Bungled S.A. mission ‘a serious set-back’

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 10

Bungled S.A. mission ‘a serious set-back’

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg South African State radio acknowledged yesterday that the capture of three of the country’s soldiers in northern Angola was a serious diplomatic set-back. “South Africans cannot be unaware of the potentially high cost to the country of such an incident,” the radio said in a commentary that usually represents Government thinking.

Two of the soldiers were killed and the third captured in a clash with Angolan troops in the oil-rich Cabinda enclave last week. Angola said they were trying to sabotage American owned oil installations, while the South African Government said they were on a vital Intelligence-gath-ering mission. Western diplomats have said the episode, a month after South Africa apparently honoured a year-old agreement to pull its troops out of Angola, could have

serious implications for Pretoria’s relations with the United States and black Africa.

The radio called the bungled mission a “serious diplomatic setback,” adding: “It is a setback in the advantage it gives to those in the West who believe nothing good and everything bad about South Africa, and who are not particular about the methods they use in furthering their vendetta against it.” The radio sought to justify the soldiers’ presence in Angola. It said two groups of anti-South African rebels had large training camps there — the African National Congress, which wants to topple the white South African Government, and the South West Africa People’s Organisation, which opposes South African rule over Namibia (South West Africa). Namibia, which South Africa rules in defiance of the United Nations, borders

Angola and Pretoria says it sent troops over the frontier late in 1983 to root out S.W.A.P.O. bases.

Yesterday’s commentary said South African troops had pulled out, but Angola had not undertaken its side of the withdrawal pact — to stop S.W.A.P.O. rebels moving back into the vacated area.

It also alleged that the A.N.C. had large camps in northern Angola from which “trained terrorists” were taken to South Africa through other countries. “For the security forces to have ignored that would have been a gross dereliction of their duty,” said the commentary. South Africa “openly threatened with revolutionary subversion,” had to discover the plans of its enemies. “That is the survival imperative that any State has to weigh against the risk of a mishap and subsequent exposure,” the radio said.