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South Africa: A new military role inSouthern Africa 1969–82Christopher Coker aa Lecturer in International Relations at the London School ofEconomics,Published online: 03 Mar 2008.

To cite this article: Christopher Coker (1983) South Africa: A new military role in Southern Africa1969–82, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 25:2, 59-67

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South Africa: A New Military Role in SouthernAfrica 1969-82CHRISTOPHER COKER

Events in the 1970s transformed the SouthAfrican Defence Force (SADF) from a limitedmilitary force into a powerful arm of the state.In part the change was prompted by the beliefthat the West no longer considered the Republica useful ally; America's failure to come toSouth Africa's assistance in Angola convincedher that it was no longer in her interests to act asa member in all but name of the WesternAlliance. In recent years this has given rise to aconflict between the army's basic philosophy,with its emphasis on close relations with theWest, (peppered, to be sure, by frequent con-flicts and crises) and the ever sharpening recog-nition that its objectives may no longer meetwith Western acquiescence. In particular, theSADF has played a major role in South Africa'sattempts to undermine the settlements pursuedby the Western powers in Namibia andZimbabwe.

Judged in the light of the events of the pastfive years the role of the SADF is infinitely moresignificant than its own conception of it couldpossibly have suggested to itself or anyone elsein 1968. No-one then could possibly have fore-seen that the US failure to prevent the SovietUnion from intervening in southern Africawould have left South Africa an independentmilitary power.

South Africa and Rhodesian security 1968-80South Africa first deployed her forces beyondher frontiers in September 1967, against theAfrican National Congress (ANC), the nationalistmovement which was involved at the time inminor, and largely unsuccessful, operations alongthe Zambezi with the Zimbabwe United People'sUnion (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo.1

The presence of South African troops inRhodesia should have given rise to seriousdoubts about her future intentions. This was thefirst time that South Africa had made clear that

The author is a Lecturer in International Relations at theLondon School of Economics.

the defence of the laager recognized no frontiers-that if necessary she would be prepared toextend the fight beyond her borders whetherinvited to do so or not. Secondly, the scale ofoperations was more extensive than generallyrecognized. By 1969 the number of SouthAfrican troops at the front reportedly reached2,700, only a thousand short of the Rhodesianregular army.2

By the time of the Lancaster House agreementin 1979 South Africa's presence in Rhodesiacomprised at least two airborne units with Pumahelicopters and armoured cars,3 or the equiva-lent of an infantry battalion and two fire-forcegroups,4 deployed not along the Zambezi butin the south-east of the country against theoperations of the Zimbabwe United NationalUnion (ZANU). Without South African arms andassistance Rhodesia would never have surviveduntil 1979. Given her own extended lines ofcommunication South Africa did not have theresources to defend Rhodesia herself; to havedone so would have meant doubling the bordersfor which her own security forces were respon-sible, as well as inviting an attack on the Trans-vaal through Mozambique. She did have theforces, however, to frustrate British and Americanplans and might well have continued to do sobut for her belief that Bishop Abel Muzorewawould be returned by the majority of blackvoters in the election of March 1980. It was aserious miscalculation but a useful illustrationof how South Africa was quite prepared to livewith a destabilized Rhodesia rather than act asmidwife for a Zimbabwean government not ofher own making.

South Africa and Angola 1975-6South Africa's intervention in Rhodesia was, atleast, at the behest of a defacto administrationin Salisbury. Her intervention in Angola wastaken against the wishes of first the colonialpower (Portugal) and then the government whichsucceeded it. The most interesting feature of the

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initial operation was that it was remarkablysmall, involving no more than 500 men, two-thirds of them African. When fighting began inearnest, after the capture of Benguela and Lobito,the strength of the force still stood at only 1,500.The South African High Command did notcommit substantial mechanized or air forces.The army fought well under its true strength.

