Talk:Cuban intervention in Angola/Archive 1

Sources etc.

i first wrote this article in german using german and english sources. i'm presently translating everything into english and will try to use and look up some more english sources on the way and should be done in a few days. i greatly appreciate others smoothing out my germanisms which are hard to avoid when translating for hours and, of course, contributions, which i can translate back into german. Sundar1 (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Fowler's Modern English Usage is quite clear on the difference between transpired and occurred. I gave the reason for my correction, not like some other editors who sometimes make gratuitous changes without sources or reasons. (I don't think one needs a source for mere grammatical errors, unless it is contested). It is brave of you to write so extensively in English. I do think you have done a great service to Wikipedia with this very interesting article.24.226.60.29 (talk) 15:44, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Duplication?

This article appears to cover the same content as South African Border War and Angolan Civil War, although from a different point of view. Is there any merit in merging these articles into one? Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

A very biased POV - Why?

I'm not sure why the presentation is so extremely biased. Cuban propaganda and its sympathizers are printed as fact without any acknowledgment of disputes by reputable sources. And why anyone hasn't incorporated the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale article applicable to 75% of this? I've gone ahead and incorporated some more balanced views from the literature as well as toned down the opinionated tone of some of the prose. Virgil61 (talk) 08:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps because this article was translated from Spanish, or because it was somewhat orphaned until I cross-referenced it? Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Even though it was translated from Spanish the editor has some obligation to tone down its partisan rhetoric if used as a source for the article--short of quotations of course. I've tried to put input on the SADF/American side's view without as a counter in order to balance it. Anyone aware of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale article will see the controversy. If you linked it, well thank you, it allowed a larger audience to discover it and for a synthesis of the conflicting opinions. There's nothing wrong with presenting the Cuban version if the disputing version is also given. Virgil61 (talk) 19:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way Socrates I wasn't attacking you on the article's POV by any means. Thank you for correcting tags, I'll be more aware next time. Virgil61 (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No worries - I expected you'd find it pretty quickly once linked ;-) Socrates2008 (Talk) 22:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is just a regurgitation of the standard Cold War era Cuban rhetoric of the time, e.g. they successfully saved Angola from SA invasion and in doing so secured Namibian independence and ended apartheid. This is all based on the disputed outcome of Cuito Cuanavale with no supporting facts:

1. SA invasion? – Cuba entered in early 70's before independence or SA involvement/incursion as part of jockeying for three independence movements.
2. Nam independence? – Some would argue that they in fact delayed it by 10 years, because UN 435 was set out in 1978, but SA wouldn't implement it until Cubans left (large Comm block force posed a threat).
3. End of apartheid? – Strangely this coincided with the end of the Cold War and the Comm block threat on the SA border.

Anyhow, article (encyclopaedic portions) should be merged, see discussion below. — Deon Steyn (talk) 08:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

---

It does not seem to me that these comments are fair. It is by no means ``all based on taking sides in the dispute about who ``won the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The careful timetable about when South Africa agreed to what concessions in the negotiation, linked with the events on the ground, is very strong evidence for the conclusion offerred, which conclusion is also backed up by citations to independent sources, and so counts, under Wiki guidelines, as ``verifiable. It is inappropriate to use the tag ``sympathiser without more analysis, to demote an academics independent work as not counting as an independent source. But quoting an

SADF general about the intentions of the SADF is not, under Wiki guidelines, independent, and so cannot count as evidence that the SADF and UNITA never intended to capture the city of Cuito Cuanavale, for example.

That timetable and that conclusion show that before these military events, SA was only willing to trade its withdrawal from Angola for Cuba's withdrawal from Angola. AFter these events, SA wound up agreeing to let SWAPO take over Namibia in return for Cuba's agreement to later withdraw from Angola.

Also, repeated claim of ``large Communist block posed a threat is itself controversial: many liberal European and American observers thought that SA felt threatened by any independent, black, nationalist movements in Namibia and Angola and Rhodesia. (See Stockwell, formerly of the CIA's, explanation that the MPLA was originally pro-American until Kissinger decided to make an example of it.)

It is hard to see why you are justified in labelling an American academic (Piero Glieseje is at Johns Hopkins, isn't he? or is it only the publisher of his book?) as the cuban point of view. It counts as an American point of view. The official point of view of Kissinger and Crocker could not, under Wiki guidelines, count as a verifiable source since they are not independent...but Glieseje does...My point being, that the fact that Glieseje is pro-Castro and agrees with so many aspects of the cuban point of view is irrelevant, under Wiki guidelines, it still counts as independent. it would be circular to say that since his conlusions agree with the cuban governmental point of view, therefore citing him does not count as independent verification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.226.60.29 (talk) 04:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Chris By saying the Glieseje is independant even though you acknowledge his overt politcal stance is an incredibly lazy approach to historical research. By your standard any book written by say a White South African Historian who views the war from his political "Mindset" must be accepted as a credible source - I THINK NOT! To say that this is irrelevant is to say historiography is useless. In reading Glieseje articles I think it would be niave to say that his Pro Castro stance does not impact on his conclusions.

Just another point by writing off Kissinger and Crocker and say they are not independant is to idiocy. This drawn to its logical conclusion would mean that we cannot use oral sources or eye witness accounts in any historical research. What you have to do is look at the different sources - not only their conclusions but also their methodology. To take Gliesje as irrefutable is very lazy

For example - The battle of CC i think South Africa lost 14 Olifant Tanks some destroyed some captured. The Cuban Point of View is that this is proof they repulsed the South Africans - If that is so thn how do they explain the tons of weapons captured and repatriated to Namibia - The loss of Mig Fighters and the loss of tanks etc in the same battles. I would tend to lean on the understanding that South Africa successfully repulsed FAPLA's advance but then at CC were not able to dislodge the Cuban and Fapla forces because they were so well dug in. It ground to a stalemate.

What none of you are taking into account was that at this time their was the UDF program to make South Africa ungovernable - this meant that troops were needed in the townships and could not be committed to an ongoing border war. At that same time groups like the End Conscription Campaign were becoming better organised and we were starting to have an impact on the National Service Call up. CRDM (talk) 14:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)Chris 5194--CRDM (talk) 14:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Just thought I'd make a separate heading to go along with the merge tags. Aside from the completely biased nature, clearly this article belongs to the article on the Angolan Civil War (some portions also overlap with Battle of Cuito Cuanavale). Cuba's involvement is 100% tied to and limited to the civil war and should be discussed as part of that only. — Deon Steyn (talk) 08:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this article is not only highly biased but highly inaccurate, which complicates merging. I would suggest this be merged to Angolan Civil War, Angola-China relations (for the section on Deng Xiaoping), and Angola-Cuba relations. Once it has been merged I would suggest deletion rather than redirecting it. Jose João (talk) 09:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, so why has the merger proposal just changed from Angolan Civil War to Battle of Cuito Cuanavale? Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Although there is some overlap, I don't support the merger with Battle of Cuito Cuanavale - Cuban involvement was much wider than just this battle. Socrates2008 (Talk) 14:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I only had one article in the mergeto tag, because it is limited to one article, but it would really be merged into a combination of; Angolan Civil War, Battle of Cuito Cuanavale and Angola-Cuba relations (as Jose João pointed out). So myself, Jose João and Socrates2008 are in favour of it. Shall we get on with it then? — Deon Steyn (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

On trying to merge, I see there isn't really much of value here. I suggest we just redirect to Angola-Cuba relations or delete. — Deon Steyn (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I have restored the merge tag, but this time to Angola-Cuba relations, but as per our discussion the merge should be to several pages. Do not remove the merge tag until consensus has been reached or the merge completed. — Deon Steyn (talk) 11:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done I have completed the merge moving sections almost wholesale (for now) into Angola-Cuba relations ( [1] ) and Angolan Civil War ( [2] ). Can we have a vote on redirecting the page now? — Deon Steyn (talk) 09:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

No... I disagree with how you merged the content. A lot of what I left here, I left because I suspected it was inaccurate. That and the content was barely English. Eventually I support redirecting. Jose João (talk) 09:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Upon further investigation I find this is not your fault. It's Sundar's. I removed all that crap because it was ridiculously inaccurate. Sorry about not commenting on the ongoing dispute prior to this, I have not had this article on my watchlist and I thought it was on the verge of AFD. Jose João (talk) 09:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't want to move and edit to avoid confusion. As a first step I just wanted to move it out and "into the light" in the proper articles where more editors can have a look and correct it while this page itself is closed down (redirected, merge whatever). Anyhow, let's sort out the AFD debate first. — Deon Steyn (talk) 11:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a reason for not merging. The Cuban involvement in Angola was, in fact, directed towards independence for Namibia and so transcends the smaller topic of the civil war in Angola. And vice versa: the civil war in Angola naturally requires a longer discussion of Portuguese colonialism and the background of the struggle than is relevant here. This article does form a natural unit. It is already quite long enough, but this is appropriate due to the very controversial nature of the topic, requiring the many quotations and citations which this article uses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.226.60.29 (talk) 04:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

large scale vandalism

all these edits in the last 2 weeks are cerainly not what i had in mind when i asked for contributions. it was clear to me that the information compiled in my article would be hard to swallow for some. but there is not one sentence of my own doing; each one is taken from sources that i listed. i actually stumbled upon this subject watching a documentary on cuban involvement in africa/angola on "arte", a bilingual german-french tv-channel, which, considering it is publicly funded, is quite an outstanding undertaking because of its high quality and, at least to my astonishment, very critical documentaries. my attention provoked, i proceeded to find out what was written on this issue in wikipedia. what i found was not so surprising: cuban involvement was hardly mentioned at all. writing the article "cuba in angola" was to shed light on cuban history and i thus intended to add it to the cuba history section. after it grew too big in size i decided to give it an own article with a link from cuban history. i had in mind to add more about the non-military involvement as soon as i could find more info and sources. so, from the very beginning, this article was firstly a cuban history article. of course it was clear to me that large sections of it are also useful for angolan themes. in fact, i even started adding some things but then became disheartended, because the angola history articles are, in my view, pretty screwed up.

i noticed that "cuba in angola" recieved critical addiditions, adding a SADF pov, which is fine, although i have something to say about that. then the article was almost totally dismantled within a few days by only one or two persons. going through the discussion sections of the related articles it is quite obvious, that these persones are the ones i had in mind when i wrote "hard to swallow for some". they refer to a "merge" discussion, which i cannot find anywhere and they also repetedly argue with "cuban propaganda" although i fail to have noticed any such propaganda outside that country in the last 40 years. the sources i used are very well documented and easily accessible. also, there is nothing wrong with dublication if the context is different.

unless i can make out a meaningful discussion with an acceptable number of participants over an acceptable period of time, i do not accept the dismantling of this article and concider changes of this scale vandalism. anyone is welcome to use parts of it for angolan issues but the bulk must remain a history of cuba issue. there will be more additions concerning cuban engagement in other african countries, e. g. algeria, zaire, guinea bissau etc. Sundar1 (talk) 12:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You have to accept that any article on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and try not to have a personal attachment to the article. It is not good to simply undo many edits of several different editors without discussion. Aside from "facts", there is also the question of whether this "information" warrants a separate article. Please see the merge discussion (topic above this one). Please see Wikipedia:Vandalism and Wikipedia:Assume good faith. — Deon Steyn (talk) 20:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Calling it "large scale vandalism" isn't constructive. Much of the article is uses highly biased prose not suitable for an encyclopedia and still needs cleaning up in that regard. Using one side's POV in a disputed historical battle is also not constructive, especially since the opposing POV is just as well sourced. At least three editors took part in this without intent to vandalize. Let's hope we can all cooperate from now on, in the spirit of Wikipedia. Virgil61 (talk) 22:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

i did not undo any of the edits because the article has been dismantled and distributed into other articles, such as the battle of c. i do not consider the few contributions above a discussion. your basic critisism is the discription and outcome of the battle of cuito cuanavale. this battle only takes up a small portion of my article and is not it's major issue. that's why you should focus on the article of the battle and not on the history of cuba. you are free to change the "highly biased prose" if it has no sources and if you find other sources to counter it, but not delete the whole article as you did. you say i undid edits without discussion, but none of your changes are based on discussions except that it's "pov" or "propaganda". besides, the whole article was distributed after a number of edits which i had not reverted. the issue is the article at all. if you don't like a seperate article i can simply add it into cuban history, what's the difference? no need to show me Wikipedia:Vandalism and Wikipedia:Assume good faith! perhaps you should consider looking into it yourself. i was constructive putting in this article, who is destructive here? Sundar1 (talk) 17:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Different points of view are allowed and encouraged round here, but need to be verifiable. So let's focus the discussion on the verifiable content and move forward. Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

A single edit with a proper edit comments is okay, but reverting several such edits from a multiple of editors is not and it would definitely require a discussion first. The more important debate here is in fact the existence of this article to begin with. — Deon Steyn (talk) 11:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

lets start the debate!!!

as deon stein says himself, there were several edits by "multuple" editors (i'd say 2 or 3 at the most) and a single edit should be done with "proper" edit comments. well, where are all the "proper" comments? there is a difference between editing an article and removing a whole article. for the latter, simple edit comments and a discussion among 2 or 3 likeminded people within one week won't do. so let the debate begin. why don't you like the existence of this article. the reason i wrote it is explained above. it was part of cuba history.Sundar1 (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

No, you reverted (without discussion or even a reason) the work of five (5) editors (Perspicacite, Virgil61, Supergodzilla2090, Socrates2008 and myself) spanning 32 edits, almost all of them with clear edit comments. As for the article's existence, there is already a debate on the topic that you have not participated in: Talk:Cuba in Angola#Merge. In this debate several concerns are highlighted, most notably the fact that more appropriate pages already exist (especially Angola-Cuba relations, but also Angolan Civil War and Battle of Cuito Cuanavale) which duplicates much of this work. — Deon Steyn (talk) 06:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

my reverts would appear in a different light if you consider that all the edits you mention are still in those places where the article has been moved. in the remaining article there was nothing left for me to change exept for a leftover, which made no sense in itself. it seems to have been kind of left to die. i gave a lenghty reason for putting the former article back into place which actually is not my original article but the last version before the distributing started- thus it contains most of the edits. in contrast, your so-called debate took place from jan. 4 until jan. 6. with contributions by only 3 - 4 people. generously i could say it started jan. 1. - makes no big difference. by the time i joined on jan. 6. the changes were all done. you can hardly blame anyone for not having participated in that short time. what was the hurry for? besides, the major changes and moves which raised my objections were done by 2 people, i so far did not put much thought to the minor edits, but i will.

i can add that i do think the subject merits an own article, just as e. g. the invasion in the bay of pigs does. in fact, i have in mind to write articles on cuba's involvement in other countries as well. indeed, articles often overlap, i could give you many examples, so that is no reason to delete. nevertheless, i do not insist on an own article, especially if none of the information is lost, but arguments certainly need to be more convincing. another major reason for my objection to distributing the article is that the recieving articles all have differing statements, in most cases, unlike in this one, without sources. interestingly, none of you had anything to remark about that yet.

to the person who requested a citation behind almost every sentence in the paragraph "proxy war": the sources for every statement in this article i gave either at the end of the sentence, the end of the paragraph and at the end of the article, perhaps not exactly to standard, i'm not sure, but i don't think they are really necessary in that abundance. nevertheless, i added them as he wished, to see what it looked like. i can do so with every sentence in this article, if he likes. not one statement in this article is my own.

i suppose we can agree that we don't agree and continue from there. would that be a start? why don't you pick up points, one by one, you don't like about the article? and it would certainly be nice if more people joined the discussion. Sundar1 (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The consensus reached was to merge the article into the other articles for the various reasons discussed at that time. The invasion of the bay of pigs does indeed warrant it's own article, because it was a specific well known event. Describing the history of Cuban operations in Angola can also be an article, but that is what Angola-Cuba relations is there for (as well as other articles already listed). They might not contain the information from this new article yet, but that is why the editors are adding (merging) the content to these pages. Your new article name does not make sense or refer to a specific thing. Does it refer to tourism or culture? The other articles are clear standalone concepts (Angola-Cuba relations and Angolan Civil War). — Deon Steyn (talk) 08:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the above comments about a merger. However this should be done in a way that preserves the verifiable information and points of view in this article so that the end result is balanced. i.e. Some of the existing articles do not present the Cuban/Angolan point of view very well, while this one does the opposite. So rather than end up with something that no-one agrees with, I think folks need to agree to disagree and start thinking about how the two points of view can be presented objectively side-by-side.

