South African troops remained on Angolan soil six months after the expiry date for their withdrawal (31 March), agreed at the Lusaka talks between South Africa and Angola in February.
In a statement issued in Paris during an official visit in September, the Angolan President, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, strongly criticized the continued presence of South African troops in Angola, and called for increased economic and diplomatic pressure against Pretoria. The Angolan President also accused South Africa of increasing its military support for its surrogate forces in Angola. UNITA forces had recently carried out attacks in areas where they were not operating before, he said (WA 12.9.84).
South Africa's refusal to implement the Lusaka agreement was confirmed by the Administrator General in Namibia, who claimed that 'SWAPO violations' of the agreement made it impossible to withdraw South African forces from southern Angola. He said that the joint monitoring commission was still at N'Giva, about 40 km from the Namibian border, and it could not recommend that South African troops move further south because of the situation (WA 3.8.84).
South Africa has consistently used the alleged presence of SWAPO combatants in southern Angola as a pretext for delaying its troop withdrawal. In September, the Administrator General issued what amounted to a threat of renewed South African attacks on Angola when warning that SWAPO bases in Angola 'are not immune to destruction' (BBC 14.9.84).
The Angolan Government came under growing pressure in July and August to sign a non-agression pact with Pretoria. Attacks on two food-carrying ships off Luanda harbour, and sabotage of an oil pipeline in Cabinda in July were clear signs that South Africa was prepared to step up its policy of economic and military destabilisation. While both sabotage actions were claimed by UNITA, the expertise was believed to have been supplied by South Africa's No. 4 Reconnaissance Commando based at Saldanha Bay, with saboteurs operating from a submarine (Obs. 5.8.84).
The Angolan President reiterated that Angola was not interested in signing a 'good neighbour agreement' with Pretoria, since it had no common border with South Africa (WA 12.9.84).
The increasingly prominent support given by Pretoria to the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, is in direct contradiction to the spirit of the Lusaka agreement. Savimbi was reported to have attended a meeting in Pretoria with the US Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, and the South African Foreign Minister in July, and was a prominent guest at the inauguration of P.W. Botha as the new executive state president in September (RDM 14.9.84).