This was not surprising. With Cuban troopsarriving in increasingly large numbers, SouthAfrica would have needed to call upon extensiveair strikes to have pressed ahead and she was notprepared to hazard her Mirage Ills withoutsome assurance from the West that her losseswould be made good. If Pretoria believed thatthe United States would intervene rather thanallow the Frente Nacional de Libertacäo deAngola (FNLA) and Uniäo Nacional para aIndependencia Total de Angola (UNITA) tocollapse, it was soon disabused. As one USgovernment official told Congress, no Americangovernment could agree to resupply SouthAfrican forces during a conflict in which its ownforces were not engaged. He underlined the pointby reminding it that throughout the conflict theUS had scrupulously adhered to the armsembargo.5

The main lesson of the Angolan operation wasa simple one. Given that the West had opted fora view of stability in southern Africa which hadbegun to differ in nearly all respects from SouthAfrica's, and that it would no longer be preparedto resupply arms in a conflict in which it was notitself engaged, the SADF could only really beemployed in limited engagements. Nevertheless,this has far from limited its operations.

South Africa and Angola since 1976It is striking that the conflict which saw thetriumph of the Movimento Popular para aLibertacäo de Angola (MPLA) and prompted someWestern observers to dismiss South Africa as amilitary power has been followed by a significantincrease in SADF operations. Since 1976 it hasrepeatedly crossed the frontier into Angola toattack road and rail communications and thebases of the South West Africa People's Organi-zation (SWAPO), against which it has been fightingfor the past fifteen years. Although these opera-tions have been described as raids the term issomewhat misleading. Most recently they haveamounted to full-scale invasions, involving

armoured cars, fighter bombers and largedetachments of troops - much larger, in fact,than those involved in 1975. Clearly, Pretoria'sincreasingly obvious failure to contain the forcesof change at home has prompted it to compen-sate by putting even more emphasis on the useof force beyond the laager.

Until recently these raids tended to be seenalmost exclusively against the backdrop ofnegotiations for a settlement in Namibia. After1976 South Africa obviously felt that she had toshow that armed struggle need not necessarilytriumph as it already had in Angola and Mozam-bique. She seemed to have made a profoundconnection between the chances of peacefulchange at home - on her own terms and at herown pace - and military victory or defeat, actualor perceived, in Namibia.

But for raids like the Cassinga (1978) andSavate (1980) incursions the United Stateswould never have been able to link SouthAfrica's withdrawal from Namibia with thewithdrawal of the Cubans from Angola. For thepresence of the Cubans was in large measurecontingent on UNITA'S continuing challenge tothe MPLA and the support UNITA received fromSouth Africa.

From the beginning, the Front-Line Stateshave been critical of linkage because Namibia'sindependence is an unqualified obligation man-dated by the International Court of Justice andthe Security Council. Nevertheless, under Presi-dent Reagan the US has accepted it as a sine quanon of further progress in the negotiations. AsChester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary forAfrican Affairs, told an audience in Honolulu inAugust 1981, America wondered:

how a young government in the fragile newstate of Namibia can be expected to surviveand prosper with a seemingly endless civil waron its northern border, with a substantialSoviet-Cuban presence nearby, and with theconsequent prospect of a new sequence of inter-vention involving both South African andCommunist forces.6

These remarks were revealing because theywere the first recognition that linkage workedboth ways. Obviously, it was in America'sinterest to get the Cubans out of Angola butonce they have departed the problem of SouthAfrican intervention will still remain. Angola

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and Namibia have both become battlefields inwhich the Soviet Union and South Africa havedeveloped surprisingly similar objectives. Bothcountries expect political gains from a continua-tion and increase in hostilities; both have beenlukewarm, if not openly hostile, to the West'sattempts to find a permanent solution to regionalproblems which, in one form or another, havepreoccupied the US and the Front-Line Statesfor the better part of five years. The remarksmade by the South African Foreign Ministerduring Crocker's most recent visit to Pretoriasuggest that South Africa would prefer a low-level conflict on the Angolan-Namibian borderto a Namibia in which the ANC would be able tooperate without hindrance.7

Nevertheless, the raids that have continuedsince 1980 cannot be interpreted entirely asattacks against SWAPO. Certainly, South Africahas tried for fifteen years not to be blackmailed,coerced or persuaded by the Western powers thata SWAPO government would be for the best when,at times, the West itself has been far from certainabout the outcome. A critical and as yet un-answered question, however, is what SouthAfrica really hopes to gain; whether othermotives explain the frequency and scale of heroperations ; indeed, whether SWAPO is any longerthe principal target.