Lastly, I don't think this article or any of the related ones are referenced enough, especially considering the different points of view being presented. Anyone that has issues with their material being challenged, please go and read Burden of evidence Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Article deletion

I oppose the deletion of this article - relevant content should be merged with existing articles as discussed above. Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I also oppose deletion. This is a significant part of Cuba and Africa's history and many in Africa regard it as one of the most unique and important parts of their recent history ... in a sense the only time an outside power acted against colonialism on their behalf and deleting this article would be doing them a dis-service.--Senor Freebie (talk) 03:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

further edits

having made a number of smaller changes i could not explain them all in the edit summary. i will try to sum it up here: i removed a number of additions because they were added to statements which i had sourced. additions would render them incorrect. also, the editions i removed had no sources. i was especially intrigued by deon steyn's removal of "invasion" in the introduction with the reason that the south african intrusion was not an invasion. sounds very much like he wants to stick to south african nomenclature of the late 1975s. perhaps deon steyn would like to enlighten me, what the south africans did in angola. i don't suppose it was a boy scout's outing. i know of no sources using any other term than invasion and, looking up the definition in wikipedia it looks like just what south africa did. that's why i returned the older version of the introduction. i'm not so happy with the heading of the new paragraph "south africa's defeat" although the result is something along that line. Sundar1 (talk) 00:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

By your definition, Cuba's intervention in the civil war was an invasion too - it was certainly long enough to be a strategic endevour. At the end of the day, SA intervened on one side, and Cuba the other, so there's no point arguing a POV that only one side was an "invader" here. Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: I believe "Kifangondo" is German spelling - "Quifangondo" is the correct English. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

well, socrates, you do have a point there and i think the use of the term "invasion" is worth a discussion. only, more or less all sources i ever came across except, perhaps, south african ones, talk about south african invasion or intervention while on the other side, i never read about a cuban invasion. perhaps it's because the term "invasion" also has a negativ flavour and it's necessary to compare the situation with others around the world or in history to see whether there is some kind of consistency. at present i have no explanation why the cuban intervention is not called invasion. but the south african intervention certainly was one. as to the spelling of Kifangondo, i mainly used english sources and actually never came across that name in a german source. i don't remember where i got the spelling from. the spelling with "qu" i first noticed on wikipedia. whatever the official spelling should be taken. Sundar1 (talk) 14:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

if internet hits are any indication, for quifangondo there are 600 entries on yahoo, for kifangondo 19,000 both in all languages. that explains why it took a while until i first came across the "qu" spelling on wikipedia. what do we make of this? Sundar1 (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is a completely partisan mess straight out of the Cuban playbook. It needs serious rewriting. A section called "South African Defeat" gives only sources from sympathetic media. Atrocious. I don't have time to rewrite large portions of it with a more balanced multi-sourced POV. You'll note few American or South African sources in the article and heavy reliance on Piero Gleijeses a far-left lecturer on diplomacy who's received awards from Fidel Castro and, frankly, knows little about military history or operations. While his voice should be heard it's an embarrassment to have his POV as the sole standard. This isn't FidelCastropedia. Virgil61 (talk) 19:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Sundar, please don't take it as a personal slam, I understand you work with what you have on hand. No more, no less. Just calling attention to the issue from some of us who've worked this area before. It gets a bit frustrating to fight the same battles over and over again. Virgil61 (talk) 19:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at the definition of "invasion"? The only sources that use the term are Cuban or Cuban-aligned, because it served a propaganda purpose or because they completely misinterpreted the action. This is some aspects of an invasion:

• the goals of an invasion are usually large-scale and long-term
• a sizeable force is needed to hold territory

Most importantly: Smaller-scale, tactical cross-border actions, such as skirmishes, sorties, raids, infiltrations or guerrilla warfare, are not generally considered invasions.

Looking at this definition no one will ever believe that the SA government wanted to conquer and occupy Angola. It would be the most ridiculous and absurd venture imaginable. Look at the map, look at the population and forces strenghts. How would the white SA population of a few million (5 or 6?) with an army of 50,000–100,000 ever hope to defend South Africa, Namibia and Angola from all the neighbouring countries??? It was a simple cross border action in support of UNITA and against threatening SWAPO, MPLA positions. Because of the non-existent or pathetic oppostion encountered the commanders advanced further than planned, but they retreated soon after. Have you ever heard of such an successful "invader" just leaving again??? The fact that they left after completion of mission objectives, proves that it was not an "invasion". Please see Webster's defitions of incursion and invasion (for conquest or plunder). "Incusion" yes, "invasion" no. — Deon Steyn (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is Jan Breytenbach's 'Forged in Battle' used for sourcing only when it compliments the Cuban POV (or is quoted out of context) but none of his unit's battles ending in defeat of Cuban and MPLA units commented upon? It looks to be 'third' sourced, ie sourced from inside another writing rather than directly. The sourced phrasing which lists only the last name and no publisher, date etc. looks like it came from an old PhD working paper done years ago. I'm still trying to figure out how six or seven blown up Elands in the successful ambush of an SADF column 'turned the tide' of anything outside that recon skirmish much less the war for Angola. Virgil61 (talk) 08:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

deon steyn, according to your definition the u.s. whatever into grenada was no invasion, irak was not an invasion and the u. s. whatever into afghanistan neither. where are the differences? the time frame, the number of soldiers, the objectives? nobody said the sadf wanted to conquer and occupy angola for good, although they did the latter for quite some time. invasions don't only have the purpose of adding territory. they obviously also have other reasons. a successful invader leaving is indeed rare - they usually get kicked out unless they were sure things were going "their way". you say the sadf advanced further than planned, but retreated soon after. my sources to not confirm this. instead, the sadf repeatedly tried to gain more ground to the north, including the benguela railway.

i'm not fighting for this terminology but my observation remains the same, the term invasion is most widly used. as to the title of the new paragraph, i figured it would raise objections. could have called it "humiliation" instead of defeat. as i'm telling vergil below, it's not single battles that count, but the outcome in the end: south africa out of the country is what matters. there are enough sources saying they didn't leave voluntarily but by a combination of being stuck at the southern front, internatinal pressure and being dropped like a hot potatoe. Sundar1 (talk) 17:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

virgil, i'm beyond taking it personal, thank you, and what i'm working with is listed. i'm sorry you're not happy with they way i use sources. winning a battle here or there, or winning almost all battles, as breytenbach might have done, simply isnt't the issue here. you are more than welcome to write an article on all the battles during the civil war, count up the casualties, list the used weapons and relish in the south african victories, if it makes you happy. it doesn't change the outcome that destroying mpla and installing a government to its own taste was foiled. mission not accomplished. for black africa and third world nations this is a victory, no matter how you put it.Sundar1 (talk) 17:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem isn't the ultimate political outcome it's with the facts concerning the outcome of military operations. To historians, especially of those who follow military history, the truth in that regard (battle, skirmishes, air superiority, etc.) is an important aspect of the story. It doesn't change the wrongness of apartheid but that isn't the issue with addressing the objective facts of military operations. To anyone knowledgeable about it things like the Angolan foreign minister stating that an ambush resulting in six scout cars destroyed 'changed the course of the war' must be met with skepticism.

As with much of Wikipedia there is a middle ground that we can meet where both sides on a debatable issue can be presented. You seem absolutely OK with that, which is commendable considering what sometimes can happen on Wikipedia. And pardon my frustrations. Virgil61 (talk) 19:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

A 'charged' question perhaps--but a legitimate one considering how diseases spread--but has anyone else read that returning troops from Angola introduced HIV into the Cuban population? Virgil61 (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Invasion vs. Incursion — Once again have to ask you if you have actually read the page for invasion Sundar1??? Your arguments actually prove my point! According the definitons U.S. operations in Iraq, Grenada and Afghanistan are "invasions" (in terms of scale, duration and intention), but clearly a single, month-long, cross-border operation (Ops Savanah) does not even come close the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This is exactly the problem with this page, we are wasting time discussing the outcomes of wars or battles already discussed on other pages when this page is supposedly about "intervention" or "relations" between two countries. And calling the outcome a "humiliation" or "defeat" for one side when both agreed to leave, is clearly biased, because Cuba also withdrew. South Africa managed to removed Cuba and hand over Namibia without interference from Soviet proxies... so the mighty Com Block was the one humiliated perhaps? 40,000–50,000 troops, billions of dollars of equipment and they couldn't even take a few Unita strongholds and when the USSR crumbled and the money from Europe dried up they left Angola in tatters ravaged by civil war for another 13 years and now one of the worst economies in the world (Economy of Angola and see 2002 figures: [3])... thanks for your intervention Cuba. You see, it all depends on your point of view. Please keep wikipedia neutral and present all sides of the story in such controversial topics. Leave interpretations and original research out of the article. Yes Cuba was in Angola, yes they were helping one side in civil war, yes they left again... these are the facts... this is what the article title is!!! yes? no? —&nbspDeon Steyn (talk) 07:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

definition of invasion according to wikipedia: a military action consisting of armed forces of one geopolitical entity entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering territory, altering the established government, or a combination thereof. can be the cause of a war, can be used as a part of a larger strategy to end a war, or it can constitute an entire war in itself. it usually denotes a strategic endeavor of substantial magnitude; because the goals of an invasion are usually large-scale and long-term, a sizeable force is needed to hold territory, and protect the interests of the invading entity. Smaller-scale, tactical cross-border actions, such as skirmishes, sorties, raids, infiltrations or guerrilla warfare, are not generally considered invasions. because an invasion is, by definition, an attack from outside forces, rebellions, civil wars, coups d'état, and internal acts of democide or other acts of oppression, are not considered invasions.

deon, the first thing i did is check up with the definintions and it's remarkable how interpretations can differ. my major point is the general use of the term in the sources i have seen so far. as to your referring to the wikipedia definition, which i posted here, i see absolutely no contradiction: as to a the comparison to iraq or afghanistan there are indeed differences in terms of scale and duration, not in intention. it is not correct saying the sadf actions only took one month, but longer duration is not a "must" for the definition anyway. neither is a larger sized force. the only one who regarded the development and outcome in angola and namibia your way was apartheid south africa. if that is not very onesided then i don't know what is. cuba was in angola because of south african aggression and not the other way around. so putting the blame on cuba for the whole mess in angola is twisting history. savimbi was only able to reject the outcome of the elections and continue the war for so long because of apartheid support. if south africa was so successful as you put it, they would have not left angola before reaching their objectives and they certainly wouldn't have moved out of namibia. they couldn't even prevent swapo from coming to power.

No, Cuba was in Angola because of Unita as well as the SADF and Savimbi relied to a large extent on U.S. support as well (stinger missiles). He outlasted Apartheid by well over a decade so your statement doesn't hold true. I believe you've been hoodwinked by your 'sources' over SADF objectives. The facts are that Cuba seemed to finally 'get' that they weren't going to succeed over the small SADF forces and decided to negotiate, get out and declare victory. It cost Pretoria money to stay in Namibia and that it was unpopular at home. All sides got an excuse to leave. It ain't brain surgery. Virgil61 (talk) 13:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

of course, invadors don't like to call what they are doing an invasion. you will note, that the term is not much used by the us when referring to their actions in other countries. it has a destinct negative flavour, as does the term "infiltration" which the us loves to use for describing the support of leftist liberation movements. the term invasion is usually used by the ones who suffer them. in fact, the nazi germans called the allied landing in normandy an invasion and to this day the term is still widly used in german historiography. in spite of the size, objective and time frame you will hardly here any of the allies using this term.

To call the 2,500 sized SADF incursions to support UNITA an invasion frankly is preposterous. That is part and parcel of the leftist view of the conflict. Virgil61 (talk) 13:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

by the way, the article does not contain own research or any single interpretation of my own. there is nothing wrong with presenting the apartheid side- they certainly did have their reasons, but what you are doing is justifying what they did- that's a big difference. i have no intention to do that. it's like justifying the nazi attack on russia just because it was communist.

