Threats by South African government ministers against Southern African countries have been carried out in a number of raids, bombing attacks, military operations and assassinations in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. South African threats were made on the grounds that ANC and SWAPO combatants were operating from the territories.
At the beginning of the year South African armoured reinforcements were moved into the devastated Cunene province of southern Angola. On 12 January a combined South African-UNITA force, equipped with over 30 armoured vehicles and supported by helicopters, attacked Angolan army positions near the town of Mongua. Further attacks on military forces in Cunene province continued during the second half of January.
February saw further acts of aggression, with a commando raid on a village in Huila province, where several civilians were killed. Widespread attacks by armoured columns took place in three Angolan provinces between 21 and 27 February. Three civilians related how the men of their village had been rounded up by South African troops, and beaten with sticks or tortured. One of them, Mariu AITULA, displayed serious burns on his back which had been caused when South African troops tortured him over a fire.
By mid-May six South African infantry battalions were stationed inside Angola, and President Dos Santos stated that the build-up of forces indicated that a new offensive was imminent.
South African commandos launched attacks on Livingstone in Zambia in late April and the Mozambican capital Maputo a month later. An attempt was also made to destroy a house used by the ANC in a suburb of Harare. Four civilians were killed in the Zambian raid, which was carried out by commandos brought by helicopter, probably from the Caprivi Strip in occupied Namibia. The raiders also blew up a house, killing two other Zambian men and seriously wounding a woman.
The commando attack in Maputo on 29 May was carried out by 16 commandos who attacked four sites in the capital, killing the director of the Mozambique Entertainment Company, Antonio Pateguana, his wife Suzana de Souza Pinto, and a nightwatchman. The Maputo attack was the first major direct act of aggression since the signing of the Nkomati Accord in 1984. However, there have been persistent violations of the accord as South Africa has continued operations in support of the surrogate MNR force.
The attempted destruction of the ANC office in Harare in May involved the firing of rocket-propelled grenades, which missed their target. The Zimbabwean government blamed Pretoria for the attack. Earlier, Tsitsi CHILIZA, a Zimbabwean citizen, was killed when a booby-trapped television set presented as a gift to the ANC representative in Harare exploded.
The government of Botswana blamed South African agents for an attack on a house at Ramotswa on 1 January, in which a woman was killed. In April a car bomb in Gaberone killed three people, on the same day that a message from Pretoria threatening 'dire consequences' was delivered to the Botswana government. In May an attempt was made to kill Ronald Watson, a South African anti-apartheid activist visiting Botswana.
