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The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was a series of engagements between the Cuban-backed People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), and the South African Defence Force (SADF), as well as guerrillas of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) near the important town of Cuito Cuanavale during the Angolan Civil War. FAPLA was initially deployed to eliminate the UNITA positions at Jamba and Mavinga, where the rebels had established their primary operating bases. Following a number of failed attempts to take the settlements in 1986, eight FAPLA brigades mustered for a final offensive&mdash;Operação Saludando Octubre&mdash;in August 1987 with extensive auxiliary support from one of Angola's closest military allies, the Soviet Union. They were joined by a number of Cuban armoured and motorised units, who had become more directly committed to the fighting for the first time during Havana's lengthy intervention in the civil war. Soviet weapons deliveries to FAPLA were also accelerated, including over a hundred T-62 tanks and strike aircraft seconded from the Warsaw Pact's strategic reserve.

South Africa, which shared a common border with Angola through South-West Africa, was then determined to prevent FAPLA from gaining control of Jamba and allowing insurgents of the South-West African People's Organisation to operate in the region. Saludando Octubre prompted the South African military to underpin the defence of Jamba and launch Operation Moduler with the objective of stopping FAPLA's offensive. The Angolan government and its Soviet advisory personnel had failed to make contingency plans for South African intervention, despite advance warnings from Umkhonto we Sizwe of an imminent SADF counterattack.

The campaign which followed culminated in the largest battle on African soil since World War II, surpassed in size and scope only by the Second Battle of El Alamein, and the largest conventional military clashes between two sub-Saharan armies in modern African history. Next to the Ogaden War, Cuito Cuanavale provided an almost unique example of a sophisticated classical engagement waged on the continent with European&mdash;particularly Soviet&mdash;tactics. Both sides claimed victory; Angolan accounts claim that the direct participation of well-trained Cuban combat troops, combined with the support of 1,000 Soviet advisors, turned the tide of the battle in favour of FAPLA. They observed that South Africa's counterattack brought its expeditionary forces further from their bases and depots in South-West Africa, and comfortably within striking range of Cuban and Angolan aircraft. Nevertheless, despite FAPLA's air superiority over the operational area, its ground forces were badly mauled by Operation Moduler. The SADF later followed up with the less successful Operation Hooper and Operation Packer but failed to exploit this advantage, being halted at a tributary of the Okavango River by minefields.

Today, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale is credited with ushering in the first round of trilateral negotiations, mediated by the United States, which secured the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and Namibia by 1991.

Background
Angola's lengthy civil war took on several characteristics of a regional Cold War conflict between 1975 and 1980, pitting a Marxist government, bolstered by Soviet weapons and Cuban troops, against its bitter rival, the avowedly anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)&mdash;which was supported by the United States, South Africa, and Zaire. Events in Angola that followed the 1975 collapse of Portuguese colonial rule, the consolidation of a militant leftist regime overseen by President Agostinho Neto, and the growing alliance between Neto and the Soviet Union persuaded the American State Department that the communist bloc had hegemonic aspirations in southern Africa. Washington took UNITA's stance that Soviet and Cuban interference with Angolan affairs was an explicit attempt by the Kremlin to gain a strategic foothold in the region and extend its sphere of influence. Although also opposed to communism, Zaire and South Africa were more frustrated by Neto's tacit support for their own insurgencies, spearheaded by the Front for the National Liberation of the Congo (FNLC) and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), respectively. Their backing of UNITA followed a pattern typical to many African bush conflicts of the time, which took the form of rival regimes reaching across borders and cultivating alliances with rebel groups. The rebels were later groomed as proxies, or simply used as convenient tools to influence foreign politics. South Africa was an especially prolific supporter of rebel movements such as UNITA and the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), since they targeted governments sympathetic to anti-apartheid forces.