Germany attacking Russia is so far off the mark here I'm not sure what to tell you. Fidel's Cubans hadn't any more moral authority than the apartheid SADF. Nothing Deon says seems an attempt to justify anything. He, I and others are addressing the issue from a military history standpoint in terms of operations, tactics, et al. Virgil61 (talk) 13:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

that's why i have so much trouble seeing the articles merged as requested. the exiting ones are so one-sided (and partially very poorly done) that i see no way this could be achieved. in the bedinning i had considered at least to alter some sections in these articles so they wouldn't be so contradictive but that would take ages (i have a family and only put a few hours of time into wikipedia per week) and it would incite more discussions of the same, most likely with he same people. balancing an article the way you see it is putting apartheid/unita pov on one side and us, cuban, mpla and other pov's on the other. adding some sources in support of the apartheid side doesn't change much. this is not what wikipedia regards a balanced article and neither do i. obviously there is not a large enough community interested in this topic so a solution is not easy. but i'm thinking about it.Sundar1 (talk) 11:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

To be honest Sundar your article uses less than concise prose throughout as well as an underlying biased hyperbole. Is English your first or second language? As for a 'balanced' article. In the issue of Angola the sources are far too clear that the SADF force had at least tactical and operational dominance over a far larger Cuban opponent. It also is clear that Cuba spawned a propaganda campaign afterwards to save face. You use or rather your source's extensive use of Gleijeses is an apt example. You are unaware of the fact he's a leftist fan of Fidel's Cuba and isn't a military historian. Yet he seems to be the basis of a lot of your article. Virgil61 (talk) 13:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice that Sundar1 was still flogging a dead horse. It is simply impossible to honestly not be able to distinguish between the definitions of an invasion and an incursion. Any time a South African crossed the border the Cuban/MPLA (and Sundar1 of course) refers to it as an invasion. And you are simply lying or uninformed when you , they are, the WP article is in fact called 2003 invasion of Iraq, how much clearer can that be??? And the WP article for D-Day/Normandy... drumroll... Invasion of Normandy. 0/2 Sundar1, both were invasion and both articles are named as such!!! Please check your facts before you make false claims. And once again, I must point out how absurd it is expect an SADF force of 2,500—5,000 men (depending on the operation) to invade and occupy a country. Please compare this to either the Iraq or Normandy case where in excess of 300,000 (yes, three hundred thousand) troops were involved. One of SA's few "allies", the US, wouldn't even support some of the simple operations, why would they —let alone the international community– allow a full-scale invasion??? How would it be funded??? How would so few troops actually accomplish this??? How would SA protect an additonal 1,600 km of coastline and an additonal 1,246,700 km² (11 times the size of Cuba) with hostile communist-backed neighbours all around??? — Deon Steyn (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

how right you are, deon steyn: the actions in normandy and irak are invasions indeed. i did not say otherwise. you're flogging a horse that's not even there. again, i must point out that i always stuck to the term used in the source. if the source used a different term, like incursion, i used that. my opinion is not even relevant and actually, neither is yours. nevertheless, i don't see what the size of the invading force has to do with the definition. if there is no opponent a small army can occupy large territories which is what happened in angola. in fact, most of the "battles" during the whole war only involved hundreds, or at the most a few thousand. had it been otherwise, south africa would have been hard pressed to cough up more troops; after all, they were busy in a number of other "cordon sanitaire" countries. you should read more carefully before responding because i did not write the US operations in Iraq aren't referred to as invasions. and even if i had it would not be correct to call it lying. i thought i was the one who lacked good faith. Sundar1 (talk) 14:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Revision

This article has turned into an absolute Fidel Castro love fest with major inaccuracies and a hack job on history. A disgrace and embarrassment to Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy. I'll find time to make major changes later this week. Virgil61 (talk) 01:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've undone the recent drastic changes. Any source or statement supporting a view opposite that of Piero Gleijeses, a Castro enthusiast, had been eliminated. Indeed Gleijeses seems to be the major source. Other 'sourced' works being hijacked from his and other writing then inserted as independent sources. This is a violation of Wikipedia:Citing sources:

It is improper to copy a citation from an intermediate source without making clear that you saw only that intermediate source. For example, you might find some information on a web page which says it comes from a certain book. Unless you look at the book yourself to check that the information is there, your reference is really the web page, which is what you must cite. The credibility of your article rests on the credibility of the web page, as well as the book, and your article must make that clear.

A drastic reduction in 'sources' with only the original book or webpage used is called for to make the article correctly sourced.

The revision, even more so than the article it was revising, is replete with weasel words and peacock terms. This style of writing is below standard for Wikipedia and formally counseled against in WP:AWW and WP:APT.

No attempt at discussion nor moderation was done, only slanted, inaccurate and partisan input was included in the reversion. I'm prepared to withstand a revert and start the Wikipedia intervention process if there is change with no discussion. Virgil61 (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

this procedure by virgil is unacceptable since i changed very little of the original article. instead, i changed a few things around and added a lot more info. therefore there i see no reason to discuss anything before it is disputed. everything is sourced, perhaps not 100% correctly, but to an extent that it's almost silly, but if requested, it can be done 100%, no problem. whatever info is disputed, e. g. slanted, inaccurate or partisan statements, must be countered by other sources. simply pointing at them won`t do and reasons must be given for removals. if anyone doesn't like gleijeses, he or she must state and source where he is wrong. i also stongly object to the changing of my spelling - this is not an article about the u.s.a. if i did "eliminate" other views "opposing gleijeses'", it was intentional in very few cases, if at all, e. g. the part about cubans being in cabinda again. yet, this also is no justification to put the old article completely back into place. Sundar1 (talk) 12:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that you, Sundar1, are using the article as a soapbox, your edits are not neutral and you repeat the propaganda (per definition not neutral) of one side in the conflict. The language edits are also correct, apart from the "z" versus "s" The rules is that articles with strong subject matter American should use American spelling ("z"), but articles not so related and started with British spelling should remain as such ("s"). — Deon Steyn (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the reasoning again Sundar, I don't think you are on very solid ground. As I wrote above the revision contained far too many weasel words, peacock terms and used grandiose terminology written in triumphant praise of the Cubans. Not very encyclopedic to say the least and, I think, far below the standard demanded by Wikipedia.

You seem to have read one book on the subject and used it as the sole basis for the article. The 'sources' you list aren't independent they've been lifted from Gleijeses' and perhaps one other book. He doesn't just favor one side, he's a flag-wavingly partisan pro-Fidel writer. Nothing wrong in with that in principle, but used as the main source for an encyclopedic article not acceptable.

The criticism of sourcing is not 'silly', it's a violation of Wikipedia sourcing policy and goes to the integrity of the article. You must actually have gone to the source and seen them yourself, if you didn't then you must use the book which quotes that source as the source document.

In other Cuba articles I've included the opposing POV when possible--though I disagree completely--because the disagreements and POVs themselves deserve to be documented in an encyclopedia article. They are themselves instructive.

We're writing an encyclopedia not a partisan document. You knew there were drastically opposing points of view and didn't think it appropriate to start a discussion before a major revision documenting one side. In the past I've certainly been approachable to change and integration of the two POVs but opposed to partisan recounting of Cuban propaganda. Virgil61 (talk) 22:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

at this moment i am not disputing that your criticisms might be correct but that you must point to which statements you critisize and give reasons why you consider them pov, not neutral, weasel words, peacock words, grandiose terminology, triumphant praise, partisan etc. i have not put any of my own terminology into the article and stuck quite meticuously to the terminolgy in the sources. i accept the criticism concerning the sourcing, i intend to correct it and i certainy can expect to be given some time to do so. i did not say that criticism of sourcing is silly (if you read more carefully); nevertheless i indeed considier the criticism silly compared to the total revert without any reason. this wasn't even on if there initially were no sources at all. if such "violation" (nice club, isn't it?) justified erasing or reverting articles to such an extent, at least half the wikipedia articles would have to go. putting the whole article in one box with all these general statements and calling it propaganda is not an acceptable reason for a total revert. an article based on one source, which this one certainly is not, does not automatically make it unfit for wikipedia. it has long been clear that you have trouble with one of my major sources but then you should point out where it is wrong and source it. it certainly won't do to slander it because you don't like it.

it's even less acceptable to revert an article with the reason: "idiocy undone"! before you point out all these wikipedia rules you should make sure you stick to them yourself, especially in an agrument. basically the article is a timeline with few detectable evaluations, if at all. again, i did not do a major revision of the older article but mainly added more info. actually i threw a number of things out that were marked to go into other articles. i also left out descriptions of battles. so we are not talkiing about "revision" but the adding of info that i must assume you don't like.

it is not possible to change history: if i clobber you on the head and someone writes an article about it, even if they found out that i was mistreated as a child and grew up in a home, i will always be the guy who clobbered you on the head and it will always look bad, no matter how you put it.

as to the spelling: only minor parts of the article deal with the us - after all it is basically about cuba in angola and has strong cuban and angolan subject matter. and to my knowledge south africa doesn't use us-spelling either. and last but not least, the article was certainly not started with us-spelling.

as to cuban propaganda: as far as i can see, all participants in this debate so far grew up in the "west". you will need to explain where any one of us was ever exposed to cuban propaganda. it was certainly not in the "fee" society of apartheid south africa or any other of the free western societies with their totally unbiased mass media. at least i do not recall ever having been exposed to cuban propaganda or to any other "eastern" propaganda for that matter. i also never encountered such propaganda as a visitor in eastern europe at the time or in cuba. what kind of propaganda do you think we are constantly exposed to? it certainly isn't cuban. but of course it's easy to call anything propaganda that doesn't fit in one's picture - it's a very old game, by the way.Sundar1 (talk) 13:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

starting the intervention process is fine with me. i will return the former article and as far as justified include the latest changes. not included are editions that are unsourced or have no obvious reason. i started re-doing the sourcing as far as indirect sources are concerned- most likely not to your satisfaction and possibly not correct either. i would very much like to keep the link to the original source, which i find very important. i will find out if and how this is possible. as to british and a few south african publications, i was able to confirm a number of them through the local university and state libraries. i will need more time and seek out as much as possible. leaving it they way it is now will not do any damage.Sundar1 (talk) 17:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think what you seem to have done so far, 'quoting X, quoting Y' fulfills if not the letter of the Wikipedia guidance on quotes certainly the spirit. I think it's a fine approach. Virgil61 (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The terribly fatal flaw isn't the secondary sources being confirmed then quoted as primary ones, it's that 90% of the article seems based via one source, Gleijies' book. He then 'leads' you to the secondary sources with his own very biased POV. It's academic and scholarly dishonesty to use this one source and it's research as the primary foundation for this article. Virgil61 (talk) 13:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

---

This article is much more balanced and documented from reliable sources than the articles it is being

compared with, for example the article on the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which relies on SADF estimates of Cuban casualties, obviously unreliable. That article also violates Wikipedia standards in that the citations from opposite points of view are not equally detailed, quantitative, and substantial. Whereas this article chooses reliable and relatively neutral citations and sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.226.60.29 (talk) 03:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It's rather bizarre how you completely disregard the partisan tone of the article or the use of only one primary source. I notice that your IP resolves to Kingston, Canada. While I try to attribute good faith I wonder if you're up to something. Virgil61 (talk) 12:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

arnaldo ochoa

"In 1989 the former Expeditionary Force commander in Angola Arnaldo Ochoa was arrested by the Cuban government accused of drug trafficking and corruption. He was executed by firing squad on July, 12 1989." i'm opposed to the death penalty and it certainly is sad what happened to ochoa. nevertheless, i removed this recent addition for 2 reasons: it has no relevance to the article except that ochoa was in angola (so were 450,000 other cubans) and it is not sourced. there are a number of countries that give the same punishment for this crime. although i can guess the reason, perhaps it can be explained why this was added.Sundar1 (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It has relevance because 1) Ochoa was commander in Angola for much of this period. To white-wash his sentence of death is pretty suspect. To think his death sentence isn't suspect is white-washing as well. And 2) a thirty second google could source it <http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS251US251&q=ochoa+angola+trial+death&btnG=Search>. Again this article needs drastic revision in terms of acceptable encyclopedic English language usage. Whenever I can find time...Virgil61 (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit reversion

If you're going to do a mass revert or undo of my fixes than explain it on the discussion page. The English you use, such as 'dispatch' rather than 'deployment' is stilted and rather odd; it reads like a strict translation from another language (which I suspect it is) or as if written by someone who uses English as a second language.

The 3 'results' (The Cuban involvement in Angola had a number of further reaching repercussions) I deleted were editorializing and opinion not encyclopedic analysis. I'll stand by my reversions. Can we expect more visitors from Ontario? Virgil61 (talk) 11:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Word usage such as 'found themselves confronted', 'suddenly and unexpectedly', 'granted without much ado', 'they all had enjoyed', etc., is embarrassingly poor English usage for an encyclopedia in the context in which they are written.

As another example the following phrase; The transitional government this agreement provided for, equally composed of the three liberation movements and Portugal is striking in its poorly written English. Again, it doesn't look scholarly but rather like a translation from one language to another by a college sophomore not terribly fluent in one of them. Virgil61 (talk) 11:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

before i reply i must point out that my three previous edits and re-edits did not appear in the article because at one stage by mistake i used the “undo” function. thus i reverted most of the changes into a state i had not intended. sorry for that. here are the reasons i gave for my reverts:

• (Undid revision 210698231 by Virgil61 (talk) no reasons for deletions given)
• (→Cuban Military Mission: dispatch and deployment not the same, only most urgently needed specialists used intl. flights)
• (addition not supported by given sources)
• (→The Carnation Revolution and Independence negotiations: partially redone changes because of loss of some info, cabinda "enclave" in congo but exclave of angola
• nothing wrong with "transpired", word also used in source

if i did a "mass revert", then it was the revert of an unexplained mass revert. i certainly did not add or revert more and i did not revert everything. as to virgil's unhappiness about my english, you are invited to improve it without changing the sense. virgil, do you have a problem with "second-language-users" and "visitors", especially from ontario? what is one to make from all these haughty remarks?

I don't have a problem with 'visitors' from Ontario. It is a wonderful place, I especially enjoyed my stay in Toronto. I did find it suspicious though that two editors with only IP addresses to ID them came from Kingston-Queens University within a day or two then immediately engaged the articles on CC, attempted to sharpshoot my own use of English and that you yourself are from the same area. It's not prohibited by any means of course, but then again neither is pointing it out. Virgil61 (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

However sockpuppets and meatpuppets are a different issue.

WP:MEAT Do not recruit meatpuppets. It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate.

WP:SOCKS Virgil61 (talk) 04:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

the word "dispatch" refers to the time the units left the country, which is what is meant in this article. deployment refers to the actual time of arrival in a country, which, in this case, is not what is meant. the term is taken from an english source and not translated.

Dispatch? Deployment sounds far better but fine. Dispatch is not used as often and deployment's meaning isn't as narrow as your definition (for ex. see: http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/deploy?view=uk)Virgil61 (talk) 15:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"'found themselves confronted', 'suddenly and unexpectedly', 'granted without much ado', 'they all had enjoyed', etc., is embarrassingly poor english". virgil, i'm really sorry for your embarrassments and i can assure you i will do my best to avoid it. nevertheless, if i fail, please improve the language, even if it was from "a college sophomore not terribly fluent in one of them", but again, without changing the sense or dropping content. it is absolutely clear what is meant and it is also correct. the same applies to "the transitional government this agreement provided for, equally composed of the three liberation movements and portugal..." which you find "striking in its poorly written english". language improvements are welcome but not deletions.

when is an analysis "encyclopedic"? opinions are admissible and well sourced. other ones with sources can be added. perhaps the sources could be directly mentioned in the article.

