Cubadebate

The mother of liberation battles
March 24 2013 at 09:43am
By Ronnie Kasrils
________________________________________

John Liebenberg
SADF conscripts make their weapons safe before entering base at Ruacana in 1988. The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale a quarter of a century ago was a pivotal moment in history of southern Africa. Kasrils writes that the events of that conflict led both to independence for Namibia and to the process of peaceful democratic change in South Africa. Picture: John Liebenberg

If Southern African states were asked to decide on a common date to commemorate freedom and independence it is possible March 23, 1988, would be agreed on. Twenty-five years ago that day became pivotal in bringing closure to the serial aggression of the SADF throughout the region – with dramatic consequences.
I refer to the Battle for Cuito Cuanavale, a remote settlement in south-east Angola, 500km from the Caprivi Strip, where Angola, Cuban and apartheid forces were in fierce contestation for six bloody months.
Nelson Mandela referred to the battle as “a turning point for the liberation of our continent and my people”. Fidel Castro, whose Cuban forces were instrumental in assisting the Angolan government, stated that “the victory of Africa will come to be written as before and after Cuito Cuanavale”.
Let us consider the “before and after” and note that Cuban-Soviet military aid was initially provided in response to the request by Agostinho Neto’s MPLA government at independence in November 1975. At that time the SADF had invaded from the south in an effort to prevent the popularly supported MPLA consolidating power. They backed Savimbi’s Unita and Holden Roberto’s FNLA whom they sought to impose as the country’s rulers. Both movements were supported by the CIA and Mobutu’s Zaire.
It is history that the MPLA triumphed and the SADF retreated in 1976. The FNLA disappeared but Unita, after the initial reverse of fortune, grew in strength. The SADF secured a base for Savimbi at Jumba on the Caprivi Strip and provided military advisers, training and equipment. SADF incursions deep into Angola saw the sabotaging of arms and fuel depots; repeated large-scale aggression in support of Unita; bombing of Zapu, Swapo and ANC camps including a horrific massacre at Cassinga of Namibian refugees continued for more than a decade.
While Cold War factors had long emerged, with the apartheid regime projecting itself as a bastion against communism, the essence of the conflict was the struggle for true African independence against racism and colonialism. In this respect racist apartheid’s support for Savimbi could not be equated with Cuban-Soviet support for the legitimate MPLA government.

