Operation Savannah (Angola) - Military Intervention

Military Intervention

South African involvement in Angola, part of what it termed the Border War, started in 1966 when SWAPO, a "liberation" force of Southwest Africa, began killing South Africans in that district. At that time SWAPO had its bases in Ovamboland and Zambia.

With the loss of the Portuguese as an ally and the possibility of leftist pro-SWAPO, anti-apartheid rule in the two former colonies (Angola and Mozambique), the apartheid regime would lose the remaining sections of its valued "cordon sanitaire" (buffer zone) between itself and hostile black Africa. SWAPO would have a safe haven from which to operate in Angola, and South Africa was confronted not only with the issue of another hostile government in the region but also of having to cross another border in pursuit of SWAPO.

The Angolan Civil War became a major Cold War conflict. The South Africans continued to aid UNITA, operate in and occupy parts of Southern Angola and Cubans remained stationed in the country. The USSR supplied weapons to Angola. The United States officially ended direct assistance to UNITA by the Clark Amendment but it was continued secretly and later again officially during the Reagan administration. The PRC withdrew its military advisers from Zaire, ending assistance for the FNLA.

Read more about this topic:  Operation Savannah (Angola)

Famous quotes containing the words military and/or intervention:

    I’m not a military man, Captain. War holds no romance for me. The side effects are repulsive.
    Richard Bluel, and Henry Hathaway. Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn)

    All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.
    Elaine Heffner (20th century)