Angola

In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuscinski went the other way, begging his was from Lisbon and comfort to Luanda—once famed as Africa's Rio de Janeiro—and chaos.

Angola, a slave colony later given over to mining and plantations, was a promised land for generations of poor Portuguese. It had belonged to Portugal since before there were English-speakers in North America. After the collapse of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal in 1974, Angola was brusquely cut loose, spurring the catastrophe of a still-ongoing civil war. Kapuscinski plunged right into the middle of the drama, driving past thousands of haphazardly placed check-points, where using the wrong shibboleth was a matter of life and death; recording his imporessions of the young soldiers—from Cuba, Angola, South Africa, Portugal—fighting a nebulous war with global repercussions; and examining the peculiar brutality of a country surprised and divided by its newfound freedom.

Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.

On 4 February 1961, the day regarded by the MPLA as the start of its national revolution, the storm broke. Taken unawares by the shock of the uprisings in Angola, and the subsequent bloody Bacongo insurrection on 15 March 1961, Portugal was to plunge its armed forces, untested since World War I, into an urgent counteroffensive.

In January 1961, Angola, one of Portugal's most thriving 'overseas provinces' was in the eye of a storm. A period of sustained growth in the 1950s, a golden decade of Portuguese African history, had led to Angola becoming one of Portugal's most prized possessions. National development plans were embarked on with zeal; new roads, railways, factories, harbors, airfields and settlements were built and exports increased dramatically. While the rest of Africa was in turmoil, Angola and Portuguese Mozambique seemed like oases of peace and progress.

Couched between its high-sounding principles and its policy of Luso-Tropicalism, Portugal marched ever onwards to the beat of its own drum, seemingly oblivious to its impending fate. Portuguese Prime Minister, Dr. Salazar, had ruled over Portugal's colonies with an iron fist for over thirty years, enforcing a draconian racial policy on the African territories, whereby the population of the New State was categorized into 'native', white and 'assimilated' groups, and the colonies as a whole, with their burgeoning economies, were bound to the dictates of the European state. The Angolan war has been described as the bloodiest colonial insurgency in the history of Africa south of the Sahara. But it was to become a conflict that Portugal would lose not on the battlefield, but in the hearts of its own citizens. After a thirteen-year war of attrition in Angola, and facing increasing setbacks in two of its other war-torn territories, an enervated Portugal with its weary armed forces would deal the final blow to itself.

Brutally honest and devoid of hyperbole, this is Roelf van Heerden's Executive Outcomes. / Unapologetic, unassuming and forthright, the combat exploits of Executive Outcomes (EO) in Angola and Sierra Leone are recounted for the first time by a battlefield commander who was physically on the ground during all their major combat operations. From fighting UNITA for the critical oil installations and diamond fields of Angola to the offensive against the RUF in Sierra Leone to capture the Kono diamond fields and the palace coup which ousted Captain Valentine Strasser, van Heerden was at the forefront. He tells of the tragedy of child soldiers, illegal diamond mining and the curse of government soldiers who turn on their own people; he tells of RUF atrocities, the harrowing attempt to rescue a downed EO pilot and the poignant efforts to recover the remains of EO soldiers killed in action. Coupled with van Heerden's gripping expose', hitherto unpublished photographs, order of battle charts and battle maps offer unprecedented access to the major actions as they took place on the ground during the heydays of EO.

General Jannie Geldenhuys is widely regarded as one of the leading military commanders South Africa has ever produced. As Chief of the South African Defence Force from 1985 to 1990 he brought his experience to bear on the South African Border War, and was part of the negotiating team which brought an end to the conflict in 1989. In this completely revised and updated edition, Geldenhuys reflects on a life defined as much by a military career spanning more than four decades as it was by politics and indeed the need for peace on the African sub-continent. This book covers the years before and during the protracted Border War. But rather than a blow-by-blow official history, it consists of Geldenhuys' personal experiences and insights. These include facts unknown to civilians and even to some high-ranking military officials. In particular, Geldenhuys sheds light on the final years of the conflict and the negotiated settlement. Geldenhuys also writes of his early years, as he evolved from a rugby-mad young subaltern officer to a deep-thinking, reflective man with ever-sharpening insights into, war, peace, politics and, most of all, himself.

Portugal was both the first and the last of the great European colonial powers. For 500 years Portugal had colonies in Africa. In 1960, as liberation movements swept across colonial Africa, the Portuguese flag still flew over vast expanses of territory across the continent. The spread of decolonization and the establishment of independent states whose governments were sympathetic to the cause of African nationalism led, in the early 1960s, to a series of wars in Angola (1961–1975), Guiné (1998) and Mozambique (1977). This book details each of these liberation movements, focusing on the equipment, uniforms and organization of the Portuguese forces.

Nineteen with a Bullet - A Paratrooper in Angola is a fast-moving, action-packed account of Granger Korff's two years' service during 1980-81 with the elite 1 Parachute Battalion at the height of the South African 'bush war' in South West Africa (Namibia) and Angola. Apart from the normal counter-insurgency activities of Fireforce operations, ambushing and patrols, to contact and destroy SWAPO guerrillas, he was involved in several massive South African Defence Force (SADF) conventional cross-border operations, such as Protea, Daisy and Carnation, into Angola to take on FAPLA (Angolan MPLA troops) and their Cuban and Soviet allies.