Surely you can figure the answer out. Virgil61 (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

virgil, i'd very much appreciate if you kept any remarks referring to language, language knowledge, origins, and what you deem scholarly in that respect, to yourself. if imperfect english is something you cannot handle or cannot understand because it requires some kind of flexibility, wikipedia might not be the right place for you.Sundar1 (talk) 13:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

More than anything I think I hurt your feelings for being blunt rather than appropriately diplomatic. Virgil61 (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The imperfect English was the slanted and biased nature of the remarks as much as their awkwardness--and there are more changes needed. I will of course explain them more fully, that's a valid criticism. I'd wrongly assumed the reason for the changes were obvious.

Part of the problem is that having one book on the subject and using it almost exclusively for the article then using it's sourcing simply reorganized to look as if taken from the original is fraught with issues. Nonetheless I'll attempt further changes with less blunt language. Virgil61 (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

virgil61, you bring in feelings again and i can assure you, they are not at issue, although, perhaps, they should to be taken into account when critisizing something. i must point out, as i did before, that you keep referring to wiki-rules and good faith, not much regarding them yourself. etiquette and manners also have their place in wikipedia.

it is only now and by coincidence that i went through all the discussions since january and discovered the comments of may 1 you are probably referring to. i neither invited these contributions, although i really appreciate them and i'm delighted they come from canucks (for which i only have your word), nor do i have other accounts. obviously you are not happy with what these contributions contain. i don't know where you get the idea that i come from the area of kinsgton, unless you consider the province of ontario "the same area", but i doesn't matter anyway. what matters are your insults to which now you add suspicions. in order to attack this article you certainly don't shy back from anything. but very few of your "arguments", if any at all, directly deal with the contents, which would be much more helpful and which i would be glad to talk about.

i don't see why the issue of sources, which you bring up again, is part of the problem. you need to keep apples and pears apart. we were just taking reverts and manners. nevertheless, since you're so unhappy with one of my sources, in your eyes, what percentage of one source is permissable in an article before you consider it being used "almost exclusively"? just for interest, i'll be content with a rough estimate.

why don't you stick to the article and change it, of course giving acceptable reasons, and if you like, with blunt language. just keep the personal things out. Sundar1 (talk) 14:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Aftermath redux

In the Aftermath portion the three reprucussions are editorializing using Gliejes sources as 'sources' and assuming facts in dispute; 'Retreat without gain', 'Cubans...defeated white troops', etc. Incendiary, biased and needless as presented. Perhaps rewording it? Virgil61 (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Took out a few of the more partisan statements leaving more factual data. Virgil61 (talk) 06:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and have noticed that, from the paragraph beginning with "The situation in Angola was anything but settled...", and all subsequent paragraphs, all are missing citations. These should be deleted. Their content is emotional, crude, unverifiable, and lacking any sources whatsoever. They read like an ideologue pundit's personal rant, full of sour grapes and a not-too-subtle agenda. Obviously, one would hope that this page were neither anti-Cuban, nor pro-Fidelist propaganda. These last paragraphs are an example of the former.

The last sentence is illustrative: "Cuba in contrast has negligible trade with the region and provides a poor island playground for middle-class South African tourists traveling on a budget."

As Virgil161 remarked about other lines in this section, the above statement is ALSO incendiary, biased and needless as presented. For the sake of fairness, I'd like to point out to readers/editors that as of 2007, Cuba's Human Development Index (HDI), adopted as an indicator of citizens' well-being and social development by the United Nations and codeveloped by economists from Yale University and the London School of Economics, is ranked 51, while South Africa's ranking is 121. Further, Cuba's main generator of revenue is the mining and exportation of nickel (not tourism), while South Africa's economy is considerably dependent on tourism and has some of the highest crime rates and income inequality rates in the world. So, to state that Cuba is a "poor island playground for middle-class South African tourists traveling on a budget" is absurd, unfounded, and irrelevant. This "Cuban Intervention in Angola" page is not meant for comparing the strenghts and shortcomings of Cuba's and South Africa's societies/economic systems, or their tourism industries.

Introduction

13dble's introduction--which has been reverted by Sundar1 twice--is far superior in its clarity of English and its non-POV stance. Virgil61 (talk) 04:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Split

Material from this article was split to New York Accords on 27 March 2008, here. If contributors here agree that the material is more properly located there, please condense the information here into a summary as described in Wikipedia:Summary style. Thanks. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

This whole article is a POV fork from a number of established articles. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

New introduction

I've made some minor changes to Sundar1's extremly partisan introduction. "Cubans stopped a SA counter offensive at Cuito..." this is a highly disputed claim and Sundar1 probably knows this, I see no reason in discussing this any further since this has already been done at the Cuito Cuanavale talk page. "disputed by the apartheid South Africans...", I can assure you Sundar1 that it is not only south africans or apartheid supporters who dispute Cuba's dubious claim of some grand victory at Cuito Cuanavale. Anyway I hope that if it is something you don't agree with Sundar1, discuss it here first instead of just reverting mine or anybody elses edits for that reson. 13dble (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I like the new intro. I believe another similar one was changed, again. At this point I think it's obvious to most editors that Sundar1 doesn't understand what a neutral POV is or perhaps he doesn't care. Virgil61 (talk) 04:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

first you say there is no more need for discussion, then you ask me to discuss before i change anything. well, the same applies to you. indeed, i do have a fairly good overview of the opinions conserning cuba and angola. i did not write about any "grand victory" but only that the sa-counter-offensive was stopped, i suppose some cannot even bear that. but indeed it was a victory on the politcal arena.

everything i wrote is supported by at least one non-south african and non-cuban source (which i know you still don't like). if you have other sources than south african ones that dispute this, go ahead and list them. if you really want to see pov articles, check out the ones written about all the south african battles, the ones about the civil war, unita etc. they all more or less have the same contributors and the same south african sources, using the same terminology. the discriptions of all these battles make one shake his head. i suggest you read this: gary bains: breaking rank: secrets, silences and stories of south african border war (http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/wvw/wvw4/baines%20paper.pdf) which explains a lot. anything that puts cubans in a "better" light is unacceptable and pov, it's almost laughable. i will have no part of it as long as i do not see decent sources. besides, in case this escaped your attention, the majority of south africans support my version but i suppose when you talk "south african" you have a different clientèle in mind. Sundar1 (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Sundar1, please don't take my words out of context. I said that there was no need for a discussion regarding wether or not the Cubans stopped the SADF counter offensive at Cuito, not that there was nothing to be discussed about this article in general. Your intro did not just say that the SA counter offensive was stopped, but it stated that the cubans were specificly responsible for this. Since this is a disputed claim it is not NPOV but POV, partisan etc. and without any further explaination it is thereby not advicible to include such a statement in an articles introduction. And for you to try to explain this by saying that it is/was "disputed by the apartheid south africans" is equally partisan since it more or less sounds like some attempt to deligitimize any person who disputes the cuban side of the battle.

You requested a non-south african source that disputes the cuban version of the battle. | Here you go.

You claim that the article about the civil war is POV (this civil war I presume), yet that article passed the GAC including the one about NPOV. I don't know why you think you are more qualified to judge that article's supposed POV-stance than the moderator who did.

"the majority of south africans support my version", your version? So you admit that this article is a POV-Fork. And since you seem to have intimate knowledge on the majority of south africans personal oppinion about this may I ask, have you ever even been to South Africa?

And also is it to much to ask from you, Sundar1, to use capital letters at the beginning of each sentance? Thanks 13dble (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

yes, it is too much to ask me how i write.

i deliberately avoided the issue of victories and defeats in the introduction. simply stating that the cubans stopped the counter offensive is not pov. it's what happened, regardless of all the bad commies the south africans killed and how many battles they won. then they retreated and the cubans stayed - so the advance was stopped and it would have turned out quite differently hadn't the cubans intervened.

i know, "communist" sounds so nice and bad, but i deliberately did not use that term for several reasons. the mpla, if ever, was not avowdly communist, which is one of the reasons the ussr was often suspicious of neto and often reluctant to support them (see also nitista-plot). secondly i found no source i which they themselves claimed to be communist. in fact, as far as i know, few governments or movements, if at all, call themselves communist. thirdly, "communist" is a cold-war-term for many leftist or socialist governments and would also go against the grain of communist ideology. i don't think there is any loss of info when using the term "leftist" in this case.

i will check your source and get back to you.

yes, i do think i am qualified to make such judgements. you seem to think moderators are gods.

yes, i have been to south africa and namibia. but that has nothing to do with my statement, that most south africans support my version- meaning cuba's role in the turn of events- and south africa's genaral negative role. you can easily find out on the web and i do not see how this should amount to admitting anything. you sound like an inquisitor in medieval spain. will you bring out the thumb-screws next?Sundar1 (talk) 11:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

i cannot believe you seriously sent me this source, which, by the way, i had already come across. i suppose you have a problem reading the smaller print at the bottom of the pages: most of the sources, if not all, are south african and the same that one always stumbles upon in this discussion. i'm sorry, this source is laughable, and i'm a little disappointed. you have nothing better? nevertheless, even in this very poorly researched source (apart from the juicy military details) the outcome of the battle does not sound very different from what i wrote. perhaps you can point out if i missed something.Sundar1 (talk) 11:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can be critical on the reliability of sources when you've been taken to task for your own poor sourcing; reliance on ONE source and quoting a biased Glejieses' sources without indicating they were from his book as if they were 'independent' research. Not exactly any standard anyone should follow. Perhaps you've had an epiphany of some sort that we're not aware of? If you're going to throw stones admit your own mistakes which go to the heart of this articles reliability and POV. Virgil61 (talk) 19:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

virgil61, as most of the time, your problem is that you cannot distinguish apples from pears. indeed, my way of sourcing was not correct, which, if you had read previous statements correctly, i admitted and corrected to a great extent. nevertheless, every statement is sourced, my sources are 90% from third parties and 100% from third parties in issues disputed here. calling my sourcing poor and constantly repeating that i rely on one source is outright slander. the sources you use are so few i almost know them by heart and most of them are south african. and once again you are attacking a matter of procedure and meaning to beat content. by the way, gleijeses is an excellent source. i have yet to come across any negative citicisms apart by the likes of you on wikipedia. that you don't like him is not my problem. by the way, it is not written in stone that not equally favouring one party automatically qualifies as pov. and certainly it is not pov when one party ends up in a more favourable light than the other. your last comment is of no use to anyone. do poor dead virgil a favour and add something constructive?Sundar1 (talk) 11:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

First try to understand what the word 'slander' means. It includes false and malicious charges; neither are here. [Truth, by the way, is a defense against the charge of slander.] Legal challenges and/or threats by the way are not allowed on Wikipedia. WP:NLT

You indeed used Gleijeses as your primary source, merely co-opting and repackaging them to look like you'd used them as your own. Even then you don't seem to understand that simply using his context and selective reading of those sources makes a POV statement. You have added others sources recently to be sure but his book is the bedrock of your article. Not exactly scholarly stuff and something you'd be hard pressed to defend in the academic world. Any glance at his book's footnotes and your 'sourcing' proves it.

No one wants to throw Gleijeses' work out but there is enough evidence both via memoirs and military writings to weigh against his POV. Worse yet is your constant arguing and reverting of anyone's work who disagrees with you when your own English skills are lacking--as your grammar here shows.

You've been warned time and again by editors that one author as a source isn't proper for Wikipedia. You've been told time and again your cheer-leading of Cuba isn't WP:NPOV by the vast majority of editors. You've gone so far as to recruit newbies to help you out when regular Wikipedia editors who disagree outnumber you WP:MEAT. You didn't source much outside of Gleijeses book whose own sources you co-opted and merely wrote as primary sources until you were told it was incorrect. It's more than just 'procedure', it goes to the heart of what Wikipedia stands for.

Now you're doing the criticizing of others; it's called hypocrisy. That you don't see Gleijeses as extremely biased or the fact that he is a political scientist and not a historian commenting on military history--a completely different area--is part and parcel of your problem. Disagreement of his writing and POV by the 'likes of me' is called critical thinking. Try it sometime. Virgil61 (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

there is a saying in german that you will surely understand: if you want to give someone a bad name you sling enough dirt at him, some of it will surley stick. time is too precious, at least for me, and i will not repeat myself over and over again. the answers have all been given except to the one new accusation: threat or legal challenge, to which you find me speachless. is there anything else you can come up with or are you done? and where do you get the idea that someone criticized is not allowed to criticize? you are turning things upside-down and you certainly have an interesting conception of hypocrisy. i will not continue this waste of time. stick to the article and prove your points -all of them. Sundar1 (talk) 11:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

You don't get to feign the innocent card and get away with it. I'll take my definition of hypocrisy over yours seeing you seem to be involved in an death match with the English language. You're laudatory over anything remotely pro-Cuban and dismissive of the tactical and operational study by the Marine Corps as a source for example.

You've had problems over NPOV with several editors and have reverted ad nauseum the edits of others including this last intro. You constantly struggle against anyone trying to present a balanced non-Castro cheerleading viewpoint so much so that your own attitude has been called into question by other editors several times now.

If you can't see you are a problem then it's in the hands of a good therapist and perhaps an admin. That most of what I wrote flew right by you is not surprising. Virgil61 (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

You are indeed right, Sundar1, on that the MPLA was not avowedly communist but Marxist-Leninist. My reasons for referring to them as Communist was mainly the fact that Marxism-Leninism is "a communist ideological stream" and that the the Angolan Communist Party was merged into the MPLA during the mid fifties, thus implying that there were no large ideological difference between them. Also because UNITA was also leftist since they were/are Social Democrats. However, for the sake of NPOV, if you believe that the MPLA are more accurately referred to as simply leftist, this does not create any great loss of info.

And as for Cuito Cuavanale, You have stated that it is undisputed fact that the Cubans stopped the SADF/UNITA counter attack, which considering that your POV equals the Cuban POV (as you said previously in this discussion) is not that surprising. However this does not make it so, for example, one could argue that it was never in South Africa's interest to storm and hold Cuito Cuavanale since the defence of the town with the river directly behind them would be militarly unsound and unnecessary as long as SADF artillery denied FAPLA the use of the airfield. Also considering the ongoing peace talks, South Africa had little to gain by further advancing into Angola. "they retreated and the Cubans stayed" In accordance with the New York accords the Cubans also left Angola, and in terms of how the Civil War is concerned, they left without having defeated UNITA. Naturally it took longer time for the Cubans to leave Angola then the SADF since, unlike the Cubans, the South Africans did not have any major bases within Angola to evacuate and the Cubans had also considerably more troops and personnel in Angola than the SADF. "would have turned out quite differently hadn't the Cubans intervened", I mean come on now, don't turn this into a "what would have happened" debate. It serves no purpose since we are talking about a hypothetical scenario no one can know for sure what would have happened.