It is interesting, in fact, to compare OperationProtea in August 1981, with the invasion ofAngola five years earlier. The second operationdemonstrated that South Africa had learnedmuch from the past:

- The number of men involved in OperationProtea, 11,000 in all, was considerably greaterthan in 1975. The deployment of three infantrybrigades in Operation Smokeshell (1980) hadrepresented the largest mobilization of SouthAfrican military strength since 1945.

- Operation Protea not only called upon a greaternumber of aircraft but also the use of high-speed bombing strikes against the civilianpopulation. No attempt was made to wincivilians over to UNITA. In fact, South Africadeliberately injected new uncertainty into theAngolan scene, which is now as tense andpotentially dangerous as any in southernAfrica. Operation Smokeshell also involvedthree squadrons of Mirage III and Buccaneerbombers which might well have turned the tide

of battle had they been used four years before.- In addition to relying on air support, the SADF

was also equipped with tanks. Ninety Cen-turion tanks, as well as 250 armoured cars,entered Cunene at the end of August 1981. Atthe same time 120mm and 155mm guns wereused in combination with the air force tobombard Angolan towns before groundtroops moved into the area.8

The reason for the increase in force andequipment numbers is that South Africa was nolonger fighting a guerrilla force but a highlytrained, well-equipped modern army, with sus-tained experience of modern combat. And it wasthe Angolan army, not the Cubans whom theyengaged. The Cubans were so unreliable andtheir morale so suspect, that they were usedalmost exclusively for garrison duty in the maintowns.9

Operation Protea yielded 3,000 tons of equip-ment, including 300 vehicles, more than ahundred SAM-7 missile launchers, many still intheir crates, and ammunition cases stacked tenfeet high. The capture of such spoils confirmedthat the Angolan army, to whom most of thevehicles and heavier weapons belonged, losteven more in the assault than SWAPO. At a pressconference in Luanda President Eduardo dosSantos reported that, contrary to South Africanclaims, the operation had been directed againstregular army units who had suffered 60 per centof the total casualties.10

A subsequent raid on two Angolan missilesites under construction at Cahana and Chib-emba, two towns north-west of Xangogo, wasthe first time that the Angolan army put up anyreal resistance, bringing to an end a tacit under-:standing that the two countries would notengage each other's forces along a narrowcorridor running 200 miles north of the border.The South African Commander, General Viljoen,later claimed that despite alerting the Angolansof the assault, they had 'awaited' the advancingcolumn and attacked it 'with premeditation', anepisode which, if true, marked the first time thatthe army of a neighbouring state had tried tostand its ground against South African forces.

Since the beginning of 1981 South Africanincursions into Angola (the majority of whichhave gone ünreported),11 have taken one of fourforms : reconnaissance flights over the provinces

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of Mocamedes, Huila and Cuando-Cubango;reconnaissance flights and bomber raids into theeastern province of Moxico; operations intendedto extend UNITA'S operational area northwards;and long-range sabotage missions by special unitsof which by far the most dramatic was theattack on the Petrangol state oil refinery inLuanda in November 1981.

It remains to ask why these raids have beencarried out; why, for that matter, Angola hasbecome the principal target. Although SouthAfrica has an interest in destabilizing the MPLAregime, she would probably not wish to over-throw the government by force. She prefers tokeep it on the defensive. Like the Soviet Union,her freedom of manoeuvre is only as great as theinstability which exists (and which, to someextent, she promotes). Indeed, her actions areintelligible only in relation to the MPLA'S con-tinuing presence in government.