Korff s military 'career' is marred with controversy. He is always in trouble - going AWOL on the eve of battle; into battle; facing a court martial for beating up, and reducing to tears, a sergeant-major in front of the troops; fist-fighting with Drug Squad agents; arrested at gunpoint after the grueling seven-week, 700km Recce selection endurance march - are but some of the colorful anecdotes that lace this account of service in the SADF. Korff's writing is 'frontline' - punchy, brutal, self-deprecating and at times humorous - but always honest, providing the reader with what it was like to be one of apartheid's 'grunt' soldiers.

John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. After managing U.S. involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies, a book which remains the only detailed, insider's account of a major CIA "covert action."As a Marine, Stockwell was a CIA paramilitary intelligence case officer in three wars: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence. His military rank is Major. Beginning his career in 1964, Stockwell spent six years in Africa, Chief of Base in the Katanga during the Bob Denard invasion in 1968, then Chief of Station in Bujumbura, Burundi in 1970, before being transferred to Vietnam to oversee intelligence operations in the Tay Ninh province and was awarded the CIA Medal of Merit for keeping his post open until the last days of the fall of Saigon in 1975. In December 1976 he resigned from the CIA, citing deep concerns for the methods and results of CIA paramilitary operations in third world countries and testified before Congressional committees. Two years later, he wrote the exposé In Search of Enemies, about that experience and its broader implications. He claimed that the CIA was counterproductive to national security, and that its "secret wars" provided no benefit for the United States. The CIA, he stated, had singled out the MPLA to be an enemy in Angola despite the fact that the MPLA wanted relations with the United States and had not committed a single act of aggression against the United States. In 1978 he appeared on the popular American television program 60 Minutes, claiming that CIA Director William Colby and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had systematically lied to Congress about the CIA's operations.

Battle for Cassinga is written as a firsthand account by an ordinary South African paratrooper who was at the 1978 assault on the Angolan headquarters of PLAN, the armed wing of SWAPO. The book relates why the South African government took the political risk in attacking the fortress in an external operation and examines the SWAPO claims that Cassinga was a refugee camp guarded by a few PLAN soldiers. It also explains why Sam Nujoma the SWAPO leader had no option but to perpetuate this falsehood. The battle, although a resounding success, suffered some setbacks which could have been disastrous to the South African paratroopers had they not maintained the initiative. The improvisations made by the commander Col Jan Breytenbach ensured that a flawed jump and poor intelligence did not adversely affect the outcome. The unforeseen Soviet-made anti-aircraft guns used against both aircraft and ground troops threatened to derail the attack. An appearance of a large column of armor manned by Cubans from the nearby town of Techamutete, when half the South African force had already left the battleground, placed the remaining lightly armed paratroopers in mortal danger. The landmines laid by the South Africans, together with the brave actions of the South African Air Force pilots saved the day, allowing the remaining forces to withdraw safely. Battle for Cassinga looks at all the players in a critical light. SWAPO and PLAN, the SADF and the commanders from both sides, Dimo Amaambo of PLAN and Jan Breytenbach of the SADF as well as the brave soldiers from both sides who fought for their political ideologies but perhaps, more importantly, for their own band of brothers.

REVIEWS

"One of the most successful, daring airborne operations of all times" Lt-Col Robert Brown, Soldier of Fortune magazine

When Portugal’s colonial rule in Angola ended in 1974, three liberation groups—UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola), and MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola)—agreed to a tripartite movement for the fledgling nation. Conflicts quickly arose and the MPLA, with Cuban and Soviet assistance, drove its rivals from the capital, instigating a civil war, which continues into three periods (1975-1991, 1992-94, and 1998-2002). This volume covers the first period, focusing on the political history of the UNITA movement and its struggles with the MPLA.

The Angolan civil war was the product of personal jealousies, contrasting ideologies, and ethnic animosities. From its inception, the conflict between UNITA and Angola’s Marxist government was an international affair involving the U. S., the USSR, China, and many African states: W. Martin James III, who wrote his book near the close of the first period of civil war, contends that despite Gorbachev’s "new thinking" and talk of peaceful solutions to regional conflicts, Soviet policy toward Angola marked a reversion to the Brezhnev Doctrine. The biggest MPLA-Cuban offenses occurred during Gorbachev’s tenure with Soviet advisers at the brigade level directing an MPLA offensive.

American policy toward Angola is also examined here. This is the first book to emphasize the dynamic role of UNITA in the Angolan liberation movement. James acknowledges that the importance of foreign powers in guaranteeing a government of national reconciliation. Just as important are strategies of compromise requiring trust in a political context where it is violated and submission for the common good where defiance is a remnant of the colonial past. Foreign policy analysts, African area specialists, and scholars of post-colonial history find this volume indispensible.