I never asked whether or not you thought that you are qualified to judge an article's POV-stance, but merely since your verdict on the Angolan Civil War article seems to contradict the one of the moderator, what is the basis for you to claim that the article in question is a biased POV?

Now, since you have reverted my introduction, I want to know why you think that your introduction holds a higher NPOV-standard than mine, since that would be a requirement for it to remain.

And also, I must apologize to you Sundar1, if I somehow offended you by asking you to use capital letters in the beginning of sentences. In no way was this my intention. 13dble (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

when i wrote the cubans stayed i meant cc, not cuba. and the constant south african attacks speak an entire different language and it sounds familiar: they never wanted to take luanda, they never wanted to take cc, they never wanted to topple the mpla government or keep it out of office. i don't know who the moderator is you are writing about and what his or her qualifications are but the whole moderation process you referred to is a joke. you are fighting a battle against cuba in all the articles listed on the deletion page. the arguments you come up with are always the same and always based on apartheid south african interpretation of events and a number of dubios military sources that relish in the slaughters. none of them are neutral in the sence that they come from "uninvolved" sources. the introduction i wrote is based on such sources. thats why i consider it at least much less biased. i've been wondering about this source you sent all day which, strangely, you do not mention, and i'd really like to know if you are really serious about it.

apology accepted. Sundar1 (talk) 06:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

One thing I think you might have misunderstood is that those "constant south african attacks" (if we are speaking about the battle of Cuito Cuavanale) were not aimed at the town itself but merely confronting FAPLA/Cuban units in the surrounding area. As for the "they never wanted" comments you made, well sure during the course of the war the South African government probably wanted to accomplish those goals but one must remember that this was 1987-89 and the world had changed allot from what it was in 1975-76. Most relevant was the impending end of the Cold War after which South Africa would have little use of UNITA in power of Angola because with the cold war over and the departure of Cuban, Soviet, North Korean etc. personnel from Angola in accordance with UN resolution 435 South Africa would also have to withdraw its forces from Namibia.

"you are fighting a battle against Cuba in all the articles listed on the deletion page", What’s this supposed to mean? During my time here on Wikipedia I have only made ONE contribution to ONE of the articles listed on the deletions page entry. How does this transfer into "fighting a battle against cuba"? This is ridiculous.

As for the source I issued you with, It is also an "uninvolved" source since the USMC was in no way involved with either the Angolan Civil War or the Namibian Border War. It also has no political goals to achieve but only to provide a tactical analysis of the SADF strategy during op Hooper, Packer and Modular, which it provides a fairly detailed picture of. If you would go through the bibliography section you will see that there is both South African and other sources and under the Background Literature section almost all sources are non-South African. “the whole moderation process you referred to is a joke”, you mean this process? Once again you make these outrageous claims without any argument to back your opinion. In case you didn’t notice, my introduction was based on the same sources as yours, only I intentionally avoided all disputed claims and if you can’t point out anything that is either factually incorrect or disputed about my introduction I can’t see any reason for it not to be used. 13dble (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

13dble, sorry if i mistook you for some others. i will get back to this soon.Sundar1 (talk) 11:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

your arguments are remarkably similar (if not the same) to those of the 3 or 4 major apponents of this articlei and you have in common certain favourite words like “outrageous” and “ridiculous”. i cannot exclude coincidence but it is too much for me to believe in. for the sake of simplicity will refer to these opponents as “gang of 4” (g4) because they more or less show up together on many sites dealing with south african war and more or less come up with the same arguments. one of the g4 has been suspiciously absent from the discussions lately.

going through the discussion pages of angolan civil war and battle of cc i discovered that just about every argument i have used has already been brought forth. but the conclusions drawn from the discussions on this page as well as on the two other ones are not acceptable. for one thing there is little reason to accept the claim that the outcome of the battle itself and the results of the last campaign at cc and in southern angola are “highly” disputed for the very reason that the only ones disputing the outcome are the g4 mainly citing apartheid south african sources. thus, this issue is not as “highly” disputed as you and the g4 like to make believe. the discussions you point out almost always involve the g4 and therefore have been very limited to say the least. during all these discussions in the past the g4 succeeded in keeping aside the larger context: that south africa was a rogue state and a pariah among the nations, the apartheid regime suppressed ¾ of its population, even keeping the white population in the dark, that it fomented destabilzation and trouble in the whole south of continent. there is no reason why pretoria’s version of the events should get as much attention, weight and credence as that of south africa of today, namibia, angola, mozambique and others.

i don’t think i misunderstood anything. it doesn’t matter whether the attacks were on cc or on the surrounding fapla units. the sadf launched an outright counter offensive which was successful against fapla until the cubans intervened. after the cuban intervention the successes stopped. this has nothing to do with “world change”. and counting the number of kills and battles won also doesn’t change the result of the war. going by such numbers one could claim the nazis won against the soviet union.

the g4 and few supporters of apartheid south africa’s version also keep claiming that it was a victory for pretoria to get cuba out of angola and that it had supported namibia’s independence for years. again, the absolute contrary is the case: pretoria was unable to claim any victory except for the battles the g4 keep relishing. pretoria was left “without a single crumb of comfort”. the cubans had planned to leave angola in the year after independence but for various reasons which we all know got stuck there. the g4 deliberately deny, just as pretoria did, that the cubans were in angola because of the south africans, not the other way around. even as late as during the negotiations leading to the new york accords it was obvious that south africa had no intention of giving up namibia, yet the g4 have the audacity to refer to pretoria’s lip service for namibia’s independence.

indeed, the marines were not directly involved in angola but the us was. you must be kidding to think anything the usmc says is not biased. there is hardly a more right-wing institution in the world and they are not exactly a hotbed of intelligence either. (i can hear the outcry already!) nobody in his right mind would accept a political analysis from them which is not their job anyway. the history they line up is fraught with mistakes starting with: “..conducted a little known campaign … to prevent a communist regime .. from further destabilizing the region”. further it says: “south africa achieved its policy goals”. can more rubbish be heaped on one plate? yet, i did point out that the outcome of the battle according to this “analysis” is not very different from what i wrote and i asked you where i missed something.

you got quite a nerve pointing out the bibliography and background section when i questioned the sources for this usmc-“analysis”. it had taken me one glance to figure out where the data was taken from which you obviously refuse to do. here are the figures: of the approx. 135 quotes on 58 pages 90 are from one person alone (heitman), a south african; another 18-19 each come from steenkamp and bridgland, and 9 more from other south africans. there is a maximum of 12 quotes out of the 135 that are from non-south african sources, half of which are definitely us-american. that makes for quite an unbiased analysis, doesn’t it? and so much for your “uninvolved” source. the quoted sources read like a who’s who of the “border war”: de vries, steenkamp, bridgeland, heitman, geldenhuys, breytenbach, duvenhage. these persons and their likes are the basic sources of the g4 including you. quoting these sources is like quoting fishermen talking about their catch.

you write: ”once again you make outrageous claims ….” i was referring exactly to the moderation process that you pointed out to me when i criticized the angolan civil war article. main contributors to this process again were the g4. they basically have themselves in mind when they talk about “majority” and “consent” and also when they keep saying the outcome of cc is highly disputed. actually that article not so bad as far a bias is concerned but it contains claims typical for supporters of the apartheid version and cold warriors, e. g. that the russians flew cubans in on the eve of independence. an article starting with cabinda when explaining the background of the civil war or throwing in the shaba invasions for good measure (just examples) cannot be taken seriously. this article having gone through a gac is nothing to brag about and puts this process seriously in question.

you write: ”my introduction is based on the same sources ….”. i had changed my original one because it did not exactly get the gist and essence of the whole article. i’m quite aware of how your introduction is formulated and that the facts in themselves are correct. stating correct facts does not make a correct introduction because every word in the summary has much more weight than in the relevant paragraphs. your version puts weight on issues which are of much less importance but by mentioning them here they are blown up. more important in my eyes is that it also serves to relativize the actions of the cubans and the south africans. i am very sensitive to such attempts concerning historical events e. g. by comparing the atrocities of hitler to those of stalin. this is often deliberately done by mentioning them in one sentence, with the intent of either downplaying the nazi’s crimes or making stalin’s look worse. the seemingly simple and true formulation “withdrawal of cuba and south africa” does just that, implying that they were sort of two dogs fighting for the same bone and, what i find much less acceptable, that they were on the same moral footing. it has been clearly proven that cuba was in angola because of south africa and not the other way around and the withdrawal of cuba had different implications for africa than the retreat of south africa. another such attempt at relativizing events in history is the demand for the inclusion of the names of the sadf-fallen in the new memorial in south africa. these men certainly deserve a monument for being thrown into a war for a wrong cause. but the audacity to claim that they fought for “their country” just like the others although they were fighting for apartheid is incredible.

whatever each side claimed is not relevant, certainly not in the introduction. this also seems to have been the result of previous discussions on the other pages. if it is worth mentioning in the relevant paragraph it would have to say: the south africans also claimed victory and not: both sides claimed victory as if the question was still open. it never was. If saving the fapla from annihilation and stopping the south african counter offensive wasn’t a victory, it certainly was a cuban achievement. not to admit this is pure denial.

because of the special weight of words in the introduction perhaps it is necessary to figure out what is supposed to be meant by the term “instrumental”. the problem with it is that it does not quantify. it can mean “decisive”, “having a major influence” and yet one person can see more in it than someone else. to put it in a picture: cuba cannot be seen as the coffin of apartheid but it certainly contributed a number of nails and planks. the same respectively can be said about namibia’s independence. perhaps we can find a more suiting expression.

you find me honestly amazed at the arsenal of tags and accusations you and the g4 have been coming up with. there seems to be no end. one of the latest, the pov-fork, again is based on the claim of the g4 that the article is pov. in addition, it is malicious of you to twist my referring to “my version” the way you did: “your version? so you admit that this article is a pov-fork”, reminding me of roland freisler, the infamous judge at the so-called “people’s court” in nazi-germany. besides, I’d like to know where i said that “my pov equals cuban pov”? you also claim that “it was never in south africa’s interest to storm and hold cc”. nobody ever talked about south africa wanting to hold cc, they most likely would have handed it over to unita. we all know that military soundness was seldom at the core of military decisions. machoism, lust for revenge, teaching lessons and showing the black who is master were at least as often reason for action. cc was of little value to the sadf? on the contrary! pretoria had very much to gain by advancing and conquering more territory for unita. it is clear as daylight that they would have gained more leverage in the negotiations which is why the sadf put such remarkable effort to the task. and gaining more leverage is exactly what cuba did.

you also say the cubans “left without defeating unita”. well, that’s some failure considering that it was not the objective of the 2. intervention, if it ever was a major objective at all. in all the years since independence the cubans only got involved in actions against unita when fapla got into trouble.

you whine: “..come on now, don’t turn this into a ‘what would have happened’ debate”. it is undisputed that the fapla was close to total defeat and that the fall of cc was expected any time soon. in fact it was even prematurely announced. you want to make believe the sadf would not have gone for the kill having the chance? thus, it is quite safe to assume what would have happened without cuban intervention and that things would have turned out differently.Sundar1 (talk) 11:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

In a nut shell, one could wrap up the Cuban and South African versions of the battle as the following;

The Cuban Version: “When FAPLA was close to total defeat, they called to us for aid and we stopped SADF attack at Cuito Cuanavale and by doing so we forced them to the negotiating table”.

The South African Version: “We stopped the FAPLA offensive aimed at destroying the UNITA strongholds of Mavinga and Jamba and with our counterattack we forced FAPLA west of the Cuito River and we took up defensive positions at the Chambinga and Vimposto high grounds and by doing so we pressured the Soviets and the Cubans to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means”.

Now, the previous introduction clearly favors one side of these accounts over the other, my introduction on the other hand does not make any claims that could be seen as favoring one side over the other. “Both sides claimed victory” and “…both Cuban and South African, withdrew” might be compromises but they are necessary to summarize the events without favoring any side over the other. There is obviously allot of criticism from you on this, but very little of it is constructive criticism. Perhaps you should try to come up with some suggestions that maintains NPOV stance of the current Introduction but gives a better summery of these events.

If the Cubans were so dedicated to Namibia’s Independence and only in ‘intervened’ in Angola because of the South Africans how come they were not willing to negotiate for Namibia’s Independence in 1978, when UN resolution 435 was first presented? The answer is off course that the Cold War had not frozen out yet and the soviets were still happy to fund and support the Cubans and themselves in Angola. But nonetheless this surely implied that the Cubans had other intentions in Angola other than the just ones you keep pushing. No matter how ‘independently’ and without ‘consulting Moscow’ the Cubans supposedly acted in Angola, it is without any question that the Cubans could not carry out these overseas interventions without Soviet support and funding. Cuba had neither a strong enough economy nor any internal arms industry worth mentioning. So without a doubt the impending fall of the Soviet Union and their recent lack of financial support for wars such as the Angola and Namibia ones must have played a big part in Cuba’s newfound willingness to negotiate for an end to the war. But with the Soviets preparing to end their part in the war, this also meant that South Africa would lose its only claim to be fighting a respectable war in Angola, namely as an opposition to communist expansionism. And for the same reasons the U.S. would lose its only respectable motive to support South Africa and UNITA in the war. But more than this South Africa had at this time also lost its most important arms-trading partner, Israel, which had now joined the UN arms embargo against South Africa.

“…that they were on the same moral footing. it has been clearly proven that cuba was in angola because of south africa” Now, what are the main original sources for this? Some propagandistic speeches delivered by a certain Cuban dictator and off course, Piero Gleijeses’ ‘undisclosed Cuban archives’. Piero Gleijeses, who expressed his opinions about Cuban foreign policy as the following: “I think that Cuba’s foreign policy is unique and very beautiful”, was awarded and gladly accepted the ‘Medal of Friendship’ by the Cuban Council of State – the same regime that imprisons journalists for 25 years to life for writing something they deem “infringes Cuba’s sovereignty”, in other words writing something they don’t like. Cuba ranks on the 165 place in the Reporters without Borders freedom of press index and fundamental human rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are only distant dreams to its people. Considering these factors and the amount of censorship that goes on in Cuba (and keeping in mind Gleijeses personal opinions about Cuba), these ‘undisclosed archives’ can only be accepted with some amount of skepticism. So no, Sundar1, Cuba’s intentions in Angola are anything but “clearly proven”.