By supporting the UNITA guerrillas SouthAfrica has been able to harry the government atthe point where its control of the country isweakest. Although the conflict in the south hasproduced many conflicting, exaggerated andunverifiable claims, the movement has undoubt-edly disrupted the life of the community. Froma demoralized band of 3,000 men who fled intothe bush six years ago, UNTTA'S leader, JonasSavimbi, claims to have built a force of 30,000who are active in every province up to the tenthparallel. The true extent of South African sup-port to UNITA is unknown but it is clear that theSouth Africans work closely with Savimbi. Mostof the trucks and petrol used by the guerrillas aresupplied by Pretoria, as are some, though not all,of their weapons. Savimbi's reason for fighting onis to force the MPLA to re-open negotiations withhim on equal terms. It is doubtful whether hisallies are really interested in such an outcome.With UNITA in the government, rather than outof it, they would have no excuse for destabilizingAngola or for focusing attention on what ishappening elsewhere in southern Africa ratherthan on what is happening in South Africa her-self.

If that is the South African objective the raidshave so embarrassed the United States that shehas been forced against her better judgment tore-open negotiations on diplomatic recognitionof the present regime. Even after Savimbi's visitto Washington in December 1981 the State

Department went out of its way to insist that itdid not consider UNITA an alternative to thegovernment in power, only a legitimate politicalforce that it would be foolish to ignore in anydiscussion of the country's future.12 The US wasforced into these negotiations largely by herEuropean partners in the Contact Group(Britain, Canada, Germany and France) whowere embarrassed by their demonstrable failureto prevent the border incursions and raids of thepast three years.

It is much more likely that South Africa's maininterest is not the support of Savimbi, but theeconomic dislocation of Angola. Although thecountry is one of the world's least developedstates, she has been forced to spend more than50 per cent of her budget on defence.13 The reportprepared by the Angolan Government for thesecond session of the International Commissionof Enquiry estimated that in the eighteen monthsbetween 11 June 1979 and 31 December 1980 thetotal value of the damage produced by the raidswas $230m, nearly as much as during the pre-ceding three years.14

Undoubtedly, the worst economic dislocationhas been the refugee problem which, afterSomalia's, is the second worst in Africa. Since1975 half a million Angolans have been madehomeless by the fighting. Operation Protect aloneadded 80,000 refugees in three weeks. One of theworst hit targets, Lubango, is the operationalcentre for the storage and distribution of reliefsupplied as part of the UN Emergency Pro-gramme. Having abandoned their fields and losttheir herds of cattle, many thousands of peasantshave been reduced to what may well become apermanent state of dependency. Many havebecome refugees in their own country. Intermit-tent warfare has turned southern Angola intoAfrica's southern Lebanon and, like the Lebanon,the government's pleas for international assist-ance have gone largely unheeded.15

Destabilization of southern AfricaMany Western analyses have tended to focusalmost entirely on the threat to Angola and tointerpret the operations of the SADF as essentiallyan extension of its campaign in Namibia. Noth-ing could be more misleading. The destabilizationof her neighbours has become one of the mostimportant and persistent South African con-cerns since 1978, as she has tried to turn Western

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attention to the instability of the countriesbeyond her borders in the hope of dissuading itfrom putting pressure on the one country thatappears to be immune from disorder.

Since 1980 she has extended the scope of herraids in an attempt to prevent the ANC fromattacking power plants, rail links and govern-ment installations in the Transvaal. She has alsotried to prevent the nine members of the South-ern African Development Co-ordination Con-ference (SADCC) from escaping her economicorbit. While this activity continues Pretoria canbe reasonably assured that it will be able todominate the region.

The SADF regularly describes Zambia as acentre for subversion. One reason sometimesadvanced in private conversations for the reten-tion of Namibia is that it offers the SADF theability to station itself on Zambia's border.16 InApril 1982 a defence White Paper describedZambia as 'a Marxist satellite state' engaged inSoviet-inspired conspiracy against the Republic -a euphemism that nearly always can be taken tomean that the country concerned has become atarget for destabilization.

