This, however, did not intrude in the short term on the most optimum conditions for peace in the region since the onset of the generation-long Border War. In April 1988 the Soviet Union and Cuba finally bent to the long-standing American and South African demand for ‘linkage’, this being the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola as part of a package for Namibian independence. A number of meetings were then held throughout the remainder of 1988 as the two sides sought a practical formula which in due course was drafted into an agreement signed in New York on 22 December 1988. Under the terms of this agreement the 50,000 or so Cuban troops stockpiled in Angola during the course of the conflict would be withdrawn in stages, concluding in July 1991. South Africa agreed to implement UN Resolution 435 leading to Namibian independence in 1990. Moreover, all South African forces would be withdrawn upon a minimum of conditions, one being the similar withdrawal from Angola of some 10,000 ANC militants purported to be in-country.
The opening months of 1989 saw the beginning of a huge operation to pack up and return a 23-year military establishment back to South Africa. By the end of March of that year, some 260 trainloads of arms, ammunition, armour and vehicles of every description had left the border area en route for bases and depots across South Africa. While all this was underway, SAAF airfield maintenance units upgraded and refurbished UNITA’s runways at Jamba and Liuana as a valedictory gesture in what would be the closing chapter of a lengthy saga of mutual reliance. Also in March the first United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) arrivals began to make their appearance, those that would form the interim authority in the region and scheduled to assume authority on 1 April 1989.
This, for all intents and purposes, was the end, but was it? Those realists and cynics among the many observers anticipated, and were not surprised by, an effort by SWAPO to make use of the general feeling of goodwill and a lapse of vigilance in order to launch what was reckoned to be the infiltration of the largest PLAN force into South West Africa thus far. This was clearly an attempt to seize the country by force rather than submit itself to the risky potential of a UN-monitored free and fair election.
There is, of course, another version of the nine-day running fight that took place between the PLAN detachment numbering some 1,500 heavily armed combatants and a similar number of SWATF policemen, many among them members of the elite counter-insurgency unit Koevoet, assisted by SAAF Alouette III helicopter gunships.[31] This version, published on behalf of the European Union, a body very frequently guilty of grasping at any nugget of notoriety from the many that South Africa had to offer, claimed that these fighters, carrying nothing but goodwill alongside their heavy burdens of RPG-7s, mortars, landmines and other terror equipment, merely sought the opportunity to hand in their weapons and integrate themselves into the democratic process.[32] This may quite possibly have been so, as might have been the saintly portrayal of Sam Nujoma who no doubt authorized the incursion, although the reality of liberation politics in Africa would strongly suggest otherwise. Whatever might have been the truth, while the politicians pointed fingers the fighting men fought and died.
On 31 March South West African Police patrols first noticed the spoor of a large body of heavily burdened men crossing the cutline and moving inland into Owamboland where, incidentally, the first action of the insurgency had taken place a quarter of a century earlier. Under the terms of Resolution 435 SADF personnel remaining in South West Africa were confined to base, which presented some difficulties, but a plan to confront the insurgency was hastily devised using local South West African forces and codenamed Operation Merlyn.
The crossing had taken place at four different points, the extremes of which were 300 kilometres apart. One column entered just east of Ruacana and another split into two groups at Oshikango and advanced thereafter toward Oshakati and Ondangwa. Another two-pronged incursion entered the country west of Nkongo, with one group heading for the white farming area around Namutoni and the other moving toward Kavango.
The first contact took place on the morning of 1 April 1989 on the day that the ceasefire officially came into effect. Helicopters were slow to get involved, mainly, it was suggested by Brigadier-General Lord, that the Alouette crews believed that the call-out was an April Fools’ prank and did not take it seriously. However, upon arriving over the scene and achieving visual contact with a large group of insurgents, authority to open fire was denied. This was extremely frustrating for the crews, but even more so for the SWAPOL liaison crew who sat in the helicopter orbiting the target with no coercion whatsoever being enough to goad the SAAF gunner to open fire. No small amount of inter-service commentary would have circulated that day as elements of lightly armed SWAPOL took on the insurgents with the SAAF doing nothing at all to help. This was no less frustrating for the SAAF men but it is testimony to their discipline and training that orders were not disobeyed. By the end of day one of Operation Merlyn, however, some 130 PLAN insurgents and ten SWAPOL details were dead.
Heavy fighting then spread across a 300-kilometre front with civilian refugees converging on Oshakati and Ongwediva. On 2 April there were 30 contacts in which 42 insurgents were killed for the loss of four SWAPOL members. The political fallout of the incident, as can be imagined, was intense. South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha issued a stringent complaint to UN Secretary-General Xavier Perez de Cuellar which found its way to Sam Nujoma attending an international parliamentarians’ conference in Harare, where a series of shrill, contradictory and patently untrue statements were issued in reply. Besides this, there was a great deal of hand-wringing and emergency debating that continued throughout the nine days of the operation. Alouettes were rushed back to the border in the holds of C-160s, assembled, tested and sent into the fight. Eight Honoris Crux were awarded to various aircrew flying reconnaissance, casualty evacuation and troop deployments, evading a concerted effort by the enemy to bring them down, and at all times remaining true to the letter of the ceasefire agreement while SWAPOL reacted largely unaided as the civil authority.
During the course of the operation, 750 insurgents were killed or wounded, more than half the original force, while 22 security force members died. In addition, 21 Casspir and Ratel fighting vehicles were hit by RPG-7 rockets. The brunt of the fighting was done by Koevoet but the local Owambo 101 Battalion was also reintroduced to assist.
31
Koevoet, known officially as the South West African Police Counter-Insurgency Unit (SWAPOL-COIN), was a counter-insurgency unit operational during the 1970s and 1980s. The majority of the members were native Namibians. The unit was disbanded soon after this incident.
32
Torreguitar, Elena,