Operation Reindeer - Aftermath

Aftermath

On the 25 April, several days before the beginning of Operation Reindeer, the South African government had agreed to the Western nations proposal of a settlement in SWA/Namibia though these proposals had not been accepted by SWAPO. At the same time the UN General Assembly had begun a 10 day session to discuss South Africa's control of South West Africa and which ended on the day before the raid on the 4 May. The Angolan news agency was the first to report a raid on a refugee camp at Cassinga, on the same day it occurred and this made international news that evening. Because the South African government had failed to break the news of the raid first, it lost the initiative to control the flow of information. Finally, on the 5 May, the South African government responded to the international news of raid by explaining their reasons to the South African public and in later days had succeeded in convincing them of the importance of conducting the raid. During that day Radio Moscow was reporting a raid on a refugee camp and by that evening a special session of the UN Security Council was convened at the request of Angola. Sam Nujoma, SWAPO's leader, addressed the council calling for an full economic, oil and arms embargo of South Africa and resulted in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 428. By the 8 May, SWAPO and its leader Sam Nujoma had left the talks in New York due to a belief that negotiations for a settlement to the SWA/Namibia question would serve no purpose at this stage. The US representative to the United Nations would later claim that the Western Nations were a week away from gaining acceptance of their plan and the raid had destroyed those efforts. As to how many people died in the raid and whether there were women and children killed during the raid depends on whose side one wants to listen too. Figures from SWAPO and the Angolan government range from 582 to 624 killed in the Cassinga raid with 400 to 611 wounded and described as a mixture of combatants and civilians. The South African government figures ranges as high as 1000 PLAN combatants killed for Operation Reindeer with 200 captured. SADF casualties for Operation Reindeer were 7 dead and 39 wounded.