Revised estimates have been prepared by the Angolan government of the damage caused by South African attacks since the country's independence from the Portuguese seven years ago. The total cost of apartheid aggression, up to November 1982, is now put at $10,000 million – this compares with a previous figure of $7,000 million, computed at the beginning of 1981.
The new figure was revealed by the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, in an address given in Mbanza Congo, Zaire Province, on the seventh anniversary of Angola's independence on 11 November 1975. The President referred to the great difficulties faced by Angola in reconstructing its national economy and infrastructure when a part of the national territory remained occupied by South African troops and expensive resources of personnel, finance and foreign exchange had to be diverted into defence.
The $10,000 million estimate is not in fact completely comprehensive. It covers the destruction of bridges, roads, railways, factories, public buildings and the theft and destruction of cattle and other Angolan property by South Africa. Other costs, particularly those arising out of the occupation of Kunene province and the dislocation of the population of southern Angola, have not as yet been calculated.
Some idea of the magnitude of particular South African raids and operations can be gained from the fact that in November 1982, over US $13 million (40 million Angolan Kwanzas) had to be budgeted for temporary work to allow trains to move to and from the provinces of Namibe (formerly Mocamedes) and Huila, and to carry out final repairs on a bridge over the Giraul River. These repairs were necessitated by a dawn attack on 8 November by a commando unit of the South African navy, whose members came ashore in fibreglass landing craft launched from off-shore naval units. Two bridges over the Giraul River, both about one kilometre from the coast, were attacked, one of them serving the Mocamedes Railway and the other providing access to the Baia dos Tigres area. Seven of the 14 supports of the longer, 320 metre bridge were destroyed by the commandos, who fled leaving explosives, detonators, antitank mines and one of their landing craft behind when apprehended by Angolan forces.
PRISONERS-OF-WAR Up to 100 Angolan prisoners-of-war were reported to have been included in an exchange of military and civilian prisoners between Angola and South Africa, arranged in November 1982 under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. At least 50 of the Angolans were reported to be soldiers in the Angolan army, FAPLA. The exchanges included the release of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lubango in southern Angola, Alexandre Dos Nascimento, who was captured 'by mistake' in October 1982 by UNITA forces operating in Kunene province, together with nine nuns. Fifteen Red Cross workers were taken prisoner in the same area shortly afterwards.
Figures for the numbers of Angolan prisoners-of-war captured and held by South African forces, or by their UNITA proteges, are generally not available. It is not known how many Angolan POWs continue to be held by South Africa following the November exchanges.
Besides Archbishop Dos Nascimento, South Africa was also due to release Sgt-Major Nicolai Pestretsov, a technician from the USSR captured in 1981 during South Africa's 'Operation Protea' into Kunene Province. Two other Soviet citizens, airmen Nicolai Molayev and Ivan Chernitski, were reported to have been handed over by UNITA to the President of the South African Red Cross at a location in southern Angola on 14 November 1982.
The exchanges were concluded in Lusaka, Zambia, on 15 November. Three US mercenaries, Gary Acker and Gustavo Grillo (both convicted in the 1976 mercenary trial in Luanda), and Geoffrey Tyler, a pilot whose aircraft made a forced landing in Angola in 1981, were released by the Angolan government together with the bodies of three South African soldiers killed in the course of incursions into Angola.