Former defence minister Ronnie Kasrils. File pcture: Graeme Hosken
INL SA
By 1987 the MPLA government was determined to settle the situation. An offensive by their armed forces (Fapla) commenced in July 1987, which drove Unita troops deployed in the interior back towards the Caprivi. By early October SADF units were on hand to rescue retreating Unita troops at the Lomba River, 40km south-east of Cuito Cuanavale. Four Fapla brigades suffered heavy losses at the hands of the South Africans, with the 46th Brigade virtually destroyed. Fapla survivors fell back in disarray to Cuito Cuanavale.
The siege of the outpost began with 120 Cubans arriving in the nick of time from their base at Menongue, 150km to the north-west. The SADF onslaught lasted six months, involving a powerful 5 000-strong brigade with the crack 61 Mechanised Battalion as the core, joined with other units such as 32 “Buffalo” Battalion, utilising armoured cars, tanks and 155mm G5 artillery guns. Thousands of Unita infantry were proverbial cannon fodder, deployed ahead of the SADF armour and taking the brunt of enemy fire. This accounted for low SADF casualties.
In December, 1 500 elite Cuban troops arrived from Havana, reinforcing the town and the defensive positions which were remorselessly pounded by land and air. The defenders repulsed strike after strike. It was on March 23 that the SADF mounted a final thrust in the hope of breaking through.
Ferocious fighting saw the last major attack on Cuito Cuanavale. The onslaught was “brought to a grinding and definite halt”, in the words of 32 Battalion commander, Colonel Jan Breytenbach. He stated that “the Unita soldiers did a lot of dying that day” and “the full weight of Fapla’s defensive fire was brought down on the heads of Regiment President Steyn and the already bleeding Unita”.
To this day the SADF “has-beens” attempt to claim victory. I recall a parliamentary debate in 2008 where former “troopies” such as Koos van der Merwe and the Mulder brothers crowed that the SADF had only lost 34 men, ignoring Unita casualties.
The SADF accounts by Generals Magnus Malan and Jan Geldenhuys, among others, focus on the victories on the Loma but cannot conceal the fact that they failed to conquer the town.
Notably, they play down the decisive military developments in the south-west that commenced in April 1988 – pretending that this had no connection with the saga at Cuito Cuanavale. They would have loved to have taken the town which would have opened up central Angola for their Unita proxy and split the country in half – something Pretoria had been aiming at for years. Cuito Cuanavale was certainly a defensive victory, but of course wars are not won that way. What distinguishes it is that it signified a strategic turning point for the “after” situation referred to by Fidel Castro.
With the SADF bogged down in the east, a build-up of 40 000 Angolan, Cuban and Swapo forces was taking place in the west along a 700km front from the coast along the railway line through Lubango to Menongue.
Armed with new Soviet weaponry, they advanced on the Namibian border. By May 1988 Angola’s Cunene and Mocamedes provinces had been liberated after years of SADF control.
The rapid construction of airstrips by Cuban engineers at Cahama and Xangongo, within 300km of the Namibian border, brought the strategic Ruacana and Calueque hydro-electric dam systems, on the Cunene River, within striking distance. Soviet Mig-23s had demonstrated their superiority over South Africa’s aged Mirage fighters and now that they commanded the skies the network of SADF bases in northern Namibia was at their mercy.
The end was signalled on June 27, 1988, when the Migs bombed the dam, cutting the water supply to Ovamboland and the SADF bases – 11 white servicemen died during the attack. White South Africa, as a minority regime, could not countenance the loss of the lives of young conscripts. Of SADF officers, only Breytenbach acknowledges the significance of what occurred: “With a lack of foresight the South Africans had allowed the bulk of their available combat power to be tied down on the Cuito Cuanavale front.”
In his view, this should have been regarded as a secondary front. This was in contrast to General Geldenhuys’s reference that the front opened up by the Cubans in the west was akin to Castro “kicking the ball into touch”. In other words, Fidel was looking for a draw.
Castro used a boxing analogy to explain the strategy which prevailed over the SADF: “Cuito Cuanavale in the east represented the defensive left fist which blocks the opponent’s attack, while in the west the powerful right fist had placed the SADF in a perilous position.”
Lest there be any doubt about the outcome, note the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) intelligence report dated April 15, 1988: “Cuito Cuanavale was no longer an isolated outpost. Cuban troops had secured the road from Menongue to Cuito. Any SADF/Unita attempt to cut off the main supply route would be met with very heavy resistance. Cuban planes and anti-aircraft weapons had reversed the situation… the absence of the SA Air Force in the area had become notable…”
The Cubans could have marched into Namibia with Swapo forces but exercised restraint. All parties, including the US and Soviet Union, were looking for a way forward in negotiations.
Chester Crocker, America’s chief negotiator, observed of the Cubans: “They are prepared for both war and peace. We witness considerable tactical finesse and genuinely creative moves at the table.”
Crocker’s opinion of the South Africans, meanwhile, was that “they confused military power with national strategy”.
The central issue was UN Resolution 435 of 1978, demanding an end to South African occupation of Namibia and that country’s independence. South African and Cuban military withdrawal from Angola was linked to this. It is history that the last SADF soldier left Angola at the end of August 1988, and that Namibia became independent in March 1990. Apartheid Foreign Minister Pik Botha had tried to modify Resolution 435, asserting that the SADF would withdraw from Angola only “if Russia and its proxies did the same”.
In March 1988, Pretoria was only offering to withdraw into Namibia – not from Namibia – in return for the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. The implication was that South Africa had no real intention of giving up the territory. However, this they did, which was something they had never contemplated before the final abortive attempt to take Cuito Cuanavale. This testifies that failure there, followed by the Cuban-Angolan offensive southwards, decisively altered the strategic situation, broke the ascendancy of Pretoria’s hawks, and led not only to Namibian independence but to the final process of democratic change in South Africa itself.
With such defeat the SADF lost its influence and prestige. I would argue that this contributed to the dramatic shift in approach from the hawkish militarist PW Botha to FW de Klerk. Success of the negotiations between the apartheid regime and the ANC followed, leading to a democratic South Africa.
From the 1960s the SADF had served the apartheid regime’s strategy of destabilising the so-called Front Line States. At Cuito Cuanavale, 25 years ago, that came to an end.

* Kasrils is former Deputy Minister of Defence and former Minister of Intelligence.
Sunday Independent

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