In 1975, representatives of three Angolan political parties met in a sleepy Portuguese fishing village called Alvor. There, they signed an agreement with the Portuguese government. The Alvor Agreement seemed to offer Angola a path to independence, but it contained several hidden obstacles. First, the transitional government would be led entirely by the four parties that signed the agreement: Portugal, the MPLA, the FNLA, and UNITA. This disenfranchised nations and ethnic groups with less political power. Second, the agreement required a supermajority to approve any measures in the transitional government. In an assembly of rivals, this ensured partisan gridlock. Third, it guaranteed the Portuguese Republic control over one quarter of the ministries in the transitional government. Finally, it called for the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA to unify their armies into the Angolan Defence Force.
The MPLA fought for global communism, while the FNLA and UNITA favored alignment with the capitalist west. When these factions realized that the Alvor Agreement was useless, they began to strategize against each other. The CIA and South Africa armed the FNLA and UNITA, while the Soviet Union armed the MPLA. When the transitional government collapsed and civil war broke out, the MPLA gained a decisive advantage.
Why was South Africa concerned with the events in Angola? Between South Africa and Angola lay a territory called South-West Africa. In 1975, it was a colony of South Africa. Prior to that, it had been a colony of Britain, briefly, and Germany, for a long time. Germany built some of the first modern concentration camps during their genocide of the Herero people. In the first part of the 20th century, most of the land in South-West Africa was owned by colonists. A group of revolutionaries called SWAPO opposed the colonial state. People were beginning to refer to the territory as Namibia, after the Namib Desert, the oldest desert on Earth. South African officials outlawed the term but could barely enforce their own laws.
SWAPO formed in 1960 as a multi-ethnic political party dedicated to immediate independence. South Africa hunted its leaders in Namibia, so they fled to Angola. There, they negotiated alliances with local anti-colonial groups. They sent soldiers to train in the Eastern Bloc, North Korea, Egypt, China, Ghana, and Algeria. They recruited at refugee camps in Tanzania. They built diplomatic offices in Lusaka, Cairo, and London. In 1965, SWAPO members snuck back into Namibia and built a base. They started training local volunteers. In 1966, the police showed up with air support and attacked them. Those who survived were put on trial for “violence in the act of insurrection,” “armed intimidation,” and “receiving training for insurrection.” They were imprisoned on Robben Island, in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was also held for 18 years. As more rebels snuck into Namibia, South Africa instituted a draft.
In 1969, the United Nations declared illegal the South African occupation of Namibia. In 1972, the United Nations recognized SWAPO as the legitimate government of Namibia and in 1974 Norway began providing them with direct aid. A police base was destroyed by mortar fire. Military convoys hit land mines. A general strike of 40,000 workers forced South Africa to grant limited self-rule to the Ovambo nation, SWAPO’s key constituency. Eventually, police entirely withdrew from the Namibia-Angola border, replaced with soldiers. These soldiers cut a five-kilometer-wide swathe through hundreds of kilometers of forest. They built bunkers and ran constant patrols to protect against further infiltrations.
In 1975, Angola’s provisional government collapsed. With the withdrawal of Portuguese forces, SWAPO was able to operate freely in Angola. As a result, South Africa saw Angola as an important security concern. Meanwhile, the CIA saw South Africa as an important ally in countering the communists of the MPLA.
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South African President P. W. Botha was known as Die Groot Krokodil, The Great Crocodile. He was a member of the Nationalist party and the Ossewabrandwag. Ossewabrandwag means “Ox-Wagon Sentry,” referring to the soldiers among early Afrikaaner pioneers. It was a fascist organization which believed that God wanted the Afrikaaners to conquer Africa. Botha was known for his thin-lipped smirk and his slack, piercing eyes. He believed that apartheid was necessary to defeat communism. In 1977, he ordered the production of six atomic bombs.
In 1975, South Africa and the CIA were still arming the FNLA and UNITA in Angola while the Soviet Union was still arming the MPLA. SWAPO had alliances with all of the Angolan political parties. The MPLA had access to Soviet military hardware, including artillery and armored vehicles. The FNLA and UNITA only had access to covert support, including training and intelligence. In a conflict fought mainly by peasant militias, the MPLA’s superior weapons granted them many early victories.
South Africa saw that they could not turn the tide of the war without direct intervention. 2,500 South African soldiers in armored cars crossed the border into Angola and advanced rapidly toward the capitol. Despite many battles, nobody could stop them. They approached Cuito Cuanavale, a city on the high Okavango river, which flowed south into Namibia and Botswana and evaporated in the great salt pan, Makgadikgadi.
Then 12,000 Cubans arrived. They were all trained to operate Soviet machinery, and they were all animated by the spirit of proletarian internationalism. The South African invasion stalled. South Africa requested aid from the CIA, but neither South Africa nor the United States was openly involved in Angola. As their roles were revealed to the world, they faced criticism at home. Soon, the South African soldiers were forced to retreat. They had come close to capturing the headwaters of the Kavango River.
While border-fortifications made it impossible for SWAPO to attack into Namibia, South African forces could not dislodge the Namibian bases in Angola. They launched several attacks using paratroopers but accomplished very little. Then they used mechanized infantry to capture cities and towns. The United Nations condemned these violations of international law. Over the following decade, the various factions struggled to deescalate this conflict. Botha declared that South Africa would not withdraw from Angola while the Cubans and Soviets remained. Meanwhile, Soviet anti-aircraft weapons leveled the playing field. Clashes became more conventional and more deadly. By this time, UNITA had become an auxiliary of South Africa. They operated behind the lines of South African forces, controlling the villages like a mafia.
South African soldiers slaughtered the occupants of a refugee camp because it was run by SWAPO. To deprive Angola of income, they attacked a refinery owned by Gulf Oil. They used UNITA soldiers as cannon-fodder while sustaining very light losses themselves. In trying, again, to capture the headwaters of the Kavango River, they attacked fortified positions and lost. Soviet MiGs contested air superiority. Angolan ports granted supply lines to SWAPO for the first time. With South African forces mired in the east of Angola, a Cuban army seized the Namibia-Angola border in the west. Cuban battalions blended with SWAPO guerillas, granting massive strike capacity to the insurgents. SWAPO entered Ovamboland and reunited with their Namibian supporters. South Africa could not repel them, so they began recruiting.
By that time, South Africa had lost all hope of victory. Between 1975 and 1985, a series of guerilla battles had escalated into a full-scale war. In 1988, South Africa, Angola, and Cuba signed a peace treaty. In 1989, the United Nations oversaw Namibia’s transition into independence. Meanwhile, P. W. Botha resigned. South Africa legalized anti-apartheid parties, released Nelson Mandela, discontinued its nuclear weapons program, and began to dismantle its bombs. In 1990, SWAPO won 57% of the popular vote, gaining a majority in the country’s parliament. They joined with minor parties to write a constitution. SWAPO remained the majority party for 30 years, settling into social capitalism and mineral exports. In 1994, South Africa instituted universal suffrage.