What evidence there is of attempts to under-mine President Kaunda's authority has tendedto emerge from the trial of dissidents. At theCommonwealth Conference in MelbourneKaunda announced that up to 600 Zambianswere being trained by South Africa. SouthAfrican involvement in at least two conspiracieshas been uncovered by the police since 1980,though the claim that Pretoria has been behindthe recent upsurge of labout unrest in the copperbelt should not necessarily be taken at facevalue.

Far more serious in the short term is theincontrovertible evidence of economic destabili-zation which was brought to light by a jointcommission of the EEC and the 57 African,Caribbean and Pacific signatories of the LoméConvention. The commission found that since1980 direct attacks on Zambian villages had beenlaunched from the Caprivi strip. The mostsustained form of aggression had been the layingof land mines which, in addition to causing lossof life and a decline in agricultural production,had also deterred mining companies fromprospecting in the area.17 Zimbabwe's independ-ence prompted an immediate escalation ofattacks from Caprivi: in April 1982 two bat-

talions of South African troops attacked villagesand burned their crops.18 The strategy of des-troying the economic infrastructure of the West-ern Province became apparent in July when theZambian government declared the region adisaster zone.

If Zambia is the most notable example ofdestabilization, Botswana is one of the mostrecent. A series of protest notes by the Botswanangovernment following several border incidentsin 1981 elicited little or no response from theSouth African government beyond, in somecases, flat denials that the incidents ever occurred.In an interview at the end of 1981 Botswana'sPresident disclosed that his government wasincreasingly concerned at indications that Pre-toria was fabricating evidence of border incur-sions as a way of justifying counterattacks by theSADF.19 The incidents so far recorded in theWestern press have involved border violationsor exchanges of fire between Botswanan andSouth African forces, particularly near theCaprivi strip; as well as attacks on the SouthAfrican refugee population living in the country;and the illicit importation of arms to facilitatearmed robberies and other crimes.20

South Africa's concept of security is not con-fined to the protection of communication centresand other installations within her own borders.She has also sought to pre-empt attacks bylaunching pre-emptive strikes against neighbour-ing countries harbouring ANC guerrillas. (By a1976 amendment to the Defence Act the defini-tion of 'service in defence of the republic' hasbeen redefined to include the suppression of anyarmed conflict outside its borders.) Since theSoweto summer of 1976 the ANC has beendeluged with young recruits crossing the frontierinto Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland fromwhere they have gone to training camps inZambia and Angola. One of the most importantdevelopments of recent years has been the re-emergence of the ANC as the most popularnationalist movement.

Pretoria has not, however, launched pre-emptive raids indiscriminately. For example,in January 1980 the SADF carried out a daringassault on the ANC headquarters in Maputo,destroying three planning and control centres inthe course of the attack. During the raid a greatdeal of evidence was also seized which laterhelped to convict three ANC members then

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operating in the Transvaal. Any assessment ofthe scope of South African operations must takenote of the opportunity that similar raids mayprovide in the future, not only to 'take out'guerrilla positions but to disrupt communicationlinks between the ANC control centres and itsoperatives in the field.

South Africa's operations have not only beenconfined to Mozambique. In Lesotho thegovernment of Chief Jonathan faces oppositionfrom an offshoot of the Basotho Congress Partywhich is now in exile. Ever since the head of theSouth African security police warned thatLesotho was becoming an ANC staging post therebels opposing Jonathan have been allowed freepassage through the Orange Free State.21 It isdoubtful whether Pretoria would want to oustthe present administration but clearly it wishesto demonstrate that it is quite prepared toreciprocate if the ANC is allowed to operate with-out restriction. In one way or another this is amessage which South Africa appears intent onsending to her neighbours.

In recent months African diplomats havebecome increasingly alarmed by the growingdepredations of the Resistencia Nacional Mocam-bicana (MNR) which has successfully launchedattacks against 1,000 km of Mozambique's mainnorth-south road and virtually halted trafficbetween Zimbabwe and Malawi. The MNR wasoriginally set up by Rhodesian intelligence in1977 before passing under South African controlafter the Lancaster House Conference. It nowhas a training camp at Zoabostad in the Trans-vaal and its forces in Mozambique are regularlysupplied by air and by sea north and south ofBeira.

