Episode 76 – Turned SWAPO cadres, Recce pseudo-operations & Soviet air strategy

South African Border Wars

It’s 1984 and the special forces have been busy as you heard in the last episode. The waterborne operations were on the go, but so too were ops into southern Angola with 32 Battalion changing its colours so to speak. They began to patrol the area dressed in SWAPO uniforms, so much for the SADF’s promise to adhere to the terms of a Joint Monitoring Commission where they’d promised to pull all their forces out of the region.
It became a game of cat and mouse between the SADF and FAPLA about who’d be tripped up in the lying game first. The special Forces were increasing what were known as pseudo operations – which the Selous Scots had used to great effect during the Rhodesian Bush War, or the Zimbabwean War for independence depending on your political position.
A large number of the Scouts had made their way south to join the SADF and were now integrated in different units. By August 1984 SWAPO had declared the far east of Ovamboland as a liberated area, with the cadres roaming around the bush and villages freely, visiting kraals and receiving food and support from the locals.
They also collected intelligence from the villagers, and the SADF’s hearts and minds campaign which elements of 32 had tried so hard to initiate had failed. The Recces had a new role to play here.
The vegetation in this part of the border is extremely dense, with large thickets of acacia thorn trees, and the going was hard. The sand is soft in most places along the rivers, but this also made it far easier to track SWAPO when they crossed the cutline. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander – SWAPO could also track the special forces.
Further west, the SADF had setup a special forces area in Ondangwa called Fort Rev, where the pseudo-operations concept was being fully exploited. It was a secret base alongside Ondangwa Air Force Base, and was full of ex-SWAPO soldiers.
These men were known as masters of the bush, despite what the SADF soldier thought about them. The Recces had a completely different view of their enemy and were now working with dozens of SWAPO who’d switched sides. These men knew the area intimately and could speak the local dialects. They were smuggled in an out of this secret base for obvious reasons.
By September 1984 and the Soviets had just taken over command in Angola from the Cubans, shocked into action by FAPLAs defeat during Operation Askari.
The Soviets wanted to start a series of large-scaled offensives with all the firepower at their disposal to crush UNITA in the east. The Cubans preferred the Chinese way, the Vietkong way, to adopt a classic counterinsurgency approach. The Russians began to taunt the Cubans for failing to stand up and fight, always darting about, and avoiding full-scale clashes with the South Africans.
Moscow was going to deploy their new air support systems in two phases. Firstly they would support the MPLA more closely, perhaps even using ground support, and second, they would increase air support in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mocambique.