But whether or not one chooses to believe the official Cuban reasons for intervening in Angola they nonetheless used the South African involvement as their Casus Belli.

“…the sadf launched an outright counter offensive which was successful against fapla until the cubans intervened” Try to understand the difference between a counter offensive and an offensive. In this case, as in most cases, the counter offensive meant to recapture ground lost in the previous FAPLA offensive and assume new defensive positions, because after all, prior to the FAPLA offensive, the SADF was (at that time) on the defensive and not the offensive.

In a quite recent BBC interview, FW de Klerk, when asked about the possibilities of Apartheid being scraped in the 1970’ies or the 1980’ies, said that even though this was a highly hypothetical scenario he didn’t think that any National Party leader would do so then largely due to the Soviet communist expansionism and he highlighted the Cuban military presence in Angola. This is to say that with the Soviets and Cubans in Angola, the end of Apartheid was out of the question. So I guess one could put it; “The departure of Cuban and Soviet forces from Angola paved the way for democratic change in South Africa”.

The SAGs (South African Government) policy towards Namibia changed a lot during the course of the war and from 1978 and onwards it can be righteously argued for that South Africa only occupied Namibia in an attempt to win enough time to create an environment in which SWAPO would not win an election.

“…main contributors to this process again were the g4”, Have you ever thought of actually thinking before you write? because this statement really doesn’t add up.

“…actually that article not so bad as far a bias is concerned” Then what are we arguing about? If you fail to remember, you said that if one wanted to see POV-articles one should amongst others check the one about the civil war out, remember? Now since you have changed your opinion, there is nothing more to discuss on that front.

“…the marines were not directly involved in angola but the us was” The USMC was not directly, nor indirectly involved in the Angola/Namibia wars, as far as US involvement is concerned we are talking about CIA involvement. Your opinions about the Marine Corps could not be less relevant to this discussion. I don’t suppose there’s any real need to point out the stupidity of your remarks but then again, there is a real chance that you are stupid enough to actually believe what it is your saying. Most “right-wing” institution in the world? The USMC is a branch of the US Department of Defense and is not a political party or institution. It does not interfere with its members political beliefs. For you to question the ‘intelligence’ level of the Marine Corps is an equally baseless claim.

“…conducted a little known campaign” Well, the Angola war, generally speaking, isn’t the most well known conflict compared to other Cold War era wars such as the Afghanistan and Vietnam ones.

“…to prevent a communist regime” Did the MPLA declare themselves the government of Angola through democratic elections of through military force with the aid of the Cubans and the Soviets? The answer is off course the later so ‘regime’ really isn’t so farfetched is it?

“…from further destabilizing the region” Since FAPLA had planned with their offensive to advance into UNITA territory this would off coarse lead to fighting and destabilizing of the region and since it was FAPLA who was on the offensive, blaming the “destabilizing” part on them only seems logical.

“South Africa achieved its policy goals” Well, whether you like it or not, the SADF did achieve the goals of op Hooper, Modular and Packer (none of these operations by the way called for the capture of Cuito Cuanavale). If one were to follow your logic, wouldn’t the Neues Deutschland article also be biased, since their caption reads ‘Sozialistische Tageszeitung‘ and after all, the DDR were involved in the war on the same side as the Cubans. The Monthly Review is none the less also a Marxist newspaper so their bias regarding anything that deals with Cuba/Soviet Union vs. “evil capitalist imperialists” is quite obvious. But I guess that your definition of who is biased is anyone who doesn’t support your version of the story.

“…fapla was close to total defeat and that the fall of cc was expected any time soon”, again what are the main original ‘sources’ for this, Cuban propaganda and Gleijses. Now simply looking at the number of troops the Cubans sent to Cuito Cuanavale, 1500, and they reinforced more than 10000 FAPLA troops, common sense ensures that the notion that Cuba ‘saved’ Cuito Cuanavale can only be met with reasonable doubt. Now even considering a ‘worst case scenario’ for the East Bloc where the SADF would storm and take Cuito Cuanavale and all the troops they committed to its defense would either be KIA or captured the bulk of the FAPLA and Cuban forces would still be intact since they were deployed to other parts of the country so FAPLA was never close to total defeat. You make it sound like if Cuito Cuanavale would fall into SADF/UNITA hands the road to Luanda would be open, this was never the case.

I was merely following a one plus one equals two type of logic when I wrote that “your POV equals the Cuban POV”, firstly you have only argued for, and obly presented a version that is identical to the Cuban one. Secondly you saying that "my version- meaning cuba's" really explains the rest.

"you also claim that “it was never in south africa’s interest to storm and hold cc”" I never 'claimed' that, I only said that "one could argue that". You keep pushing that South Africa would have had much to gain by capturing Cuito Cuanavale and handing it over to UNITA. But after they pulled out of Namibia what could South Africa possibly have to gain by whether or not UNITA had an additional town or so? And in 1987 the SAG surely knew that it was only a time question when they were going to pull out of Namibia. Anyhow, I’m going on vacation now and I won’t be active on Wikipedia until late July possibly early August, so don’t expect any answers from me any time soon. 13dble (talk) 13dble (talk) 23:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

continuing discussion

the cuban version: “when fapla was close to total defeat, they called to us for aid and we stopped sadf attack at cc and by doing so we forced them to the negotiating table”. The south african version: “we stopped the fapla offensive aimed at destroying the unita strongholds of mavinga and jamba and with our counterattack we forced fapla west of the cuito river and we took up defensive positions at the chambinga and vimposto high grounds and by doing so we pressured the soviets and the cubans to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means”.

althouth the sa willingness to compromise interestingly increased after cc, there is no claim in this article that cubans forced sa to the table. it is also interesting to note, that sa only joined the table after lots of coaxing by crocker and after the counter-offensive ground to a halt at cc. i know of no sa claim that their actions at cc forced cuba and the soviets to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means. that would be putting it on too thick, even for pretoria. apart from that, why should the situation at cc, after the sa counteroffensive was stopped (or in the sa version, the sa simply stopped their advance) have forced cuba to the table. sa was in no position to force anything, any other claim is laughable. the cubans had already been at the table, they had always been ready to leave angola under the right conditions, while sa left the negotiations. cuba had all its wishes fulfilled: mpla in power, no power sharing with unita, sa out of angola, namibian independence, sa out of Namibia, no intl. condemnation. it’s only compromise was to reduce the timespan for withdrawal from 4 years to 30 months. that’s very little compared to the toads sa had to swallow: mpla remaining in power (not even shared with unita), retreat from angola, namibia independence + swapo government, retreat from namibia, continued intl. pariah-status.

now, the previous introduction clearly favors one side of these accounts over the other, my introduction on the other hand does not make any claims that could be seen as favoring one side over the other. “both sides claimed victory” and “…both cuban and south african, withdrew” might be compromises but they are necessary to summarize the events without favouring any side over the other. there is obviously a lot of criticism from you on this, but very little of it is constructive criticism. perhaps you should try to come up with some suggestions that maintains npov stance of the current introduction but gives a better summery of these events.

describing the outcomes for both sides is neither pov nor favouritism. what both sides claimed in one battle or the other is unimportant and no issue for anyone who can see. the way you put it “both sides withdrew” makes it look as if sa and cubans withdrew under the same circumstances which certainly was not the case, neither timewise nor as far as conditions were concerned. when hostilities ceased sa was stuck at cc and had been pushed out at calueque. the cubans still had 50,000 troops in angola.

how come they were not willing to negotiate for Namibia’s Independence in 1978, when UN resolution 435 was first presented?

435 asked for sa to move, not cuba. cuba always stated that it would leave once angola’s security was guaranteed. i do not know of a time when cuba or angola were not willing to negotiate. they actually jumped on resolution 435. the problems were unacceptable sa-conditions and “linkage”, which not only the cubans objected to but also the front line states and the contact group (europeans). on the other hand, sa was very happy to have cubans in angola as a pretext for their occupation of namibia and their actions in angola.

impending fall of the Soviet Union “must have played a big part” in Cuba’s “newfound” willingness to negotiate

it is indeed possible that it played some part but your formulation “must have played” clearly indicates an assumption. on the other hand, cuba didn’t need pushing. there is ample evidence that cubans have tried to get out of angola ever since independence and there is no reason to think that they needed their arms twisted. it was also acknowledged in the carter administration, that the removal of sa threat from the southern borders after namibia’s independence would lead to cuba’s withdrawal. thus, cuba’s willingness was not “newfound” as you like to have it.

and their recent lack of financial support for wars

the soviets did not reduce their support for the angolans and cubans in angola before the end of the war. in fact, the soviets were the ones pushing for the 1987/88 offensives.

south africa would lose its only claim to be fighting a respectable war in angola, namely as an opposition to communist expansionism. and for the same reasons the u.s.. would lose its only respectable motive to support south africa and unita in the war.

communism might have been the only “official” claim but it is clear that sa was fighting for its own survival and that communism was a welcome pretext. the black african liberation movements foremostly wanted to abolish apartheid and not to install a leftist government. of course pretoria feared leftist movements more because they were less inclined than other movements to co-operate.

“…that they were on the same moral footing. it has been clearly proven that cuba was in angola because of south africa” Now, what are the main original sources for this? Some propagandistic speeches delivered by a certain Cuban dictator and off course, Piero Gleijeses’ ‘undisclosed Cuban archives’. Piero Gleijeses, who expressed his opinions about Cuban foreign policy as the following: “I think that Cuba’s foreign policy is unique and very beautiful”, was awarded and gladly accepted the ‘Medal of Friendship’ by the Cuban Council of State – the same regime that imprisons journalists for 25 years to life for writing something they deem “infringes Cuba’s sovereignty”, in other words writing something they don’t like. Cuba ranks on the 165 place in the Reporters without Borders freedom of press index and fundamental human rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are only distant dreams to its people. Considering these factors and the amount of censorship that goes on in Cuba (and keeping in mind Gleijeses personal opinions about Cuba), these ‘undisclosed archives’ can only be accepted with some amount of skepticism. So no, Sundar1, Cuba’s intentions in Angola are anything but “clearly proven”.

cuba only intervened after the sa invasion. before that they had no reason as everything was going fine for the mpla. this is not based on speeches by castro. i used very few cuban sources and as I wrote before, i do not use cuban sources to source disputed issues, at least not by themselves. there certainly is much to critisize about cuban domestic policies but whatever they have done so far pales against what apartheid did in south africa and southern africa. why don’t you list all the things pretoria did? you prefer to ignore the sa-reconciliation report. nevertheless you think apartheid-sa sources are more reliable than cuban sources, which you keep attacking although they are hardly used for this article. on the other hand, you and the g4 almost entirely quote sa sources. if gleijeses was talking about cuba’s internationalism, then his statement about cuba’s foreign policy cannot be held against him. i fully agree with him, as you might have guessed: every developed nation in the world can take a good example from cuba when it comes to foreign aid. i suggest you read what “The Journal of Military History 67.1 (2003) 308” wrote about gleijeses book conflicting missions: “This splendid account of Cuban policy in Africa moves from Algeria, where Cuba assisted those fighting the French in 1961 and then supported the new Algerian government, to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where in 1964-65 one hundred Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with CIA-controlled mercenaries, to Congo-Brazzaville, where the Cubans trained forces of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) in the mid-1960s, to Guinea-Bissau. But it is the story of the arrival of tens of thousands of Cuban troops in Angola in late 1975 that lies at the heart of this book. Its great strength is that Gleijeses, a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, gained access, though not entirely unrestricted, to the Cuban archives. He also draws on a mass of archival material in a number of other countries, including documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, and on hundreds of interviews. The result is an extremely well-researched and well-written study that opens up much new ground. Though much more a diplomatic than a military study, it adds much to what is known of a number of minor wars in Africa, as well as of the major conflict in Angola in 1975-76. Gleijeses stresses that Fidel Castro's African policy was driven primarily by revolutionary zeal, and argues that Castro acted on his own, without prior consultations with the Soviet Union. President Ford and Henry Kissinger, determined to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle, saw the MPLA as a Soviet front, which must be stopped. So in July 1975 they launched a covert operation called IAFEATURE, which involved collaboration with the South Africans, who had their own reasons for not wanting to see an MPLA government installed in Angola. In October the South Africans, encouraged by the Americans, moved rapidly towards Luanda, and it seemed that the MPLA might be routed. It was then that Castro sent in his troops, who in a series of engagements halted the South African advance. After Congress stopped funding for the U.S. covert operation, the South Africans, abandoned by the Americans, had to withdraw. So not only had Kissinger and the U.S. suffered a severe blow, but so too had the apartheid regime, which as a result of the Angolan debacle became even more militaristic and reactionary. Gleijeses used two accounts in Afrikaans by military personnel for the South African intervention, and did not gain access to the South African archives on relations with the U.S., but his book will stand for a long time as the major study of the "conflicting missions" of Washington and Havana in Africa to 1976.”

with these arguments the motives for all your accusations of being pov and partial can be clearly seen. your feelings about cuban domestic policy may be justified but have no place here. i could just as well start talking about bad apartheid in sa.

but whether or not one chooses to believe the official cuban reasons for intervening in angola they nonetheless used the south african involvement as their casus belli.

you just quoted gleijeses. congratulations, you just contradicted yourself.

“…the sadf launched an outright counter offensive which was successful against fapla until the cubans intervened” Try to understand the difference between a counter offensive and an offensive. In this case, as in most cases, the counter offensive meant to recapture ground lost in the previous FAPLA offensive and assume new defensive positions, because after all, prior to the FAPLA offensive, the SADF was (at that time) on the defensive and not the offensive.

i’m well aware of the differences. you need to understand that the fapla offensive against unita got as far as the lomba river from where the sadf drove them back (about 160km) to cc and then continued to assault cc without success. that’s a counter offensive and i’m sure everybody knows what it was meant for. you need not explain that it meant to recapture ground lost in the previous offensive. prior to the fapla offensive the sadf was on the defensive? when and where was that? until fapla got to the lomba river the sadf had not yet intervened. i’m sorry, i don’t get what you want here. besides, do you actually mean to say that there were times when the sadf was on the defensive? that’s a new one coming from sadf-defenders.

i guess one could put it; “the departure of cuban and soviet forces from angola paved the way for democratic change in south africa”.

again here is the pretext pretoria was using. the way you’re putting it, the cubans and soviets were to blame for apartheid’s continuing existence. that’s a good one.

south africa only occupied namibia in an attempt to win enough time to create an environment in which swapo would not win an election.

as if this was any acceptable excuse! sa motives for occupying namibia are not at issue here. but, yes, after it was clear that namibia would have to be let go, this is very much part of the truth but not already in 1978.