There were 36,000 Cuban troops in Angola in the late 1970s. Their presence had been formally requested by the Angolan government by November 1975, although approximately 500 military instructors were in the country prior to that date, training the fledgling People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA). Many of the Cuban regulars were technical specialists who manned sophisticated installations such as radar and air defence sites alongside Angolan personnel. The others were reservists called up by their local military committees. Between 1975 and 1977 Cuban soldiers bore the brunt of the fighting against UNITA and thus, took the heaviest casualties. As Angola's instability worsened, the size of the Cuban armed forces in Angola swelled to twenty-six regiments, easily five times the 1977 American estimate of 12,000 to 15,000 men. Before 1980 Cuba had planned and helped execute four unsuccessful campaigns to eradicate UNITA from the three provinces where the rebels were active: Moxico, Cuando Cubango, and Cunene. Their failure, and the heavy casualties incurred, convinced the Cuban leadership to refocus their efforts on empowering FAPLA instead. The bulk of the Cuban troops remained stationed near Luanda, Angola's capital and economic centre, and generally took no part in the active campaigning. They were available to replace FAPLA units otherwise occupied with garrison duties, freeing up more Angolans for the war against UNITA. By reducing the risk of Cuban losses, Havana also lent credence to its claim that it was not crushing internal dissent in Angola, but rather protecting the country from external enemies&mdash;South Africa in particular.

South African policy towards Angola was inextricably linked to political developments in neighbouring South-West Africa (Namibia), a former German colony it had administered under a League of Nations mandate since World War I. In 1960 the separatist SWAPO challenged South African rule as an illegal occupation, and on August 26, 1966 a unit of its guerrilla wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), fired the first shots of the Namibian War of Independence. Operating from bases in Angolan territory, PLAN's cadres repeatedly attempted to infiltrate South-West Africa, where they could strike at farms, infrastructure, and government targets. Portugal responded by permitting the South African Defence Force (SADF) to operate freely in southern Angola as it searched for PLAN encampments; in exchange, South African patrols also engaged Angolan anti-colonial partisans they encountered. The Portuguese withdrawal brought this formal military cooperation to an abrupt end and heightened South African fears that PLAN and other potential Namibian guerrilla movements could be furbished with an even greater outlet for training, material support, and physical sanctuary under the cover of Angola's escalating civil war. The SADF's trepidation was not unwarranted. As early as July 1975 the Angolan government had promised training and arms for PLAN on the condition they joined the fighting in support of FAPLA. PLAN reacted well to this overture, offering valuable intelligence which led to the capture of several UNITA bases. In June 1976, PLAN consolidated its alliance with FAPLA by attacking a UNITA contingent which had crossed into South-West Africa, coinciding with a decision by SWAPO to relocate its political headquarters from Lusaka to Luanda. The Namibian guerrillas were granted access to FAPLA's training facilities, and Soviet advisors quickly took the lead in their instruction, with "enthusiastic support" from the Angolan Ministry of Defence. Cuban personnel, too, quickly became involved in a covert programme to set up dozens of new training camps for PLAN.

Within two years, the security situation in South-West Africa had deteriorated considerably. Angola's decision to extend support to PLAN opened up new infiltration routes into the border region from Cunene, and by February 1977 it became clear the insurgents were making full use of Angolan territory to renew their offensives. South Africa retaliated by throwing its support behind UNITA. Despite having escaped destruction, UNITA had been scattered by successive Cuban and FAPLA campaigns across southern Angola. UNITA president Jonas Savimbi left about 1,400 militants to harass FAPLA in the central highlands and withdrew first to the heavily forested interior of Moxico Province, then to eastern Bié, Although not opposed to attacking FAPLA garrisons and remote towns to capture necessary supplies, UNITA's lightly armed, but highly mobile cadres avoided pitched battles with larger FAPLA units who outnumbered and outgunned them. Savimbi was not content with this strategy, and in March 1977 he ordered the formation of "semi-conventional" units, made up of hardened UNITA regulars entrusted with capturing and holding ground. UNITA officers selected for the three proposed semi-conventional battalions were schooled by SADF tacticians in conventional warfare theory and basic command and control principles, while handpicked South African special forces teams instructed their men on carrying out acts of sabotage and light infantry manoeuvres. Once properly trained, the rebels were equipped with vast quantities of untraceable Soviet-style arms procured on the European black market via South Africa's international contacts, along with smaller numbers of weaponry captured directly from PLAN. Three new UNITA training camps were set up in South-West Africa, and a permanent SADF liaison was appointed directly to Savimbi to coordinate the delivery of South African supplies. This timely assistance provided Savimbi with the arms and personnel necessary to retake the initiative in southern and central Angola. Between 1979 and 1980, UNITA destroyed key bridges and communications links and began capturing towns from FAPLA.

