Angola the Failure of Operation Savannah 1975

By Miguel Junior

After 1974, the South African involvement in the war in Angola begins with the triggering of Operation Savannah, a large-scale military land offensive that began in October 1975. But the military offensive land forces of the South African Defence Forces were faced with the Widespread Popular Resistance and Operation Carlota, military action designed to halt the South African offensive impulse. Under these conditions, the armed conflict in Angola becomes a conventional war because of the dimension of the forces involved and the amount of technical military resources employed by the players. Over the course of the war, there were offensive moves; defensive manoeuvres; and all kinds of fire, friction, resistance, incursions, combat, retreats, and marches until the South African Defence Forces were expelled from Angolan territory on March 1976. In general, this book analyses Operation Savannah and its developments from a strategic-operational and tactical point of view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504941303

Miguel Junior

Miguel Junior is a general officer of the Angolan Armed Forces and military historian. He is author of several works and has published articles on defense, security and history.

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ANGOLA

THE FAILURE OF OPERATION

SAVANNAH 1975

MIGUEL JUNIOR

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© 2015 Miguel Junior. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse  04/17/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4129-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4128-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4130-3 (e)

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Contents

Acronyms

Introduction

Instituto do Pensamento

1.   The Decolonization of Angola and Southern Africa (1974–1975)

Lieutenant General Justino da Glória*

2.   The Operation Savannah and the International Law

General José Luís C. H. Sousa*

3.   Resistance to Operation Savannah

General Mbeto Monteiro Traça*

4.   The Inconvenient Friend: The United States, South Africa, and the Decolonization of Angola

Professor Doctor Tiago Moreira de Sá *

5.   Essay on Operation Savannah

Lieutenant General Carlos Miguel de Sousa Filipe*

6.   From the Battle of Ebo to the Counter-Offensive

General Luís Pereira Faceira*

7.   The Consequences and Tactical Lessons of Operation Savannah

Lieutenant Colonel Rui Nicau*

8.   The Combative Actions of FALA (Center, East, and South), 1975

General Renato Campos*

9.   The Failure of Operation Savannah, 1975

Lieutenant-General Miguel Junior*

10.   FALA and the Long March

General Peregrino I. W. Chindondo*

Endnotes

Acronyms

Introduction

In 1975, in the context of decolonization, a crisis that results in a war without precedent begins in Angola. As a result, foreign protagonists, such as South Africa, become involved in the armed conflict. The South African involvement begins with the triggering of Operation Savannah, a large-scale military land offensive that began in October 1975. But the military offensive land forces of the South African Defence Forces were faced with widespread popular resistance and Operation Carlota, military action designed to halt the South African offensive impulse.

Under these conditions, the armed conflict in Angola becomes a conventional war because of the size of the forces involved and the amount of technical military resources employed. Over the course of the war, there were offensive moves, defensive manoeuvres, all kinds of fire, friction, resistance, incursions, combats, retreats, and marches until the South African Defence Forces were expelled from national territory on March 1976.

Angola between 1975 and 1976 was filled with military events related to war and the art of war. It’s precisely in this scenario that Operation Savannah, unleashed by the Forces for the Defence of South Africa, fits.

In view of the studies of war and security, the Army Command (in partnership with the Institute of Thought) organized the Operation Savannah Conference, which took place at the Army Command Headquarters on 15 and 16 June 2011. The conference had several objectives, namely:

• Study OperationSavannah and its developments.

• Analyse the operation from a strategic operational and tactical point of view.

• Provide reflection and debate on the operation.

• Evaluate the set of countermeasures taken by FAPLA and FAR.

• Check combative actions of the period under review, which involved FAPLA, ELNA, and FALA; check other issues, such as the decline in FALA in the context of the long march that took place between 1975 and 1976.

In the end, the central idea of the conference was to analyse Operation Savannah and encourage debate in the context of military art in order to enrich the Angolan military philosophy. Also, the conference allowed those knowledgeable about the matters to articulate ideas about international relations, diplomacy, security, defence, and military history.

The lectures presented about this chapter of Angola’s recent history are gathered in this work.

Instituto do Pensamento

1.  The Decolonization of Angola and Southern Africa (1974–1975)

Lieutenant General Justino da Glória

¹

a) Introduction

The objective of this work is to analyse the decolonization of Angola and the positioning of superpowers and the external interventions (with emphasis on South Africa, the country which initiated Operation Savannah in Angolan territory in 1975). The purpose is not to record an exhaustive historical analysis about everything that happened in Angola. Rather, the purpose is to create a map of the events that occurred between 1974 and 1975 in the face of external constraints and a world that was divided into zones of influence between the two superpowers of the time.

Thus, this work is divided into three parts containing data intrinsic to the decolonization – either in chronological order or from a sequential and logical point of view. To this end, the first and second parts describe the evolution of the situation in Angola after the events of 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The third and last part describes the various external influences, with emphasis on South Africa.

b) The Revolution of 25 April 1974

The Revolution of 25 April 1974 marked the end of a long, colonial dictatorship and paved the way for the independence of Portuguese territories in Africa (and for the democratization of Portugal). To the more attentive observers, 25 April was the first clear sign of how Angola would become a zone of influence and of dispute between the major powers who were always interested in feeding old divergences between the Angolan liberation movements. The decolonization of Angola was, however, inevitable.

