ANGOLA: SOUTH AFRICAN COMMANDO CAPTURED
Six weeks after the formal announcement on 17 April by the South African regime that its forces had finally all withdrawn from Angola, Pretoria was forced to admit that a commando unit had been intercepted on a raid into the northern Angolan enclave of Cabinda. There is also a continued presence of regular SADF troops inside Angola near the border with Namibia.
Two South African troops were killed and one captured when they were ambushed while attempting to sabotage a Gulf Oil installation at Malongo on 23 May. Surviving members of the commando group were reported to be making their way towards the Zairean territory surrounding Cabinda.
The captured man, Wynand du Toit, admitted that his unit had been responsible for several previous attacks on strategic installations in Angola — all of which had been attributed to UNITA.
The head of the South African Defence Force (SADF), General Constand Viljoen, claimed that the commandos were engaged in 'gathering information about African National Congress bases, SWAPO bases as well as Cuban involvement with them'.
However, there has never been any evidence of such bases in the Cabinda enclave, which is almost entirely given over to oil production. The equipment found on the commandos — including 16 limpet mines and two incendiary bombs — clearly indicated a sabotage mission. General Viljoen's claims were also contradicted by the captured commando, du Toit, who admitted that they were on a sabotage operation. Du Toit said that his group had travelled by sea to Cabinda from South Africa.
The men were found to be carrying UNITA leaflets, confirming speculation that the sabotage, if successful, would have been claimed by that organisation. For the past year UNITA has made repeated claims to be preparing attacks on the Cabinda oilfields.
The Cabinda incident undermined the carefully prepared propaganda effect of the SADF's 'withdrawal' from positions occupied in Angola since the invasion of August 1981. The 'withdrawal' was carried out in terms of the Lusaka agreement reached between the Angolan government and the South African regime in February 1984. Under the arrangement South African troops would pull back in stages from Angolan territory by 31 March 1984. A Joint Monitoring Commission (JMC) of Angolan and South African troops would ensure that the vacated areas were not occupied by SWAPO guerillas and that only Angolan government forces moved in.
For the Angolan government, the agreement represented a movement towards restoring its security and regaining control of areas in the south of the country occupied by the SADF. It was seen as a step towards the independence of Namibia as provided for by UN Security Council Resolution 435.
The withdrawal process soon fell behind schedule. The SADF, while raising repeated objections about continuing SWAPO activity, moved UNITA troops into the areas it vacated. By 3 May 1984 the JMC had reached only as far as Ngiva, the provincial capital 50 km from the Namibian border, where it remained for almost a year.
It soon became clear that Pretoria intended extracting major concessions from the Angolan government, in particular to force it to accept the 'linkage' of a Cuban troop withdrawal with the Namibian issue, and to enter into negotiations with UNITA through the establishment of 'all party' negotiations. This would also have the effect of undermining UN Resolution 435.
To ensure that UNITA remained an important factor, the organisation was deployed in high-profile propaganda actions, such as the capture of foreign aid workers. The group also claimed responsibility for a number of 'guerilla actions' which subsequently turned out to have been accidents.
While Pretoria continued to supply UNITA after the Lusaka agreement, the lack of SADF ground support beyond Ngiva resulted in a series of strategic defeats for the group. Heavy losses were inflicted on UNITA during 1984. In the central provinces of Huambo, Bie and Benguela, over 4,000 UNITA members were reported to have been killed during the course of the year.
While continuing to deploy UNITA, the South African regime maintained constant diplomatic pressure on the Angolan government, particularly around the issue of Cuban troops, and continued its manoeuvres to bypass or significantly alter the United Nations plan for Namibian independence. In November 1984 the Angolan government agreed to a phased withdrawal of the Cuban troops but refused to accept a 'linkage' of this issue with Namibian independence or any significant modifications to Resolution 435.
The announcement by the South African Foreign Minister, Roelof Botha, on 15 April that all South African troops would finally be withdrawn from Angola was clearly related to Pretoria's intention to circumvent Resolution 435 by establishing a 'transitional government' in Namibia. The announcement of the 'transitional government' followed only a day after the declared 'withdrawal' from Angola. Spokesmen for the apartheid regime willingly admitted that the withdrawal was a political act. Foreign Minister Botha made it clear that 'we now stand to gain more politically by withdrawing to the border in terms of the Lusaka agreement than we would lose militarily. The propaganda objective of the move was underlined by the elaborately stage-managed 'withdrawal' ceremony which took place on 17 April at the Oshikango border post.
The official South African exit from Angola came after months of sustained SWAPO guerilla activity in Namibia. The SADF has long insisted that its presence in Angola has been solely to fight SWAPO, but its occupation of Cunene Province did not succeed in halting the liberation movement's military activities in Namibia. A War Communique issued by SWAPO on 16 April stated that in the period August 1984–March 1985, over 100 South African troops had been killed or injured and 25 military vehicles destroyed. Petrol, electricity and other strategic installations had also been attacked.
Apart from the Cabinda commando incident, it soon became evident that the 'withdrawal' did not mark the end of South African aggression against Angola. President Jose dos Santos reported that the SADF remained massed on the Angola/Namibia border, and that UNITA bands had been established in the areas vacated by the SADF. South African regular forces were reported to be positioned in the Calueque area, 10 km inside Angola, and at Ruacana, where they were controlling hydro-electric facilities on the Cunene river which supply electricity to Namibia. The Angolan authorities also reported South African air reconnaissance flights as well as supply drops to UNITA. Continued South African military activity was causing 'great tension' in the region.