“…main contributors to this process again were the g4”, Have you ever thought of actually thinking before you write? because this statement really doesn’t add up.

perhaps you should look up the past discussions concerning angola issues, which, admittedly, are getting long.

“…actually that article not so bad as far a bias is concerned” Then what are we arguing about? If you fail to remember, you said that if one wanted to see POV-articles one should amongst others check the one about the civil war out, remember? Now since you have changed your opinion, there is nothing more to discuss on that front.

there’s a point for you. i took a wrong example for pov but not for a really poor article otherwise.

“…the marines were not directly involved in angola but the us was” The usmc was not directly, nor indirectly involved in the angola/namibia wars, as far as us involvement is concerned we are talking about cia involvement. your opinions about the marine corps could not be less relevant to this discussion. I don’t suppose there’s any real need to point out the stupidity of your remarks but then again, there is a real chance that you are stupid enough to actually believe what it is your saying. most “right-wing” institution in the world? the usmc is a branch of the us department of defense and is not a political party or institution. it does not interfere with its members political beliefs. for you to question the ‘intelligence’ level of the marine corps is an equally baseless claim.

here we’re getting to one of the cores of the whole issue. i certainly struck a nerve here, didn’t i - but i took that into account. yes, i would very much like you to point out the “stupidity” of my remarks, if you can. fortunately one need not be very intelligent at all to see and know what the usmc stands for. but there must be quite a lack of it if one doesn’t. indeed, the usmc is not a political party but it certainly is an institution. i did not write that it interfered with its members political beliefs but the institution is right-wing as a whole. no truely liberal-minded person would join this club and anyone leaving that joint certainly will have every liberal thought, if he had any to begin with, forced out of him, one way or the other. but the core of the issue is really not what i think of the usmc but that it is extremely militarist which you can hardly deny. and the core of the issue is that you and the g4 are trying to get militarist views into wikipedia because you are extremely militarist yourself. militarists cannot admit defeat and cannot see that there is more than winning battles. and an analysis of a militarist institution for a political issue in any case is totally unacceptable, especially when this institution is from an involved nation which also suffered a political defeat. i refuse to further discuss the bullshit in the usmc-analysis with you which won’t lead us anywhere.

“…from further destabilizing the region” Since FAPLA had planned with their offensive to advance into UNITA territory this would off coarse lead to fighting and destabilizing of the region and since it was FAPLA who was on the offensive, blaming the “destabilizing” part on them only seems logical.

you make it sound as if fapla invaded another country. it is well known what unita did in angola and that they in line with sa and the us destabilized the whole region, the us starting with the murder of lumumba in the congo. you obviously deny the right of the legitimate angolan government to control the whole country.

“South Africa achieved its policy goals” Well, whether you like it or not, the SADF did achieve the goals of op Hooper, Modular and Packer (none of these operations by the way called for the capture of Cuito Cuanavale). If one were to follow your logic, wouldn’t the Neues Deutschland article also be biased, since their caption reads ‘Sozialistische Tageszeitung‘ and after all, the DDR were involved in the war on the same side as the Cubans. The Monthly Review is none the less also a Marxist newspaper so their bias regarding anything that deals with Cuba/Soviet Union vs. “evil capitalist imperialists” is quite obvious. But I guess that your definition of who is biased is anyone who doesn’t support your version of the story.

leaving aside the intentions of sadf at cc, you confuse sa and sadf. indeed, according to its own accounts the sadf did achieve some or most of it’s goals. but south africa didn’t. it neither changed the regime in angola, it had to move out of namibia, accept its independence and a swapo government, all of which it tried very hard to prevent. on the other hand, these are all the things cuba intervened or stood for. if you want to relish in the successes of certain battles, which in the end were all in vain, you can look them up on militarist websites.

as to my sources, if you knew your history correctly you’d know that the gdr stopped existing in 1989. the article is dated much later. yet, the newspaper indeed is “socialist” which is nothing extraordinary in europe. they are legal, democratic parties. the present government in spain happens to consider itself socialist. fortunately this doesn’t scare too many people on this side of the ocean. of course it’s a different matter when seen from other side of from the right. i also never disputed that some of my sources might be biased – that simply is not the point. the point is which sources you use for what purpose. as i wrote before, it matters in what context they are used. i would not use such sources to define or analyse the political outcome of any events, at least not by themselves. removing sources like this from the article wouldn’t change anything.

“…fapla was close to total defeat and that the fall of cc was expected any time soon”, again what are the main original ‘sources’ for this, Cuban propaganda and Gleijses. Now simply looking at the number of troops the Cubans sent to Cuito Cuanavale, 1500, and they reinforced more than 10000 FAPLA troops, common sense ensures that the notion that Cuba ‘saved’ Cuito Cuanavale can only be met with reasonable doubt. Now even considering a ‘worst case scenario’ for the East Bloc where the SADF would storm and take Cuito Cuanavale and all the troops they committed to its defense would either be KIA or captured the bulk of the FAPLA and Cuban forces would still be intact since they were deployed to other parts of the country so FAPLA was never close to total defeat. You make it sound like if Cuito Cuanavale would fall into SADF/UNITA hands the road to Luanda would be open, this was never the case.

i suppose original sources for you are the south african ones you rely on, since cuban ones are not acceptable. all non-south african sources i have come across describe a near desaster for fapla before the arrival of the cubans. if you don’t like gleijeses then take edward george, certainly no friend of the cubans. i also suppose the sadf’s last 4 assaults on cc failed because of the rain and the low sun and then they sat back because they wanted to give fapla a break. as you should know, numbers aren’t everything; 1,500 (not forgetting additional supplies) were obviously sufficient to stop the sa counter offensive.

I was merely following a one plus one equals two type of logic when I wrote that “your POV equals the Cuban POV”, firstly you have only argued for, and obly presented a version that is identical to the Cuban one. Secondly you saying that "my version- meaning cuba's" really explains the rest.

actually, to this very day i have not read any official cuban version of the events in angola. perhaps you can point out where i can read one. again, like the g4, you have been assuming things.

"you also claim that “it was never in south africa’s interest to storm and hold cc”" I never 'claimed' that, I only said that "one could argue that".

the only ones arguing that they never wanted to take cc is the sadf. indeed, the outcome of the offensive may have been left open at the beginning and would depend on its progress and costs. but six attacks on cc, of which the latter four failed, certainly show that the sadf gave it more than just a try and that the costs had eventually become too high.

You keep pushing that South Africa would have had much to gain by capturing Cuito Cuanavale and handing it over to UNITA. But after they pulled out of Namibia what could South Africa possibly have to gain by whether or not UNITA had an additional town or so?

before and during the battle of cc pretoria wasted no serious thought of moving out of namibia or giving up any of its other intentions. the sadf was in for a kill and did not foresee another cuban intervention. so your reasoning is totally off the mark. any territorial gain for unita would have hightened chances for a friendly government in luanda or at least on the bargaining table.

And in 1987 the SAG surely knew that it was only a time question when they were going to pull out of Namibia.

apartheid sa was often pretty thick, yet i suppose they weren’t that ignorant to think they would be staying in namibia for ever, but they certainly had in mind to leave only on their terms and only with a friendly government. “the sag surely knew…” again, the word “surely” in your assumption says it all.

you keep moving in circles and this discussion is going nowhere. your arguments reek of assumptions and wishful thinking. matters would remain simple if you proved your points with proper sources. that is all that’s necessary.Sundar1 (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

In all of the above, you never once materialized any serious criticism of the introduction. Shall I take this that you are satisfied with the current introduction? This is starting to look more like a forum discussion than a Wikipedia talk page and indeed, the subjects of this discussion are on the border of having been discussed ad nauseam. I will answer all/most of your remarks for one last time but I will not continue this discussion in the manner that has been used so far any further, it’s time to reach a consensus on the Introduction and close the chapter on this discussion.

“describing the outcomes for both sides is neither pov nor favouritism”, but this isn’t really what you were doing, you described the outcome of the battle in accordance with a certain POV, the Cuban and clearly favored their account over the others.

“cuba had all its wishes fulfilled: mpla in power, no power sharing with unita, sa out of angola, namibian independence, sa out of Namibia, no intl. condemnation. it’s only compromise was to reduce the timespan for withdrawal from 4 years to 30 months. that’s very little compared to the toads sa had to swallow: mpla remaining in power (not even shared with unita), retreat from angola, namibia independence + swapo government, retreat from namibia, continued intl. pariah-status.” And what an extraordinarily neutral analysis of the situation<sarcasm>, you take the pros of Cuba and the cons of South Africa from the New York Accords. “no intl. condemnation” for Cuba? You can’t be serious, do you think the world just sat back and accepted them after the cold war even though they didn’t do any internal democratic change? Other then at maybe a few UN-meetings, neither country received any considerable condemnation for their part in the war after it ended. All the international condemnation for both South Africa and Cuba was focused on their internal human rights situation and has no relevance to the Angola war.

Let’s face it; neither Cuba nor South Africa was in any favorable condition to continue the war in 1988. The reasons for South Africa were not too hard to swallow for you so I will not go in to that again. But for Cuba it’s apparently still a bit difficult for you so I will clear up any misunderstanding on this. The Cuban economy was almost totally dependent on the East Bloc and more particularly, the Soviet Union, and we all know what happened to it after the fall of the Soviet Union. With Cuba so dependent on the East Bloc only to keep its internal economy running, it would be nothing but ridiculous to suggest that Cuba would have been able to carry on the war without the Soviets. Without the Soviets the only thing that the Cuban government would be able to do in Angola was to get their troops out of there – which is exactly what they ended up doing.

“after the sa counteroffensive was stopped have forced cuba to the table” Well I guess you see this the way you want to see it, and that’s just fine, whatever makes you happy. For one last time I’m going to go over Cuito Cuanavale. South Africa would only have had any use of capturing Cuito Cuanavale if it would have had plans of advancing further than the Cuito River, which it didn’t have. The objectives given to the SADF by the SAG couldn’t have been any clearer; “Push the enemy west of the Cuito River, assume new defensive position and inflict maximum casualties upon the enemy”. “but six attacks on cc, of which the latter four failed”, the first two attacks were aimed at, and successfully captured, the Vimposto high ground and other strategic positions on the east side of the river, counting these as “attacks on cc” would be stretching it too far. The same goes for the latter four, you could count them as unsuccessful at capturing Cuito Cuanavale for the same reasons as you could count them unsuccessful at capturing Harare, Paris, Stockholm, etc. – since they were as much aimed at Cuito Cuanavale as any of the others. These attacks (or skirmishes, which would be a more appropriate word) were all east of Cuito Cuanavale and north of the SADF positions and still on the east side of the river. What they did was successfully preventing FAPLA troops from surrounding their positions. Another thing speaking against the theory that South Africa intended to capture the village was the fact that they destroyed all the bridges over the Cuito River in the vicinity of their positions. Cuba on the other hand tried to rebuild the bridges and launched several unsuccessful attacks on SADF positions at Vimposto and Chambinga. So, when UN 435 was implemented, who had the upper hand? It is safe to say that in terms of loss of personnel and war fighting equipment, Cuba and FAPLA was on the losing side. This is also true in terms of ground lost, Cuba/FAPLA had less ground after the battle then they had prior to the Soviet/FAPLA offensive, whereas South Africa had gained more. But the Cubans had lost something more important than all of this, the support of the Soviet Union. Claiming that the Cubans had “pushed the SADF out” at Calueque is a blatant exaggeration, sure the airstrike did some damage but all of which was repaired shortly.

The DDR/GDR did seize to exit in 1989, I have not said anything that contradicts that. Its people however, did not and today former East Germans are Neues Deutschlands main reader base. It being a defined Socialist political newspaper makes it clear that it has an obvious agenda to achieve, to promote Socialism that is. “they are legal, democratic parties. the present government in spain happens to consider itself socialist” Even though this is highly irrelevant (as arguably, most of what you have written so far), I fully agree with you on this one, although I’d consider the Spanish government’s policies more Social Democratic than outright Socialist. But, enough on this.

I did not write anything about my feelings on Cuban domestic policy, so you could impossibly know whether they are justifiable or not, or if I even have any for that reason. What I did write though, Facts, do have relevance here since they are relevant in determining the credibility of the Cuban archives, or the part of them that the Castro regime unveils to the public at least. Yapping on about Apartheid South Africa’s bad human rights and freedom of press record however, is not relevant since those days are over and South Africa is today at least a semi-functional democracy with full freedom of press so the inequalities of Apartheid cannot be used to undermine the credibility of the South African archives since they are available in a full and uncensored form.

“perhaps you should look up the past discussions concerning angola issues, which, admittedly, are getting long”, I figured it could have been either two things that you were referring to when you made that statement; either main contributors to the Angolan Civil War article or that articles GA nomination, in either case it doesn’t add up.

“prior to the fapla offensive the sadf was on the defensive? when and where was that?” Prior to the FAPLA offensive the SADF was (between 1985-86) not conducting or planning any major operations within Angola.

“435 asked for sa to move, not cuba” and South Africa responded; “we will do so only if Cuba does the same from Angola”. In 1978 Cuba was not willing to accept these terms but in 1988 they were. In 1978 the Cubans might not have been so directly involved with the negotiations but their withdrawal was always the key South African requirement for a ceasefire and the independence of Namibia. The MPLA-government’s response to the South Africans requested conditions for a peace deal in 1978 was along the lines of “we might consider a ceasefire but only if you fulfill all of our demands (unconditional withdrawal from Angola and Namibia without any preconditions) and we don’t fulfill any of yours (withdrawal of Cuban troops and refuse SWAPO a safe haven in Angola)”. So off course the South Africans could not accept this and the war went on. By 1984, after op Askari, South Africa had effectively reduced SWAPO’s offensive military capabilities to nothing so from that point on South Africa became more and more focused on getting the Cubans out of Angola. Support for UNITA increased, but plans for major offensives to topple the MPLA regime like in 1975/76 were never again conceived. “on the other hand, sa was very happy to have cubans in angola as a pretext” On one hand, but on the other South Africa would never leave Namibia unless the Cubans were on their way out of Angola. They would never risk having Cuban troops in Namibia and next to their own border. The thing is that South Africa’s support for UNITA after 76’ was only in order to “take the fight to SWAPO” and to do the same thing to the Cubans, so who ended up ruling Angola after the Cubans where gone was not of any major concern for the SAG. After Cuito Cuanavale it was the Cubans, not the South Africans, who ended up doing most of the compromising. Prior to 88’ the Cuban/MPLA response to the South African terms of 1978 was always “first you withdraw unconditionally from Angola/Namibia, and then we might consider withdrawing the Cubans”. After 88’ however, they agreed to link their withdrawal from Angola to South Africa’s withdrawal from Namibia, in accordance to the South African demands of 78’.