UNITA and FAPLA advances leading up to 1987
Consolidating their forces scattered across the central highlands, UNITA steadily worked its way northwards, flanking FAPLA troops entrenched at Cuito Cuanavale and taking several less populous settlements including Cassamba, Lupire, and Ninda. Road and rail links in Huambo Province began to come under UNITA attacks. The eastern part of Angola's economically vital Benguela rail line from Lobito to Luau on the Zairean border was first raided in late 1982 and suffered ongoing sabotage thereafter. Perhaps more substantial than the capture of territory or the disruption of infrastructure was UNITA's seizure of nearly 200 FAPLA trucks, which greatly increased the movement's mobility, deployment speed, and logistics network. In 1982 alone it carried out 1,440 raids, ambushes, and acts of sabotage in eight Angolan provinces. At this point the threat posed by UNITA was deemed so severe the Angolan government declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law in all eight provinces the rebels had targeted. FAPLA dismissed civilian authorities in these areas and began administering them directly; it also demarcated the country into ten new military regions and formed new units&mdash;predominantly light infantry brigades&mdash;responsible for them.

FAPLA launched its first offensive to counter UNITA's expansion in mid 1983, mustering about 20,000 troops in the central highlands for the most expansive search and destroy operation it had carried out to date. The FAPLA troops were joined by some Cuban advisors and at least 3,000 PLAN guerrillas who offered their assistance. Their decision to concentrate so many units in the highlands proved to be a major tactical blunder, as it left the northeastern military districts under-garrisoned and open to UNITA infiltration. Savimbi's forces simply flanked the main body of the FAPLA force and struck at targets in their rear, namely at the Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul provinces. More catastrophic for the Angolan government was UNITA's plunder of the alluvial gem quality diamonds stockpiled there, which helped fund their war effort and furbish the means for a larger and better-equipped insurgency.

Savimbi's decision to create the three semi-conventional battalions, and place a disproportionate emphasis on capturing and holding towns and static installations heralded a fundamental shift in the nature of the Angolan Civil War which made large scale, conventional clashes inevitable. Neither side was experienced in this type of warfare, and the first pitched battle at Cangamba in August 1983 highlighted both FAPLA and UNITA weaknesses in waging conventional operations. Cangamba's FAPLA garrison of one understrength brigade and less than a hundred Cuban advisors proved insufficient to hold the town perimeter against the 3,000 militants who surrounded their camp. Ten UNITA batteries with up to sixty captured FAPLA field guns bombarded Cangamba for nine days, deterring airdrops and pinning down the garrison, which was defending four strong points. UNITA's investment tactics were implemented and timed meticulously, relying on trenches dug inwards in a zigzag manner to encroach on the defenders. On August 14 South African Air Force Blackburn Buccaneer and English Electric Canberra bombers launched air strikes against the FAPLA positions. Despite both claiming victory, UNITA and FAPLA sustained severe losses, and Cangamba was demolished. The battle was ultimately of no strategic importance, but it heralded a new phase of intense campaigning that drew the Cuban and South African armies deeper into the Angolan conflict.

The Cangamba siege was of no strategic significance, but it introduced a new phase of intense campaigning that drew Cuba and South Africa deeper into the conflict.

Using captured FAPLA field guns,

The first major conventional battle between FAPLA and UNITA at Cangamba highlighted the and provided a foresight for the many bloody, inconclusive, conventi

The first major conventional battle between FAPLA and UNITA since 1975 was fought at Cangamba, where 3,000 UNITA troops made extensive use of captured Soviet artillery to bombard a settlement

procured on the European black market via South Africa's international contacts

This is not happening
Late 1978 saw South African special forces commence training UNITA militants in sabotage and light infantry tactics.

upplemented UNITA's arsenal with vast quantities of weaponry from Soviet arms captured from PLAN.