It is notable that since South Africa took overthe movement little interest has been shown inits earlier objective of creating 'liberated' zonesand winning popular support. Instead, the MNRhas set about producing the maximum disrup-tion to local life in the seven provinces in whichit is active. Because of Mozambique's size andgeography it is almost impossible for governmentforces to patrol every line of communication.Yet the country's road and rail links are abso-lutely crucial to the SADCC - particularly the railline from Zimbabwe to Maputo and Beira, theroad and rail bridges near Beira and the oil pipe-line from Beira to Mutare (Umtali), whichopened six months behind schedule because of

guerrilla attacks.22 As long as the MNR'S attackscontinue the West is most unlikely to invest the$800m needed to improve Mozambique's com-munications infrastructure and without this thenine members of the SADCC will not be able toescape South Africa's stranglehold on theireconomies.23

ConclusionIn suggesting the future pattern of South Africanoperations we must deal with two matters: theobjectives Pretoria will set itself and the responseits actions will elicit. In Namibia the raids willalmost certainly continue for as long as SouthAfrica remains in occupation. Although SouthAfrica recently agreed to the Contact Groupproposals for independence sometime in 1983she will still be reluctant to allow SWAPO tocontest free elections in an organized manner.That is why the raids will probably continue untilthe elections have been held. South Africansuccess in the past will make it difficult to with-draw into the laager for the duration.

The raids against the ANC will also continue.Black spokesmen in South Africa appear to havedrawn the same conclusions as the whites: thatthe West will not intervene. As Buthelezi, theleader of the largest black movement allowed inthe Republic, remarked after the raid on the ANCoffices in Maputo: ' . . . apart from the protestsfrom the international community not a singlecountry has taken a bold practical stand againstwhat amounted to an infringement of territorialintegrity of Mozambique'.24 The raids haveobviously reinforced the government's position.Indeed, it has sold them to the white electorateas the best means of pre-empting the onset of aguerrilla campaign that, in all probability, wouldbe sustained for many years to come.

Even more important still will be the West'sresponse to the crisis. Given South Africa'swillingness to launch raids into Angola in theface of diplomatic démarches from the Westernpowers, the US has already found herself in animpossible dilemma. Since the MPLA attachessuch importance to the Cuban presence for itsown security (2,000 more Cuban troops wereairlifted after Operation Proted) Washington willhave to find some way to alleviate Angolan fearsafter the Cubans have departed. The same holdstrue for an independent Namibia. Certainly, bothcountries will expect a better guarantee than her

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word that South Africa will not attack again. TheUS has no leverage over Pretoria to prevent suchan occurrence. There are no arms sales which canbe cut off, no military sanctions which can betaken. The only real American option would beto sell arms to Luanda and Windhoek but Con-gress would probably embargo their despatch. Itcan always be argued that it is precisely thepowers who can act as intermediaries which haveinfluence, the best intermediaries being not thosewith the least bias, but with the most leverage.25

But precisely because this is true the US is likelyto find herself in difficulty. It is not the ReaganAdministration's bias which is likely to tellagainst it, but the fact that the arms embargo hasrobbed America of any control over the use offorce by the South African government.

If the raids continue much longer and theNamibian question remains unresolved the USand Europe are likely to find themselves in-creasingly at odds. America clearly believes thatthe best way of deterring South Africa fromattacking her neighbours would be to deter raidsinto South Africa by the ANC. This is a curiousreading of South Africa's motives. She hasalready put forward a plan to create a cordonsanitaire between the Republic and her neigh-bours.26 The Europeans, by contrast, have muchless faith in South Africa's intentions and aredoubtful that the US approach to South Africacan succeed. Angola's application to join theLomé Convention in the company of Mozam-bique has been paralleled by the EEC'S decision toboost the SADCC, to become, as the EuropeanCommission remarked, 'directly involved in thedevelopment process right up to the frontiers ofapartheid.''2'7 What this may mean in securityterms in the future is suggested by an initialFrench suggestion that French forces replace theCuban troops, a proposal originally made inCuba during a visit by Jean Assueil, the headof the Africa department of the Quai D'Orsay.Luanda feels, perhaps with justification, thatthe presence of European troops would affordthe most plausible deterrent to South Africa.It is precisely because of its implications thatthe US is unlikely to favour the suggestion.The Reagan Administration's doubts representa failure of 'nerve', an introspective with-drawal of faith in the scope of its owninfluence, a tendency met and reinforced bya converging pessimism that without South

African support the West's interests cannot bedefended.

