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Angola Angola as a Refuge
The MPLA-PT government, conscious of its own
revolutionary and
anticolonial origins and committed to the liberation of
South
African-occupied Namibia and of South Africa itself,
provided both
sanctuary and material support to SWAPO and the ANC.
Although FAPLA
never made a preemptive attack south of the Namibian
border,
Pretoria's forces repeatedly invaded or otherwise
intervened
militarily in Angola. South Africa's regional strategy was
to
ensure UNITA's success, contain and disrupt SWAPO, prevent
the
establishment of ANC bases in southern Angola, and halt
Cuban and
Soviet expansion southward. In addition to SWAPO and the
ANC, a
large contingent of Katangan gendarmes (remnants of the
force that
had invaded Zaire's Shaba Province in 1977 and 1978)
enjoyed the
protection of the Angolan government.
SWAPO was headquartered in Luanda and directed camps
primarily
in southern Angola from which its militants could
infiltrate into
Namibia in small units. SWAPO's military wing, the
People's
Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), had main command
centers in
Luanda and Lubango and training camps in Huíla, Benguela,
and
Cuanza Sul provinces. To avoid identification,
infiltration, and
attack by the SADF, most of its camps were mobile. SWAPO
recruits
were trained at Angolan and Cuban military facilities,
from whence
they were dispatched to SWAPO camps and formally organized
into
battalions of 400 to 800 troops each. PLAN's strength in
1988 was
estimated at 9,000 troops, most of whom were engaged in
operations
in Angola against UNITA, rather than against the SADF in
Namibia.
It was uncertain whether PLAN's anti-UNITA operations
represented
a quid pro quo for Angolan sanctuary and material support
or
reflected limited chances to operate in Namibia because of
South
African defenses. In the Angolan government's 1986
offensive
against UNITA, for example, it was estimated that 6,000 to
8,000
SWAPO guerrillas operated with FAPLA.
In May 1978, South African forces made their first
major crossborder raid into Angola, attacking SWAPO's main camp at
Cassinga.
Other major South African incursions against SWAPO bases
and forces
occurred in 1981 and 1983. These attacks and the many that
followed, coupled with UNITA's territorial expansion,
disrupted
SWAPO and forced it to disperse and move northward. The
Lusaka
Accord of February 1984 provided for a cease-fire, South
African
withdrawal, and relocation of SWAPO under FAPLA control to
monitored camps north of a neutral zone along the Namibian
border.
But Pretoria, alleging that SWAPO's redeployment was
incomplete,
delayed its own pullout until April 1985. In September
1985,
however, South Africa launched another major air and
ground attack
on SWAPO and later claimed to have killed about 600
guerrillas in
1985 and 1986.
The southern African peace negotiations in 1988
rekindled
rumors of debate within the MPLA-PT about continued
support for
SWAPO. The regional accords required Angola to restrict
PLAN to an
area north of 16° south latitude, about 150 kilometers
from the
Namibian border. South Africa accused SWAPO of violating
the
agreement by remaining in the proscribed area and
intensifying its
operations from a military command headquarters at
Xangongo.
Accusations aside, SWAPO intended PLAN to form the nucleus
of a
future Namibian national army, into which it would
integrate the
existing territorial forces after a period of
reorientation and
rehabilitation.
The ANC, banned in South Africa, operated mainly in
Angola
under the protection and control of Luanda. At least seven
major
training camps for an estimated 1,000 to 1,400 members of
the ANC's
military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Zulu for "Spear of the
Nation"),
were in Angola. Most of the ANC's personnel, which were
organized
into three battalions, had their encampment at Viana,
outside
Luanda. This location in northern Angola provided security
from
South African attacks but restricted the ANC's ability to
infiltrate or mount attacks on South Africa. Other major
camps were
also in the north at Caculama, Pango, and Quibaxe. ANC
militants,
like those of PLAN, were engaged along with FAPLA forces
in
fighting UNITA. Some ANC forces may have been integrated
into FAPLA
units. Such joint training and operations facilitated the
ANC's
access to weapons and supplies, which came mostly from the
Soviet
Union and its allies. Sanctuary in Angola became all the
more
important after the March 1984 Mozambique-South Africa
nonaggression and mutual security pact, the Nkomati
Accord, which
obliged Maputo to control ANC activities. By 1988 a
combination of
internal and external pressures had considerably weakened
the ANC,
including assassinations of its leadership, South African
infiltration and crackdowns at home, attacks on ANC cadres
in
Botswana, and the United States-brokered peace accords
under which
Luanda agreed to terminate its assistance to the ANC. As
1988
ended, the ANC decided to relocate its bases out of
Angola;
reportedly, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Uganda had
been
mentioned as possible destinations.
Finally, Angola was a refuge for some 1,400 Zairian
dissidents.
Although quiescent since 1978, these former Katangan
gendarmes, who
formed the National Front for the Liberation of the Congo
(Front
National pour la Libération du Congo--FNLC), remained
Luanda's
potential trump card if relations with Zaire became
intolerable.
Data as of February 1989
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