“in fact, the soviets were the ones pushing for the 1987/88 offensives.” The 1987/88 Soviet led FAPLA offensive was their last ditch attempt to win the war on the ground, similar to the 1918 German spring offensive, and like the Germans they ended up failing, massively. Thus the Soviet advisors told their high command that the war in Angola could not be won on the ground and after that Gorbachev sought to end the conflict the quickest way possible.

“apartheid sa was often pretty thick, yet i suppose they weren’t that ignorant to think they would be staying in namibia for ever, but they certainly had in mind to leave only on their terms and only with a friendly government.” The SAG knew that their best and only viable bet for Namibia would be the UN supervised elections and sooner or later this was going to happen. Hence, from 1976 and onwards they conducted “hearts and minds” operations in all regions of Namibia as well as promoting Namibian parties opposing SWAPO. This was more successful in some regions than others but one can hardly give any credits to Cuba for SWAPO’s success in the election.

“but not already in 1978.” 1978 according to The Namibian Border War: An Appraisal of The South African Strategy, who gives a different date?

Since we are posting reviews of Gleijeses’ book, |here’s another one.

“you just quoted gleijeses. congratulations, you just contradicted yourself.” I did not quote Gleijeses, if he wrote something similar it is a mere coincidence. The fact that Cuba used South African involvement as their official reasons for going to war is nothing that is disputed and when it comes to official Cuban historiography quoting Gleijeses seems to be as good as quoting any Cuban statesman, since this is more or less the only version of it they study. But you should know that (I’m not saying that you don’t) what countries use as their official Casus Belli (cause of war) is not necessarily their real reason/intention.

The rhetoric that the Cubans were only in Angola due to the South Africans can be taken in to serious questioning, since the majority of all Cuban operations in Angola were not aimed at fighting the SADF but were so called “Search and Destroy” missions within Angola aimed at rooting out UNITA rebels. You can look that up in Edward George’s book.

The only one who contradicts him/herself here, and repeatedly, is you, Sundar1. You say that you are “sensitive” to “attempts to relativize” historical events, yet you do just that repeatedly. Just some examples: “but whatever they have done so far pales against what apartheid did in south africa and southern africa. why don’t you list all the things pretoria did?” Now, the atrocities and injustices of Apartheid are not being discussed here or of any relevance to the discussion, yet you bring them up in order to downplay on Cuba’s. “it is well known what unita did in angola and that they in line with sa and the us destabilized the whole region” again, you are doing the exact same thing, to justify/downplay the MPLA’s role in the destabilizing of Angola you bring up the actions of their adversaries.

“…but have no place here. i could just as well start talking about bad apartheid in sa” Well, you’ve already done that, Sundar1, haven’t you? Wonder why you didn’t realize the irrelevance of that until you could accuse someone else of it.

“i suppose original sources for you are the south african ones you rely on, since cuban ones are not acceptable.” Again, you misunderstand what I meant with the word original. Since there was close to zero press coverage of the war from either sides, the archives of the countries involved and to a smaller extend, the accounts of veterans (which must also be able to back up their accounts with supporting archives), is what any serious researcher must base their works on. Unless there would be some groundbreaking new democratic change in Cuba, their archives (for reasons previously explained) remain unacceptable.

“it is extremely militarist” a military being ‘militarist’, oh really, do you think that water is wet to? “…certainly will have every liberal thought, if he had any to begin with, forced out of him” You’re not seriously suggesting that the US military employs “political re-education”, like most communist countries such as North Korea and Cuba, because that would be a bit too way off from reality, even for you.

“…you are extremely militarist yourself. militarists cannot admit defeat and cannot see that there is more than winning battles.” Now what, you are trying to make character assessments on people you’ve never met based on Wikipedia discussions, as if you haven’t derailed this discussion enough already.

“i would very much like you to point out the “stupidity” of my remarks” I was never really asking whether you would like it or not in the first place but what can I say, done and done again, and you accuse others of not being able to ‘admit defeat’? Jesus.

“…an analysis of a militarist institution for a political issue in any case is totally unacceptable”, again, again and again, the analysis in question to 99% only focuses on events on the ground, military history, and almost never on the “political issue” since that isn’t the point of it anyways. “i refuse to further discuss the bullshit in the usmc-analysis with you which won’t lead us anywhere.” I support your decision to stop discussing it and since you have so far been the sole supplier of bullshit in regards to it, this decision of yours would quite effectively put an end to all the bullshit you’ve surrounded it with.

“you confuse sa and sadf” No it’s you who misunderstands what the analysis says. When the author of it writes “South Africa achieved its policy goals using a small but potent strike force” he clearly refers to op Hooper, Packer and Modular.

“…of course pretoria feared leftist movements more because they were less inclined than other movements to co-operate” Again, total utter bullshit, UNITA was in all ways possible a leftist movement, seeking to liberate their country from Cuban military occupation and Communist oppression.

“you obviously deny the right of the legitimate angolan government to control the whole country.” You mean, do I deny the ‘right’ of the undemocratically elected MPLA regime to through civil war, root out and slaughter their political opponents amongst the civilian population and seize control over all of Angola, then, yes I do. Would I deny UNITA the same ‘right’ if their positions were reversed? Yes, I would. “you make it sound as if fapla invaded another country” the word the analysis used was “region” but then again they practically did Invade another country since there were effectively two Angola’s at that time, MPLA-Angola and Savimbi-Angola.

Now back to the main subject of this discussion: the introduction. The POV-stance and partisan nature of the previous introduction has been pointed out again and again. Going back to it is out of the question so in accordance with Wikipedia policy, we are going to try to reach a consensus on the current one.

• ”…both sides claimed victory” this is after all what both sides did, and with their own reasons for doing so – explaining both sides would require too much space for it to fit in the intro. This is so far the most neutral way of putting it I’ve come up with, and if the reader would like to learn more about the battle he/she could just click the link.

• ”…, both Cuban and South African, withdrew” again this is what both sides did; they reached a compromise with the New York Accords and both sides honored that compromise. As I said before neither side was in any favorable condition to carry on the war in 88’-89’ and “who had the upper hand” could be discussed ad infinitum and would require too much explaining for it to fit in the introduction.

As I said before, if you could come up with some other ways of putting it that would maintain the NPOV-stance of the current ones and not take to much more space, I would appreciate it very much if you would list them so we could continue the discussion on the intro in a constructive way, or if you would say that you are satisfied with the current one so we can close this discussion and carry on with the rest of the article.

13dble (talk) 13dble (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

answers as short as possible

"In all of the above, you ..... on this discussion."

no, you shall not. the intro is not a priority at the moment. just this much: loss or victory deliberately is mentioned nowhere in the article. so it makes no sense to come up with this issue in the intro except to put sa on the same moral footing as cuba.

"“describing the outcomes .... over the others."

i have used no cuban sources in the descriptions you mention. The only other accounts you refer to are from “involved” parties, the us and sa.

"“cuba had all its wishes .... has no relevance to the Angola war."

are there any cons of cuba and pros of sa you can come up with? the article is about cuban presence in angola and not about any condemnations after that time.

"Let’s face it; neither Cuba .... they ended up doing."

In 1987/88 the soviet union was still around, very much alive and gave cuba in angola its full support. whatever happened in the following years is irrelevant. besides, cuba had always been interested in getting its troops out.

"“after the sa counteroffensive was stopped .... all of which was repaired shortly."

what I described is not the “way I see it” but they way it is described in the source(s). it doesn’t make me happy but obviously makes you unhappy. the areas of the sa setbacks are described as “east of the river” and nowhere it is said that they were attacks on cc. but they were part of the battle of cc. again you cite casualties as an argument of who won and who lost or who had the upper hand. don’t you get it that military victories matter little in this context? aa was not only fighting cuba but world opinion and on top, it was in the wrong. where is this claim that cuba pushed the sadf out of calueque?

"I did not write anything about ... full and uncensored form."

i did not start the issue of human rights records- you did! where was I “yapping” about the sa-record? indeed, neither the cuban nor the sa record is of relevance for this article. that sa today is democratic does not alter the quality of content of apartheid archives. apartheid sa was an oppressive regime and there is every reason to mistrust statements by anyone who was fighting for it.

"“prior to the fapla offensive ... planning any major operations within Angola."

where did I write this?

"“435 asked for sa to move, not cuba” and South Africa .... Namibia, in accordance to the South African demands of 78’."

in short: apartheid sa had no right to demand anything. they invaded an independent country from another occupied country. they had no right to occupy either angolan territory nor all of namibia and no right to fight swapo unless one could say the nazis had the right to fight polish, yugoslavian or french resistance fighters. sa was suppressing ¾ of its own population and acting against its will.

"“in fact, the soviets were the ones .... conflict the quickest way possible."

yes?

"“apartheid sa was often pretty thick, yet ... credits to Cuba for SWAPO’s success in the election."

who does?

"Since we are posting reviews of Gleijeses’ book, |here’s another one."

i suppose if we did some more digging in that corner we can come up with more such critiques. but at least you found one.

"The rhetoric that the Cubans .... look that up in Edward George’s book."

if it hadn’t been for sa support of unita, luanda would have been quite able to deal with unita without cuban aid. so this is no rhetoric and i have the book.

"The only one who contradicts ... you bring up the actions of their adversaries."

this issue has been touched above: indeed, human rights records are not at issue here- you brought them up, not me.

"“…but have no place here. i could ..... someone else of it."

you are totally blocked on this matter. again: you started with the Cuban human rights record, not me.

"“i suppose original sources .... reasons previously explained) remain unacceptable."

again: i did not use cuban sources in the disputed issues!

"“it is extremely militarist” a .... off from reality, even for you."

not “re-“education, (that would imply that the recruits were leftist), but indoctrination very much so. yes, I do. and yes. water is wet and i don’t use it when i want a fire going.

"“i would very much like you to point out the “stupidity” of my remarks” I was never really asking whether you would like it or not in the first place but what can I say, done and done again, and you accuse others of not being able to ‘admit defeat’? Jesus."

oh, oh, the irritation level is rising. who did I ask to admit defeat? shall we leave jesus out of here?

"“…an analysis of a militarist institution for .... would quite effectively put an end to all the bullshit you’ve surrounded it with."

you sure like this “b-“word!

"“…of course pretoria feared leftist .... military occupation and Communist oppression."

perhaps savimbi started out as a maoist but he certainly wasn’t handed around as one on his us-tours. the us and sa supported a leftist movement! angola was not occupied and what oppression are we talking about. can you get any closer to distortion?

"“you obviously deny the right of ..... time, MPLA-Angola and Savimbi-Angola."

indeed, the government was not democratically elected. yet, at wikipedia and elsewhere we deal with the official legal status of a government and not the way you would like it. legally there was only one angola and the luanda government was in the right. besides.who is calling the kettle black? apartheid sa wasn’t democratically elected either!

"Now back to the main subject .... and would require too much explaining for it to fit in the introduction."

as I wrote before, neutrality is not the problem here.

"as I said before, if you .... current one so we can close this discussion and carry on with the rest of the article."

i have other priorities at the moment. the article is not yet finished. i will continue to think about it and get back to this later.Sundar1 (talk) 17:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

“no, you shall not. the intro is not a priority at the moment. just this much: loss or victory deliberately is mentioned nowhere in the article. so it makes no sense to come up with this issue in the intro except to put sa on the same moral footing as cuba.”

Shall I take it then that you are not satisfied with it, but you are incapable of figuring out what it is about it that you are actually unsatisfied with? Even if the intro is not the priority at this moment, it certainly is the most hotly debated issue. The intro does not mention morality, nor is morality in any way relevant to it. If your only serious criticism of the intro is that you feel that the Cubans were on a better “moral footing” than the South Africans and you think that the intro does not highlight this, you should seriously reconsider continuing this discussion.

“i have used no cuban sources in the descriptions you mention. The only other accounts you refer to are from “involved” parties, the us and sa.”

What sources you used are beyond the point, the point is that the way you put it clearly favored the Cuban POV. Considering that pretty much all of your “uninvolved” sources are either Socialist or Marxist magazines and the book that you most commonly use is also from an “involved” party, it makes no sense for you to criticize others for their sourcing.

“in short: apartheid sa had no right to demand anything. they invaded an independent country from another occupied country. they had no right to occupy either angolan territory nor all of namibia and no right to fight swapo unless one could say the nazis had the right to fight polish, yugoslavian or french resistance fighters."

And the Cubans, they had the right to invade Angola and install a Government friendly to them and their Soviet comrades? But really, you are only dodging the real point here, what SA/Cuba had the ‘right’ to do is not in any way relevant, the point is that in 1978 the Cubans and the East Bloc did not accept the SA terms of 78’, but in 88’ they did.

“sa was suppressing ¾ of its own population and acting against its will.”

And the Castro regime was not suppressing ¾ (or more) of its own population and acting against their will?

“are there any cons of cuba and pros of sa you can come up with? the article is about cuban presence in angola and not about any condemnations after that time.”

Yes I could, but ask yourself this; if I would go ahead and list them, would it really bring this discussion forward in any constructive manner?

“i did not start the issue of human rights records- you did! where was I “yapping” about the sa-record?”

I quote you (11:48, 29 June 2008); “…the larger context: that south africa was a rogue state and a pariah among the nations, the apartheid regime suppressed ¾ of its population, even keeping the white population in the dark…” This statement was written by you 3 days before I brought up the Cuban human rights record. So how could this possibly mean that I started the issue on human rights?

“where did I write this?”

I quote you; “when and where was that?” You asked a question, I answered it.

“where is this claim that cuba pushed the sadf out of calueque?”

I quote you; “…and had been pushed out at calueque.”

“perhaps savimbi started out as a maoist but he certainly wasn’t handed around as one on his us-tours. the us and sa supported a leftist movement!”

Does one have to be a Maoist to be a leftist? After his time as Maoist and indeed throughout the rest of his life, Savimbi was always a staunch Social-Democrat (which is a leftist political direction).

“angola was not occupied”

Angola ‘not occupied’? First off, answer this question; do you think that Iraq is currently occupied by US forces? When you’ve done that I will continue on this.

“what oppression are we talking about”

Specifically, we are talking about the oppression of UNITA politicians and UNITA loyal villages and towns by MPLA forces.

“who is calling the kettle black? apartheid sa wasn’t democratically elected either!”

Neither was the Castro regime.

“i will continue to think about it and get back to this later”

You go ahead and do that, but when you come back, be sure to include some new suggestions on how we could improve the article’s introduction. Until then, best wishes 13dble (talk) 19:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Needs work

This article is crap. Can someone who isn't clearly biased please edit this?Lolcontradictions (talk)