Europe has every reason to be concerned. Nocountry in the region is likely to acquiescevoluntarily in what amounts to South Africanhegemony. If South Africa continues to threatenher neighbours she will have to face the conse-quences. It is doubtful whether she has thoughtthe consequences through. Quite apart from theWestern powers whom she appears to hold in noparticular esteem she may have to contend withthe Soviet Union. As long as South Africa insistson intervening, even to pre-empt attacks by theANC, the Front-Line States will see no recoursebut to ask for help from outside. There appearsto be every likelihood that, the more implacableand unyielding South Africa remains the morethey will feel impelled to look to Moscow, andthe greater is the danger of Soviet influence.

Indeed, in a telegram to the UN Secretary-General in August 1981 Angola warned that shemight be forced to invoke Article 51 of the UNCharter and invite outside assistance to avertwhat was threatening to become 'a war with un-foreseeable consequences'.28 Such commitmentsof assistance can be found in the Treaties ofFriendship which both Angola and Mozambiquehave signed with the USSR and GDR. Thetreaty with Mozambique was activated for thefirst time in January 1980 after the raid againstthe ANC offices in Maputo. Within days of theattack, the 16,000-ton carrier Alexander Suvorovand another warship arrived in Beira.

South Africa's complete failure to take note ofthe new situation raises the question whether shehas any real interest in defending Westerninterests, as opposed to her own, which aresomewhat more narrowly defined. Her operationshave provided the USSR with an opportunity tosell 135 fighter aircraft, 527 tanks, 704 armouredcars, 778 troop carriers and 738 medium artillerypieces to Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe andZambia and 30 armoured cars to Botswana.

Pretoria often claims that these sales present athreat to the region, irrespective of whether theyare in response to its own actions. In the shortterm, there is no evidence to support this con-tention. Indeed, the SADF'S own Chief of Staff,Lt-Gen. Jannie Geldenhuys, admitted recentlythat the evidence that Soviet officers had trainedSWAPO to engage in combat operations wasmostly circumstantial. Their main concern

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appeared to be the defence of Angola.29 A hardlook at Soviet arms transfers tends to bear outthis analysis. It discloses that much of the equip-ment is defensive in nature and dated in tech-nology, and that it poses a threat, if at all, toforces crossing the border. Although Mozam-bique has MiG-17 fighters, they are first genera-tion aircraft, a poor match for South Africa'sMirage Ills which were supplied by France in the1970s. Similarly, the missile defences at Mapaiand Maputo are so old that they offer verylittle protection despite the fact that they havebeen recently improved by the installationof anti-aircraft radar tracking and guidancesystems.30

To South Africa the supply of weapons seemsa more significant phenomenon than the briefintervention of Cuban forces in 1975. Yet, in thelight of the defensive equipment supplied since1978 the Soviet Union's first priority appears tobe to deter a full-scale South African invasion,not to discourage South African raids. It isobviously impossible to study the manifoldpressures that mould Soviet policy withoutreflecting upon the common interest that bothMoscow and Pretoria share:-the destabilizationof the region. Yet one ought to beware of pres-sing the analysis too far. For the Soviet Union

has no wish to encourage her clients to involvethemselves in a conventional confrontation withSouth Africa which they would almost certainlylose without substantial Soviet assistance. Thereis little prospect of it being forthcoming. In spiteof considerable Soviet aid and the presence of15,000 Cuban soldiers, Ethiopia, her other clientin Africa, has been unable to defeat or containthe many nationalist movements within herterritory. The USSR for the moment cannotafford to extend her commitments in southernAfrica above and beyond their present level.

