It need hardly be said that Operation Askari stirred up a ferment of hyperbolic but hardly exaggerated pleas on the part of the Angolans and gales of outrage from the international community. All of this the South Africans deflected with as much stone-faced denial as was possible, but with, nonetheless, a finger on the pulse of the wider international reaction to gauge the point at which the operation would need to be brought to a close.
Mopping up was still underway in Cuvelai when news reached Pretoria of a dispatch between SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma and UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar, pleading for the latter to arrange a direct ceasefire between the SADF and his own forces in order to “contribute meaningfully to an early ceasefire agreement”.
This was obviously done under pressure from the reeling Angolans and as such was something of a red herring. There had been throughout the liberation period in recent African history many similar incidences where pleas such as this were simply used as an opportunity for rearming, regrouping and the reoccupation of territory defined as demilitarized by any ceasefire agreement. It was simply a fact of the times.
Phase 3 of Operation Askari, the establishment of a dominated area between the Cunene and Cubango rivers and as far north Tetchamutete, had been achieved, although the area west of the Cunene remained broadly hostile. The success of Phase 4 – the halting of the annual SWAPO incursion – is subjective, and can be measured only in terms of insurgent and SADF deaths in the area of border operations in the weeks and months that followed. An incursion in 1984 did take place, so SWAPO activity was certainly not halted, although it was undoubtedly a less ambitious penetration than had originally been planned.
By 15 January, the last of the raiding forces had crossed back into South West Africa where the planners and commanders of the operation could step back and ponder what really had been very mixed results. On the whole, however, Askari was deemed a success, in particular when measured using the yardstick of enemy losses and the accumulation or destruction of astronomical quantities of war booty. (It was frequently remarked, obviously, but not wholly fallaciously that, under a general and increasing arms embargo, the Soviets remained the largest supplier of arms to South Africa. Indeed, South Africa did make practical use of many articles of captured hardware in the form of vehicles, artillery and some aircraft.) Also, of course, another significant blow had been delivered to the logistical and deployment capability of SWAPO which, although diminishing the organization’s short-term effectiveness on the battlefield, it did nothing to significantly alter the overall trajectory of either the situation or the pace and intensity of the war.
In fact, the South Africans had much to reflect upon as 1984 dawned that must at the time have seemed quite depressing. South African troops in the battle for Cuvelai had for the first time encountered tanks used in their correct mobile capacity and, although still not deployed with quite the level of skill necessary to defeat a force on a par with the SADF, it still marked a turning point on the battlefield that would no doubt develop further. It was also evident that Angolan, Cuban and Soviet commitment to the defence of Angolan territory had been markedly more aggressive during this operation than at any previous time which again could be expected to increase as the situation unfolded. Lastly, there remained a residual unease occasioned by the Soviet threat of robust intervention should the South African presence in Angola ever become more overtly threatening than it had been hitherto, unease that remained strong with the ongoing South African occupation of Xangongo and Ongiva.
CHAPTER NINE:
A DEEPER INVOLVEMENT IN THE ANGOLAN CIVIL WAR
Since Operation Savannah of 1975 there had in effect been two wars underway in Angola – the civil war between UNITA and the MPLA, in which South Africa and SWAPO were involved, and the border insurgency between South Africa and SWAPO in which UNITA and the MPLA were involved. The complexity of this battlefield was reflected by the no less convoluted twists and turns of the parallel political roadmap. Consider, for example, the contradictory relationship the Reagan administration in Washington sustained with the MPLA. The United States was Angola’s most important foreign trading partner, thanks in large part to oil exploitation and export, mainly in the hands of Chevron, making Angola the United States’ fourth-largest trading partner on the continent. At the same time as Washington was resolutely refusing recognition to the MPLA and funding UNITA as a counter-balance, she was also pouring funds into the central treasury that bankrolled Angolan arms purchases which in turn helped arm the huge Cuban military presence which Washington steadfastly held must be withdrawn.
The internal situation in South Africa was also reaching a point of critical load. The militarization of the country, the internationalization of the anti-apartheid movement and South Africa’s growing international isolation, coupled with periodic eruptions of township violence and protest – such as that occasioned by the shooting dead of 19 black protesters on 21 March 1984 as the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre was commemorated – all tended to add to the sense of inevitability of change in the country and a deep feeling of disquiet as to what form that change would take.
And somewhat predictably the simplicity of the original terms of the UN-proposed ceasefire in the midst of Operation Askari were now mired in a slew of amendments, demands, counter-demands, acceptances, refusals and contradictory political statements, all of which did nothing to clear the opacity of the situation, offering South Africa no surety whatsoever that the ground upon which she was reluctantly forced to tread had any real diplomatic substance.
However, on 13 February 1984, high-level South African, Angolan and United States delegations met in Lusaka for two days of intensive talks which resulted in the drafting of a document known as the Mulungushi Minute. This document, little more than a nine-point memorandum, established a Joint Monitoring Commission to observe the disengagement process of each belligerent and to detect, investigate and report any infringements or violations thereof. The plan defined an Area in Question that was to be cleared of both South African and SWAPO military presence. It was to be bounded in the south by the South West African/Namibian border and in the north by an imaginary line that ran west to east from the Marienflüss near the Cunene River mouth to Iona, Mulondo, a point ten kilometres north of Cassinga, the Cubango River and then southward following the river back to the South West African/Namibian border. In broad terms, no SADF troops would be permitted north of the Joint Monitoring Commission HQ which was in fact mobile. The Area in Question would be comprehensively swept to ensure the removal of both SWAPO and SADF/SWAFT elements, after which it would be occupied by FAPLA.
Neither the Angolans nor SWAPO in the event put any meaningful effort into the implementation of the plan. The MPLA was still highly dependent on both Cuban and SWAPO military support to contain the expansion of UNITA and, moreover, for reasons of a future security buffer along its southern boundary, it was extremely cool to any possibility of a future for South West Africa/Namibia that did not include a SWAPO government. SWAPO, of course, had absolutely no intention of abandoning or even curtailing its infiltration into South West Africa, not, it must be said with any expectation of a military victory, but simply to avoid abandoning its claim to be primus inter pares in the eyes of the UN and the wider global community. Needless to say, armed clashes continued both in the border area and throughout the Area in Question which led South Africa – itself highly sceptical of progress and possibly facing the uncomfortable ‘next step’ of negotiations with SWAPO – also to drag her feet. The implementation of United Nations Resolution 435, no matter what other creative diplomacy might periodically surface and subside, would not take place until a Cuban withdrawal from Angola, which would not take place until a South African withdrawal from South West Africa. And there the matter remained.