SADF officials also served as conduits for UNITA's arms purchases on the international black market, which they arranged through contacts in Western Europe.

smuggled untraceable arms to UNITA after procuring them on the black market, and donated vast quantities of Soviet-manufactured weaponry captured from PLAN.

[[File:FAPLA Military Regions 1986.png|thumb|FAPLA military regions, 1986. Areas with significant UNITA activity denoted in green. The location of major FAPLA bases are also marked

Within two years, the security situation in South-West Africa had deteriorated considerably. Angola's decision to extend support to PLAN opened up new infiltration routes into the border region from Cunene, and by February 1977 it became clear the insurgents were making full use of Angolan territory to renew their offensives. South Africa retaliated by throwing its support behind UNITA.

South African intelligence estimated there were 2,000 PLAN guerrillas already in Angola and 300 in South-West Africa. Another 1,400 remained in Zambia but were periodically being flown in successive groups to Angola for training. For the first time PLAN was in a position to offer a sustained threat to the SADF. In December 1977, South African Prime Minister B. J. Vorster made the decision to seize the initiative and expand SADF counter-insurgency operations inside Angola. Long columns of South African ground troops began crossing the border on a regular basis to confront PLAN guerrillas, while South African Air Force bombers struck with increasing frequency at PLAN training camps, equipment depots, and even unwary Cuban convoys. Angola complained of 675 airspace violations by South African aircraft in 1

, and the subsequent civil war soon highlighted South African concerns that PLAN and other potential Namibian guerrilla movements could be provided with an even greater outlet for training, material support, and sanctuary under the cover of escalating conflict in Angola.

Angolan independence brought this formal military cooperation to an abrupt end

Angolan independence put an abrupt end to this formal military cooperation

As the Portuguese ability to police the Angolan border was tenuous at best,

in Angola, PLAN's cadres repeatedly attempted to infiltrate bands of fighters in South-West Africa to attack white farms and government targets.

As Portugal's ability to police the 1,400 kilometre frontier between Angola and South-West Africa was tenuous at best, the region was soon infiltrated by PLAN.

began operating from bases there. The steady disintegration of effective Portuguese rule in southern Angola

the area was quickly infiltrated by PLAN.

Beginning in 1966 the separatist South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) challenged South African rule with force of arms.

Unfinished
As SWAPO's guerrilla wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia, frequently operated on both sides of the Angolan border,

People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the separatist South-West African People's Organisation, had challenged South African rule with a guerrilla insurgency since 1966. As PLAN operated on both sides of the border, the South African Defence Force (SADF) began crossing into Cuando Cubango to apprehend guerrillas before they could reach South-West Africa. After the Portuguese withdrawal, the SADF remained acutely aware that PLAN and other potential South African guerrilla movements could be provided with a new outlet for training, material support, and sanctuary under the cover of escalating conflict in Angola.

, frequently operating on b

The separatist South-West African People's Organisation, which had challenged South African rule with a guerrilla insurgency since 1966, operated on both sides of the Angolan border; it was clear

South African rule was challenged by the separatist South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), which had launched a guerrilla insurgency.

South African military interests were inextricably linked to Angola's southern neighbour, South-West Africa (Namibia)

South African involvement in Angola was inextricably linked to neighbouring South-West Africa (Namibia), a former German colony it

South African involvement in Angola dated back to World War I, when Allied troops occupied neighbouring South-West Africa (Namibia), then a German colony. Following the war, South-West Africa was administered by the South African authorities under a League of Nations mandate.

The end of Portuguse colonial rule

South African military interests

When Angola gained independence, South Africa's continued occupation of neighbouring South-West Africa, a former German colony it had administered under a defunct League of Nations mandate since World War I, was drawing fierce international criticism. The United Nations had already recognised the separatist South-West African People's Organization, a movement South Africa condemned as Marxist terrorists,

The separatist South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), which was recognised by the United Nations as the "sole legitimate representative" of the territory's people, was waging a guerrilla insurgency.

South African involvement in Angola dated back to World War I, when Allied troops occupied neighbouring South-West Africa (Namibia), then a German colony. Following the war, South-West Africa was administered by the South African authorities under a League of Nations mandate.

