SADF: 1981: South Africa Kills some Soviet Officers & captures a Russian in fighting in Angola
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Ten Years After Apartheid (1994-2004): The Raw Facts
This is an article I wrote in 2004, exactly 10 years after hideous Black rule descended upon us. In here are lots of statistics and short bullet points showing the nightmare that South Africa had descended to under Black Communist rule.
South Africa said today that its soldiers had killed some Soviet army officers and captured a warrant officer during its eight-day operation in Angola against black nationalist guerrillas.
A statement issued here by Defense Minister Magnus Malan said South African forces had made contact during the fighting of the last week with Soviet officers working with Angola-based guerrillas of the South-West Africa People’s Organization.
”In the skirmishes, some of these officers, among others, were killed,” General Malan said. ”A Russian warrant officer was also taken prisoner.” A warrant officer ranks between an enlisted man and a commissioned officer.
No Reaction From Moscow
In Moscow, the Soviet Government had no immediate reaction to South Africa’s assertion, but criticism of the South African raid in Angola was again carried by Soviet newspapers and broadcasts. (Page A8.)
Under a 20-year Angolan-Soviet friendship treaty signed in 1976, Moscow has sent develo pment and aid experts t o Angola, but it has never acknowledged having military personnel there.
Sightings of Soviet officers in Angola have been reported in the past, and Angolan guerrillas backed by South Africa asserted last year that they had captured two Soviet pilots there. Earlier Reports Unconfi rmed
But the guerrillas, members of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola under Jonas Savimbi, produced only photographs of two men, and they were never brought before Western reporters.
If the captured man mentioned by General Malan proves to be a Soviet soldier, this would be the first direct evidence of some Soviet military presence in Angola.
In Washington, the State Department said that the United States had no independent confirmation of the South African Defense Minister’s statement. Dean Fischer, the departmental spokesman, said that, if accurate, the statement ”would increase concern in Washington about developments in southern Africa.”
However, a State Department official estimated today that there were 1,000 Soviet and East German military advisers in Angola. While the South Africans have battled Angolan troops during their current operation and, according to today’s statement, some Soviet officers, there have been no reports of contact with the 19,000 or more Cuban soldiers who have been in the country since 1975, when it received its independence from Portugal. South Africans Aided Losing Side
The Cubans arrived there then to help the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola defeat South African-supported Angolan guerrillas and establish a Marxist Government. The Savimbi guerrillas withdrew into the bush, and they claim to control the sparsely populated southern third of the country.
General Malan said the Soviet warrant officer was captured in the town of Xangango, 60 miles from the border with South-West Africa, and that the officers who were killed had participated in heavy fighting near that town.
(In Pretoria, a military spokesman said, according to United Press International, that the South African withdrawal from Angola announced Friday had halted in the town of Ngiva, 25 miles from the border, because of land-mined roads and vehicle repairs. He denied Angolan statements that the cause was a counterattack by Angolan troops.) An Attack on Rebel Camps
South Africa said its troops moved into Angola last week to strike at camps of the South-West Africa People’s Organization, which has been staging guerrilla attacks for 15 years to back demands for independence for the territory also known as Namibia.
”There can be no doubt,” General Malan said today, ”that the terrorist organization Swapo is given ideological and material support by the Soviet Union.”
He said the contact with Soviet officers proved what he described as the widely suspected Soviet involvement with ”terrorist movements.”
”Besides these incidents, providing indisputable evidence of the Russian involvement, an enormous amount of Russian propaganda material was found in Swapo headquarter areas, clearly indicating the Russian aspirations with southern Africa,” General Malan said. Reports Tell of Russian Snapshots
Foreign correspondents taken into southern Angola by the South African Defense Force last weekend spoke of seeing Marxist posters, Russian snapshots and maps covered with writing in Russian.
General Malan said: ”The South African Government trusts that the Western world will take serious note of this and that this evidence will lead to a more balanced approach by the Western powers.”
The South African forces have said that the operation of the last week has resulted in the deaths of at least 400 Angolan soldiers and black nationalist guerrillas. They also said that the raiders had succeeded in knocking out radar and antiaircraft installations. The installations were said to have made it difficult for South Africa to provide air cover for troops pursuing insurgents returning from South-West Africa to bases in Angola.
Angola has charged that South Africa had massed 45,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion beginning Aug. 24. This has been denied by South Africa, and some accounts have put the number of men involved in the operation at about 4,000.
Video: S.Africa: Untold Story: When Whites tried to build tens of millions of houses for Blacks
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