolan government reported continued and frequent attacks on its territory throughout November and December 1981. During November, South African armed forces carried out 145 reconnaissance flights, one aerial strafing, two bombing raids, six landings of heliported troops, one ground attack and 19 ground reconnaissance operations. During December, the South African airforce was reported to have stepped up its deep incursions into Angola, bombing villages in the eastern province of Moxico along the Zambian border for the first time and penetrating 350 km deep into Angola.
A Cuban soldier was killed, three wounded and another captured when South African forces attacked Angolan and Cuban units in early January 1982. The Angolan authorities rejected South African claims that the clash had taken place very close to the border with Namibia, and stressed that in fact the fighting took place more than 310 km inside Angola.
In December 1981, the SADF admitted that it had carried out a 20 day large scale military incursion into Angola during November, describing it as a 'search-and-destroy mission' against SWAPO's regional headquarters. According to an SADF spokesperson, the attack, code-named 'Operation Daisy' began on 1 November. Two days earlier the South Africans had denied a report by the Angolan news agency that a large South African force had crossed the border.
According to the South African reports, the attack was directed at what were claimed to be SWAPO's regional headquarters at Chitequeta, about 240 km north of the Namibian border. After capturing an airfield at londe, 120 km north of the border, South African armed forces attacked the base which, they claimed, had been evacuated a few hours before the attack. 71 SWAPO guerillas were reported to have been killed or captured, and four South African soldiers killed.
Both the Angolan government and SWAPO denied that the attackers had in fact destroyed a SWAPO base. The Angolan news agency stated that there were no SWAPO bases in Angola. The South African claim could only be construed as a smoke-screen designed to cover up the continued South African aggression against Angolan territory. The President of SWAPO, Sam Nujoma, said the South African attack had in fact been directed at a vacated SWAPO military base in northern Namibia, and South African troops had suffered heavy casualties both in men and material when PLAN forces (SWAPO's armed wing) retaliated. In a hot pursuit operation into Angola codenamed 'Daisy', the South African troops killed Angolan civilians, Nujoma said. 'Our headquarters, either political or military, are not in Angola but in Namibia', he stressed. In Angola 'we have only refugee camps'. The South African reports about Operation Daisy, more than a month after it had been launched, appear to have alerted the western press to view South African denials of aggressive military acts against a sovereign country with more scepticism.
One British newspaper noted that the disclosures about the attack 'put repeated Angolan allegations about continued South African attacks in a different light and have demolished the credibility of the equally insistent South African denials. Angolan allegations are now likely to be taken more seriously'.