After 1963 the South African Defence Force (SADF) involved itself closely in the military affairs of Angola. By this point, South Africa's continued occupation of South-West Africa in defiance of the United Nations was drawing fierce international criticism, and in August 1966 the separatist South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) launched a guerrilla insurgency. With SWAPO operating on both sides of the Angolan border, the SADF and the Portuguese security service (PIDE) intensified collaboration. In addition to exchanges of visits with Portuguese military and police personnel, the South African Police was also authorised to undertake punitive campaigns in Angola; a likely pretext being that South-West Africans affiliated with SWAPO's People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) were operating with Angolan partisans. In May 1968, the SADF established a communications centre in Rundu to better coordinate aerial operations on behalf of the police as well as Portuguese ground forces. Additional SADF liaisons were stationed at joint headquarters near Cuito Cuanavale and Menongue.

In keeping with its own anti-guerrilla strategy, the SADF recognised the need to develop a regional cordon sanitaire that included not only support for the defence establishment in Angola, but also closer links with the security forces in Rhodesia and Mozambique. The aim of these policies was to develop a cooperative relationship with potential buffer states that would facilitate the process of resisting, or arresting the decolonisation process then gathering momentum elsewhere in Africa. Notwithstanding the collapse of Portuguese rule, the SADF was aware that PLAN and other potential South African guerrilla movements could be provided with a new outlet for training, material support, and territorial sanctuary under the cover of escalating conflict in Angola.

This 1,400 kilometre border fostered renewed cooperation between the two colonial administrations, which remained inextricably linked by shared economic and security interests. In 1945, Marcelo Caetano, then Minister of Colonies for Portugal, received South African premier Jan Smuts at a banquet in Lourenco Marques and spoke at length of "the many common problems which concern us in the great drama of adapting Europeans to African soil".

Ongoing concerns over the likelihood of a blatant South African invasion aimed at overthrowing the Angolan regime, or a major UNITA offensive with South African participation and support, ensured the continued presence of the

a blatant South African attack on the new Angolan regime, or

South African attack on the Angolan regime, or a major UNITA offensive with South

Cuban involvement in Angola began in 1965, when its military advisors present in the neighbouring Republic of the Congo began training Angolan guerrillas for their war against the Portuguese colonial establishment. Following Angolan independence, President Neto requested Cuban funding for the transshipment of arms, and about 500 men to help train the fledgling People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA). Meanwhile, the Soviet Union also provided substantial assistance to Neto's regime, supplying over three hundred million dollars' worth of technical equipment, arms, and ammunition.

provide substantial assistance to the three anti-MPLA leaders, with equipment, arms, ammunition and training.

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South Africa in particular was a prolific supporter of rebel movements such as UNITA which targeted governments that it believed were sympathetic to

which rival regimes reached across borders and forged alliances with rebel groups

used rebel groups in each other's countries as proxies.

Their backing of UNITA

followed the more common African pattern of

prompted a direct American foreign policy response.

Portugal waged a protracted counter-insurgency campaign within its African colonies from the early 1960s to 1974, the date on which Angola began to exercise full independence from Lisbon. In the thirteen years following the Baixa de Cassanje revolt, three separate nationalist movements emerged from the war between the Portuguese Army and local forces supported to varying degrees by the communist bloc.

The weak and rather ineffectual National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) recruited from Bakongo refugees in Zaire. A second, largely Ovimbundu guerrilla initiative against the Portuguese in southern Angola from 1964 was spearheaded by Jonas Savimbi and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). It remained handicapped by its geographic remoteness from friendly borders, by the ethnic fragmentation of the highland tribes, and the isolation of peasants on European plantations where they had little opportunity to mobilise.

Against the background of these simultaneous efforts, the rising of the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the east and Dembos hills north of Luanda came to hold special significance. Formed as a coalition resistance by the Angolan Communist Party, the organisation's leadership remained predominantly Ambundu and courted public sector workers in Luanda. Although both the MPLA and its rivals had accepted material assistance from the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, the former harboured strong anti-imperialist views and was openly critical of the United States and its support for Portugal. This allowed it to win important ground on the diplomatic front, soliciting support from nonaligned governments in Morocco, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the United Arab Republic.

Notes and citations

 * Notes


 * Citations