A series of failed sabotage and assassination raids against neighbouring countries between May and July resulted in the capture of South African agents in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
The raids followed the strategic defeat of the South African Defence Force in Angola earlier this year, and led to renewed international condemnation of the apartheid regime. It was accused of 'state terrorism' by the government of Botswana. The attacks fell into a pattern of assassinations and abductions which the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) identified as emerging last year. In its draft progress report for 1987-8 SADCC also listed military raids and invasions by South Africa and the deployment of surrogate 'bandit' groups as aspects of South African regional destabilisation.
Two South African commandos were captured in Botswana at the end of June, after a raiding unit opened fire on an unarmed Botswana police patrol. On the same night a house in Gaborone was damaged by a car bomb. The two captured men, a policeman and a soldier, were charged with attempted murder. They admitted being on a sabotage and assassination mission, although the South African authorities claimed they were engaged only in reconnaissance. A South African businessman living in Botswana also appeared in court in connection with the raid, and in early July another two South Africans were arrested and charged with treason.
At the end of June another South African commando was captured outside Gaborone after he and a colleague attempted to avoid a police roadblock - the second man escaped. The two had attempted to cross into Zimbabwe from the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, but fled into Botswana when border police searched their vehicle. The captured commando, Denis Behan, a British citizen, was handed over to the Zimbabwean authorities. He was accused of being the leader of a raiding team intending to infiltrate Zimbabwe from various points, pick up a vehicle and weapons, and free five alleged South African agents captured by the Zimbabwean authorities earlier in the year. The five have been charged with murder arising from bomb attacks on ANC offices and residences in Zimbabwe.
In another development a South African businessman, Leslie Lesia, was charged with murder for allegedly boozy-trapping a television set which killed Tsitsi CHILIZA, the Zimbabwean wife of an ANC official, in May 1987.
In Zambia, two South Africans were arrested at the end of June on suspicion of spying for Pretoria. A house near Lusaka was bombed earlier in the month. A girl was injured in the blast, which was apparently aimed at an ANC member living next door.
Pretoria's operational setbacks in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana were overshadowed by a decisive shift in the war in Angola. The South African invasion which began in August last year and ground to a halt near the town of Cuito Cuanavale, turned rapidly into a strategic reverse for the SADF. A final South African assault on Cuito Cuanavale at the end of May, involving the use of tanks for the first time, was repulsed by the Angolan defenders, who destroyed or captured four of the tanks.
As South African forces were pushed back from Cuito Cuanavale, Angolan troops and Cuban reinforcements, which had previously been held in reserve along a defensive line more than 200 kilometres into Angola, moved into Cunene province to the west of Cuito Cuanavale. Most of Cunene province had been occupied intermittently by South African troops for seven years, and was regarded by SADF strategists as a military buffer zone.
The Cuban-Angolan forces, meeting with little or no South African resistance, set up a new defensive line stretching for about 400 kilometres, some 20 to 40 kilometres from the Namibian border. Air defence and radar facilities, as well as heavy artillery and armour, were brought in. South African invasion forces continued to hold positions to the south and in Cuando Cubango province to the east, and the SADF ordered a mobilisation of reserve troops in South Africa.
Simultaneously, a shift in operations by the South African-backed UNITA force away from the Namibian border area and north towards the Zairean border meant that South African forces had to bear more of the front-line fighting in the south. UNITA bands, drawing on US military supplies provided through Zaire, attacked towns and destroyed villages over wide areas of central and northern Angola while South African forces were bogged down in the south.
However, UNITA failed to capture any towns in the north or centre, and attempts to set up a 'provisional government' petered out.
For several days from 20 June South African long-range artillery bombardment Angolan and Cuban positions in Cunene province, north of the Calueque dam which pumps water into South African-occupied Namibia. On 27 June a South African patrol advanced north from Calueque, but was intercepted by Angolan-Cuban forces. Angolan Air Force jets then attacked South African positions at Calueque, destroying the water pipeline to Namibia which provides water to South African army bases. After the attack the SADF released the names of 12 of its troops who were killed. The incident underlined South Africa's loss of air superiority in Angola, and the casualties were among the highest acknowledged by the SADF in its Angolan wars.
The military pressures on Pretoria coincided with international political pressure for an end to the South African occupation of Namibia and its attacks on Angola. The Reagan administration in the US, which has aimed to secure a linked South African withdrawal from Namibia and Cuban withdrawal from Angola, exerted pressure on Pretoria to negotiate. A series of talks involving Angolan, Cuban, US and South African officials were held between May and July in London, Brazzaville, Cairo and Windy, and a further round of talks was set for August.
A statement of principles, described by US negotiator Chester Crocker as 'the core of an agreement' was accepted by all parties after the New York talks. South Africa agreed to the principle of Namibian independence, although it agreed to this in 1979 when it accepted UN Security Council Resolution 435, the implementation of which it subsequently blocked. The agreement involved independence for Namibia under 435 and the phased withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. A similar proposal was put forward by Angola in 1984.
While Pretoria accepted the principles formulated in New York, South African forces remained deep in Angola in violation of a UN Security Council call for the invading forces to withdraw. Likewise, there were no signs inside Namibia that the occupation forces were preparing to withdraw from the territory.