Nevertheless, in the context of the Cold War and of the East–West confrontation, the greatest concern was not the attitude of the colonizer, but the role in the process of decolonization of Angola that was being transferred from the binomial Portugal and its Liberation Movements to the trinomial United States of America, Soviet Union, and China. Moreover, Portugal’s less decisive role was highlighted by an American sociologist, John Marcum, a specialist on Angola, when he said: By the early 1970s, there were ample signs that Portugal’s days as a Euro–African power were numbered.²

The aforementioned trinomial was not, however, a guarantee for the future of Angola in terms of political choices. After all, it was the most heated moment of the Cold War, and it dramatically affected the balance of power in southern Africa.³ It was an indirect dispute of hegemony. And Portugal could not be as concerned as they wished with Angola because they too were experiencing internal political and economic instability.

For the great powers, Angola represented the forbidden fruit of all the Portuguese colonies due to its strategic position in the southern zone, its wealth, and its proximity to other equally important areas, such as the former Zaire and South Africa/Namibia. On the other hand, for the Angolans the independence was poisoned fruit, despite ongoing efforts to decolonize the country.

c) The Decolonization of Angola, 1975

On 15 May 1974, Antonio de Spinola took office as president of the Portuguese Republic. Because his nation was the object of international pressures demanding decolonization, Spinola sought reinforcements and aid. His preoccupation with saving Angola reminded him of Richard Nixon’s advice, which Marcello Caetano had refused, in 1972.

The advice was as follows: Leave Guinea […], increase pressure in Angola, which is yours. (For a better understanding of the reasoning, it’s important to review the matters at hand.) Marcelo Caetano defended, since the 1960s, a federal approach to colonies, but the United States had proposed to Portugal a concentration of forces in Angola and Mozambique that could be used to take control of the colony instead of Guinea, which had proclaimed its independence in September 1973. This advice was not followed because Marcelo Caetano knew that, after the recognition of the independence of Guinea, it would be impossible to find another solution for Angola and Mozambique on the sidelines of their independence.

On 18 June 1974, aiming to find help, Antonio de Spinola met with the American President, Richard Nixon, at the Lajes Air Base Officers’ facilities. Spinola was looking for ways to keep the MPLA away from Angola’s independence conversations. Among the liberation movements, the MPLA was seen most favourably by the Movement of Armed Forces (MFA) and by the Portuguese government because their ideological preferences were aligned.

However, on 26 July 1974, the Portuguese council of state adopted the 7/74 law, which acknowledged the right to self-determination, with all its consequences, including the independence of the overseas territories. This law was a crucial instrument for the consolidation of Portugal’s international prestige and for the affirmation of its credibility among developing nations as one of the drivers of its foreign policy.⁴ But in Portugal, there were certain circumstances that led to the indication of a National Salvation Council (Junta de Salvação Nacional – JSN).

On 9 August 1974, the National Salvation Council announced the first formal for decolonization program, which they hoped would produce greater emancipation coupled with guarantees (thanks to the political profile of the council members).

Because Angola was the colony everyone wanted to preserve, several projects for power transition were created, from a federalist perspective to a position similar to the one designed for Brazil in 1822. However, these proposals would not solve the Angolan problem. According to revelations by Jorge Mendes, then vice president of the Portuguese legislative assembly, a plan for the independence of Angola had been projected for August 1974. It would be a fictional plan that would include conflicts with Lisbon and an impasse with the colony. The governor at the time, Dr Santos e Castro, would take advantage of this moment and unilaterally proclaim the independence of Angola.⁵

Despite the new Portuguese ruling class aiming to perform a rapid decolonization of Angola, the president of the republic, General Antonio de Spinola, had announced that he would personally conduct the process. Within the context that it [was] necessary to save Angola for the formation of a state, such as Brazil in Africa

It was clear that this expression – a state such as Brazil in Africa – had the sole purpose of concealing the intention to forge a Rhodesian-type independence, as proclaimed by the white minority in intimate connection with the colonial metropolis, whose economic interests would be secured.

Angola’s fate was always very close to the conflict between General Antonio de Spinola and the Movement of Armed Forces as soon as the 7/74 law was adopted.

Yet Spinola’s strategy included the secret meeting with the president of former Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, on 14 September 1974 on the Island of Sal, Cape Verde. There Mobutu requested Spinola’s support for Holden Roberto and proposed the separation of Cabinda from the Angola negotiations in order to give priority to FLEC and get support for the creation of a Zaire–Angola–Cabinda Federation. This new entity would be presided over by Mobutu with Holden Roberto as his vice president.⁶

Spinola agreed, but only under specific conditions: Mobutu had to support Spinola with the African heads of state in terms to his foreign policy and ensure the permanence, for twenty years, of Portuguese companies and a few multinational companies established in Angola. Finally, Mobutu would have to support him in a federal project that integrated Mozambique and Guinea.⁷ Spinola and Mobutu also collaborated on an alternative plan for a provisional government in Luanda, where the coalition would rely on FNLA, UNITA, and other representatives – in particular, the white minority, not including MPLA.⁸ In the meantime, because his plan didn’t succeed and he could not work around MFA, General Antonio de Spinola resigned from the presidency before the council of state on 30 September 1974.

Under these circumstances, the new president of the republic, General Francisco da Costa Gomes, took over the process of decolonization and firmly placed Angola on the road to independence. Of course, those actions allowed the liberation movements to have an active role in the process of decolonization.

When those actions were set in motion, the distrust began to be mitigated and hopes of a federalist solution for Angola began to dissipate (along with the dream of creating a Luso–Afro–Brazilian community). Another aspect to take into account is the fact that the unexpected resignation of President Antonio de Spinola diminished, to some extent, the United States’ desire to fend off pro-Soviet forces of MPLA from the future leadership of an independent Angola.⁹

In the