This was exacerbated by political developments on an international front. The actions of the South African government were condemned by just about everybody, including the main Western countries. Sam Nujoma, who was in New York for the UN Security Council debate on Namibia, withdrew from all talks and returned to Lusaka, no doubt delighted by the propaganda victory so unexpectedly handed to him.[78]
Nevertheless, Operation Reindeer as a whole was a strategic turning point in the Border War. As Constand Viljoen said, it was Reindeer “which determined the South African military strategy for the next decade: the concept of pre-emptive strikes”.[79] The military and the political leaders saw that SWAPO had been dealt a hammer blow and that the concept was strategically and operationally sound. From the South African perspective, the world huffed and puffed, but could not blow South Africa over. And therefore, in Chester Crocker’s words, “Angola became the centrepiece of the SADF’s anti-SWAPO strategy in the Namibian bush war . . .”[80]
Was Reindeer worth it? The answer will, no doubt, depend on your point of view. On the one hand, it can be reasoned that South Africa squandered a chance for peace, and that the result was a very difficult ten years of war, which brought enormous suffering and hardship. On the other, SWAPO’s commitment (see Chapter 10) to democracy was extremely doubtful, to put it mildly. It can be said that, by prolonging the war over another decade, the SADF bought time for a better and more durable peace to ripen.
What cannot be denied, in any case, is that the South African government in May 1978 was not yet ready to accept the possibility of free and fair elections under UN supervision, which could bring a SWAPO government to power in Windhoek. As PW Botha wanted, the military option was not yet played out – not by a long chalk. Much more blood and tears would flow in the coming years.
6
Immediately after Operation Reindeer, Military Intelligence started to contemplate the possibility of a SWAPO revenge operation. “Trustworthy sources in Zambia,” it was reported, indicated that the movement had taken an oath to avenge Cassinga and Chetequera. Attacks were expected on targets with a relatively high population density, such as Ruacana, Oshakati, Ondangwa, Oshikango, Rundu and – prophetically, as it turned out – Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip. Reindeer had weakened SWAPO in Angola sufficiently so as to preclude attacks against well-defended targets. “SWAPO in Zambia has the best capacity to act against targets in SWA,” the analysis stated. Central Ovamboland and the Caprivi Strip were specifically named as high-risk areas.[1]
The analysts were spot-on. In the early morning hours of 23 August 1978, SWAPO’s revenge came in the form of a series of 122-mm rockets fired from Zambian soil on the frontier town of Katima Mulilo at the eastern extremity of the Caprivi Strip. In fact, Military Intelligence knew through radio intercepts that an attack was coming, and the SADF had frantically prepared countermeasures. The bombardment turned out to be very inaccurate, only two of the 30-odd rockets falling in Katima itself. One damaged a school in the black township; the other landed on a dormitory containing sleeping soldiers, killing ten and wounding another ten. At the same time, a mortar attack was launched on Wenela base, not far away, but all bombs missed.[2]
The South Africans retaliated at once with everything they had. Within minutes, a troop of 140-mm guns started a counter-bombardment. Reinforcements, in the form of paratroopers and additional 140-mm guns, were flown in from Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom. The previous evening, the local commander, Commandant AK de Jager, had already organised his meagre forces into two combat teams, with armoured cars and motorised infantry supported by the artillery. They crossed the border even as the smoke was still billowing into the air at Katima.
One combat team moved rapidly to a PLAN base about 30 km inside Zambia, but discovered there that the estimated 200 guerrillas had already fled. The other team ran into resistance nearby. With the paratroop reinforcements having arrived, the SADF attacked SWAPO furiously. Alouette gunships circled in the air, taking pot shots at the guerrillas. The South Africans hunkered down for the night, while South African and Zambian artillery and mortars fired at each other. The next day, some of the Zambian bases were blasted by Canberra and Buccaneer bombers. After this, SWAPO scattered in all directions, and, although the pursuit lasted a while longer, there were no more advantages in continuing. By the afternoon of 27 August, all SADF soldiers were safely back in South West Africa. SWAPO’s casualties were estimated at 20 dead and an unknown number of wounded.
These events set in motion a process that would cause the rebel movement much grief. To begin with, the attack on Katima coincided with a visit to SWA of the Austrian general Hannes Philipp, the designated commander of the proposed UN peacekeeping force, which had to supervise elections in accordance with Security Council Resolution 435. His SADF counterpart in Windhoek, Major General Jannie Geldenhuys, immediately took advantage of this event to prove to the international community SWAPO’s aggressive intentions and its disregard for civilian lives. According to Geldenhuys, the Katima incident led to a “more advantageous climate for cross-border operations”.[3]
The SADF exploited this opening to the full. The government – the aggressive PW Botha had by now replaced the cautious John Vorster as prime minister – authorised two cross-border operations, Rekstok (in Angola) and Saffraan (in Zambia), in early March 1979. These came after PLAN launched mortar attacks on SADF bases on 13 and 26 February.[4] Not much has been written about these two operations, except that they were meant to hit SWAPO bases in the shallow area across the borders in Angola and Zambia. Very little action was seen, as SWAPO had already evacuated all its positions, but one of the SAAF’s irreplaceable Canberra bombers was shot down by SWAPO anti-aircraft fire.[5]
Some South African officers saw these two operations as failures, but they may have judged them too harshly. According to Geldenhuys, his primary objective was not so much to cause material damage to SWAPO, as to gather information. “The information we got from these operations, made the enemy picture much clearer . . . If these operations did not take place, we would have remained in the dark for much longer. From this time on we could act much more effectively.”[6]
Perhaps the most important outcome was a strategic one. Zambia’s President Kenneth Kaunda was severely embarrassed by the SWAPO presence on his soil and the forceful SADF response. Consequently, he halted all PLAN military actions. As Geldenhuys put it: “This was the big breakthrough. It made East Caprivi free from insurgence. This was the beginning of the fulfilment of our plan.”[7]
When we look at the counterinsurgency war in northern SWA in Chapter 9, the full implications of this decision will become clear. Suffice to say here that this was a prerequisite for Geldenhuys’s aspiration to limit the PLAN insurgency to Ovamboland.
The build-up to Operation Sceptic
One result of Operation Rekstok was that SWAPO withdrew its bases from the shallow areas just north of the border to deeper inside Angola.[8] This meant that future South African cross-border operations would have to penetrate considerably deeper into Angola to get at the rebel movement.
A pattern was slowly starting to develop. During the rainy season, a veritable deluge of insurgents would cross the border into South West Africa, taking advantage of the protection afforded by the lush foliage and water in the many streams and rivers. During these months, it was difficult to locate them at their bases in Angola. Therefore the SADF started launching big conventional cross-border operations during the dry winter months when it was easier to move large numbers of vehicles north of the border. The winter was also the time when PLAN regrouped its forces to recuperate and to do retraining, which made it an even more attractive time to attack them.[9]
Another element of this evolving pattern was the SADF’s excellent strategic capability to intercept enemy radio communications. Neither SWAPO nor FAPLA nor the Cubans ever realised it, but the vast majority of their radio messages were intercepted and decrypted. As General Georg Meiring, who used to be a signaller