Editing History of South Africa (section)

===Military operations in frontline states===
{{see also|South African Border War|Angolan Civil War}}

South African security forces during the latter part of the apartheid era had a policy of destabilising neighbouring states, supporting opposition movements, conducting sabotage operations and attacking ANC bases and places of refuge for exiles in those states.<ref>Stephen Ellis, ''Comrades against apartheid: the ANC and the South African Communist Party in exile.'' James Currey Publishers. p. 106.</ref> These states, forming a regional alliance of southern African states, were named collectively as the Frontline States: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and, from 1980, Zimbabwe.<ref>M Evans, [http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/Fronline%20States.pdf The Frontline States], ''Zambezia'' (1984/5), Vol XII, University of Zimbabwe. Accessed 11 April 2016.</ref><ref>Scott Thomas, ''The Diplomacy of Liberation: Foreign relations of the ANC since 1960'', London: I B Taurus 1996, p.18 {{ISBN|1850439931}}</ref>

[[File:SADF-Operations 4.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Members of [[44 Parachute Brigade (South Africa)|44 Parachute Brigade]] on patrol during the [[South African Border War]].]]

In early-November 1975, immediately after Portugal granted independence to its former African colony of Angola, [[Angolan Civil War|civil war]] broke out between the rival [[UNITA]] and [[MPLA]] movements. In order to prevent UNITA's collapse and cement the rule of a friendly government, South Africa intervened on 23 October, sending between 1,500 and 2,000 troops from Namibia into southern Angola in order to fight the MPLA.<ref>W. Martin James III (2011). ''A Political History of the Civil War in Angola 1974–1990''. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers, p. 65.</ref><ref>Meredith, Martin (2005). ''The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair, a History of Fifty Years of Independence'', p. 316.</ref> In response to the South African intervention, Cuba sent 18,000 soldiers as part of a large-scale military intervention nicknamed [[Operation Carlota]] in support of the MPLA. Cuba had initially provided the MPLA with 230 military advisers prior to the South African intervention.<ref>Bourne, Peter G. (1986), ''Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro'', New York City: Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 281, 284–287.</ref> The Cuban intervention was decisive in helping reverse SADF and UNITA advances and cement MPLA rule in Angola. More than a decade later 36,000 Cuban troops were deployed throughout the country helping providing support for MPLA's fight with UNITA.<ref>Wilson Center Digital Archives, International History Declassified, [https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/search-results/1/%7B%22search-in%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22term%22%3A%22Cuban+Armed+Forces%22%7D?recordType=Record Archive of the Cuban Armed Forces]. Accessed 12 November 2015.</ref> The civil war in Angola resulted in 550,000–1,250,000 deaths in total mostly from famine. Most of the deaths occurred between 1992 and 1993, after South African and Cuban involvement had ended.<ref>Inge Tvedten, Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction</ref><ref>SIPRI Yearbook: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute</ref><ref>[[Victoria Brittain]], ''Hidden Lives, Hidden Deaths: South Africa's crippling of a continent'', London: Faber 1990, p. 2, {{ISBN|0571142168}}.</ref>

Between 1975 and 1988, the SADF continued to stage massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate [[People's Liberation Army of Namibia|PLAN]]'s [[forward operating base]]s across the border from [[Namibia]] as well as provide support for UNITA.<ref name="Frontiersmen">{{cite book|title=Frontiersmen: Warfare in Africa since 1950|url=https://archive.org/details/frontiersmenwarf00clay|url-access=limited|last=Clayton|first=Anthony|location=Philadelphia|publisher=UCL Press, Limited|date=1999|isbn=978-1857285253|pages=[https://archive.org/details/frontiersmenwarf00clay/page/n145 120]–124}}</ref> A controversial bombing and airborne assault conducted by 200 South African paratroopers on 4 May 1978 at Cassinga in southern Angola, resulted in around 700 South West Africans being killed, including PLAN militants and a large number of women and children. Colonel Jan Breytenbach, the South African parachute battalion commander, claimed it was "recognised in Western military circles as the most successful airborne assault since World War II."<ref>Jan Breytenbach, ''They Live by the Sword: 32 Battalion, South Africa's Foreign Legion'', Johannesburg: Lemur 1990, p.180 {{ISBN|0620148705}}</ref> The Angolan government described the target of the attack as a refugee camp. The United Nations Security Council on 6 May 1978 condemned South Africa for the attack.<ref>UN Security Council, [http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=S/RES/428%20(1978)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION Resolution 435]</ref> On 23 August 1981 South African troops again [[Operation Protea|launched an incursion into Angola]] with collaboration and encouragement provided by the American [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA).<ref>Cambridge Journals, [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2464792 ''Review of Stockwell, In Search of Enemies''] accessed 27 April 2015</ref><ref>John Stockwell, ''In Search of Enemies'', London: Futura, 1979 pp. 193–96, 228–29, 214, 241 {{ISBN|0 7088 1647 9}}</ref> The Angolan army, in resisting what it perceived as a South African invasion, was supported by a combination of Cuban forces and PLAN and ANC guerrillas, all armed with weapons supplied by the [[Soviet Union]]. The apartheid-era South African military and political intelligence services, for their part, worked closely with American, British and West German secret services throughout the Cold War.<ref>Anthony Egan, Review of "The Hidden Thread: Russia and South Africa in the Soviet Era" by Irina Filatova & Apollon Davidson, ''Focus: Journal of the Helen Suzman Foundation'', issue 70, October 2013</ref>

Both South Africa and Cuba claimed victory at the decisive [[battle of Cuito Cuanavale]], which have been described as "the fiercest in Africa since World War II".<ref>Horace Campbell, [http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:288776/FULLTEXT01.pdf "Siege of Cuito Cuanavale"] ''Current African Issues'' No.10, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, pp.22–6 Accessed 27 April 2015</ref> However, the South African military had lost air superiority and its technological advantage, largely due to an international arms embargo against the country.<ref>Phyllis Johnson & David Martin, Apartheid Terrorism: The destabilisation report, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989, p.122 {{ISBN|0253331331}}</ref> South African involvement in Angola ended formally after the signing of a United Nations-brokered agreement known as the [[New York Accords]] between the governments of Angola, [[Cuba]] and South Africa, resulting in the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Angola and also South Africa's withdrawal from South West Africa (now Namibia), which the UN regarded as illegally occupied since 1966.<ref>UN General Assembly, res n° 2154 (XXI), 17 November 1966. Available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/21/ares21.htm [Recovered 1 October 2015]</ref><ref>United Nations, [http://peacemaker.un.org/namibia-genevaprotocol88 UN Resolution 435 of 1978] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518081735/http://peacemaker.un.org/namibia-genevaprotocol88 |date=18 May 2015 }} Accessed 1 May 2015</ref>

South Africa in the 1980s also provided logistical and other covert support to ''Resistência Nacional Moçambicana'' ([[RENAMO]]) rebels, in neighbouring Mozambique fighting the [[FRELIMO]]-run government during the [[Mozambique Civil War]], and it launched cross-border raids into [[Lesotho]], [[Swaziland]] and [[Botswana]], killing or capturing a number of South African exiles.<ref>B Turok (ed), ''Witness from the Frontline: Aggression and resistance in southern Africa'', London: Institute for African Alternatives, 1990 {{ISBN|1 870425 12X}}</ref><ref>Edgerton, Robert B, Africa's armies: from honor to infamy: a history from 1791 to the present (2002) p.109</ref><ref>"B&J": Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson, ''International Conflict: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Conflicts and Their Management 1945–1995'' (1997).</ref>