Nevertheless, the West's position in the regionhas been seriously undermined by South Africa'sincreasingly confident use of her forces. Havingembarked on the peace process the United Statesmay find that, as it evolves, she will not be ableto ignore the threat faced by many of the stateswith whom she has worked so assiduously toreach a settlement in Zimbabwe and Namibia.To some extent, even America has become theprisoner of her own commitments. Havingentered into the negotiations she cannot easilyjettison the process even though it has becomemore complex and problematic. Indeed, shemay well have to ask herself whether a diplo-matic clash with Pretoria can be postponed,much less avoided, for much longer.

NOTES

1 In 1968 South Africa's Minister of Defence publiclywarned Zambia that acting as a base for guerrillas couldprovoke airstrikes against military targets analogous toIsraeli reprisal raids against PLO bases in the MiddleEast.2 The Economist, 10 May 1969.3 The Financial Times, 11 March 1980.4 The Times, 11 March 1980.5 Statement of John Reed, Director of Africa RegionalOffice of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, DisasterAssistance to Angola, Hearings before the Committee onInternational Relations, subcommittee on Resources,Food and Energy, House of Representatives, 94th Con-gress, 2nd Session 1976, p. 56.6 Chester A. Crocker, Assistant Secretary for AfricanAffairs, Address to the American Legion, Honolulu,29 August 1981, reprinted in Africa Report 26:6, Novem-ber-December 1981, p. 10.7 The Washington Post, 12 September 1981.8 Notes taken by the International Defence Aid FundResearch and Information Department at a publicmeeting in London, 27 October 1981, Focus, January-February 1982.

9 In fact the number of Cuban troops in Angola fell from30,000 in 1976 to 10,000 by the Autumn of 1981. (The NewYork Times, 8 January 1982).10 The Times, 9 September 1981.11 For a complete list see the two Angolan submissions tothe International Mission of Jurists June 1979-July 1980and 1-9 October 1981 published by the Centre againstApartheid, UN Department of Political and SecurityCouncil Affairs 2/81 and 12/82.12 The New York Times, 13 December 1981.13 The Guardian, 29 July 1981.14 Report of the People's Republic of Angola to the SecondSession of the International Commission of Enquiry intothe crimes of the racist and apartheid regime in SouthernAfrica (Centre against Apartheid: Department ofPolitical and Security Council Affairs 12/82 1982). Thedamage was caused largely by aerial bombing, sporadicattacks by South African troops in Puma and Alouettehelicopters; and armoured car attacks supported by air-strikes.16 Ramsay Clark, the former US Attorney-General andone of the members of the International Commission ofEnquiry, has compared the situation in the south to that

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in southern Lebanon. 'We found generally there whatcould be called a state of war. There was a constantmilitary presence and alertness of a defensive nature,networks of trenches and bunkers and reports of dailydepredations by South African military personnel.'16 The New York Times, 30 April 1982.17 Interim Report of the ACP-EEC Consultative AssemblyFact finding mission to the Front-Line States 23 January1982 to 1 February 1982.18 New African, April 1981.19 The Star, (Johannesburg), 5 December 1981.20 The Financial Mail, 6 March 1982.21 The New York Times, 17 September 1981.22 See two articles on the MNR in Africa Confidential,Vol. 23 , Nos . 15 ; and 16, 1982. The information of South

African involvement is based largely on documents c a p -tured at a guerrilla base at Garagua on 7 December 1981.23 The SADCC comprises Angola, Botswana, Swaziland,Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia a n dZimbabwe.24 The Financial Times, 24 February 1981.25 Pierre Hassner, 'Super-power Rivalries, Conflict andCo-operat ion ' in Diffusion of Power, Part II: Control andConflict, Adelphi, 134 (London : IISS, 1977).28 The Sunday Times, 10 October 1982.27 The Guardian, 11 October 1982.28 C o m m u n i q u é issued by the Ango lan Minis t ry ofDefence, 17 Augus t 1981.29 The Times, 7 April 1982.30 The Washington Post, 16 September 1981.

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