Somewhere on the border: Wits University Press; Ratels on the Lomba: Jonathan Ball Publishers; Combat, South Africa at war along the Angolan frontier: Halfway House Publishers
You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
How once you butchered prisoners. That was good!
I’m sure you felt no pity while they stood
Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.
(From “Atrocities” by Siegfried Sassoon)
LitNet readers who are historically inclined, may be interested in a powerful ten-minute monologue, The moth, newly available on YouTube, which deals with the personal cost of the Angolan War (1975 to 1989) and South Africa’s part in it.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--zeNIX27vo
Written by established South African-born actor and playwright Paul Herzberg, The moth is the latest literary/theatrical iteration on the Bush War, which in recent years has moved beyond somewhat dry academic books, to focus on the human drama itself and the effect on individual soldiers who took part. The moth is an apotheosis of this trend, with Dostoyevskyen Crime and punishment overtones of unbearable conscience.
The monologue is at once horrifying and moving, involving a ghastly choice.
The moth is Herzberg’s third theatrical offering on the Angolan War and South Africa’s involvement in it, and is making waves internationally. It was chosen as part of Black History Month and has been selected for a number of international short film festivals.
What prompted the author to develop themes related to a largely forgotten conflict that ended more than 30 years ago, was unaddressed trauma and political responsibility. Guilt and the complex nature of forgiveness are part of the mix. As Herzberg explains in an interview, “It is a big subject for me, whether it is ex-SADF soldiers, MPLA soldiers or Cuban soldiers. PTSD is a neglected topic in the aftermath of all wars. In The moth, John (the black character) has the burden of the trauma thrust upon him, and in turn passes it on to us. We are all in a state of ignorance prior to watching the piece. Marius (the former soldier) chooses John simply because he is there (as a coincidental fellow train passenger), and Marius grows in the aftermath of John’s unwillingness to give him forgiveness.”
War memoirs
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All wars in history, from the Greek heroes onwards, spawn such intense memoirs, long and short. They are a bedrock of classic literature. We are fascinated by them. They invite us to eavesdrop on the confessional. They are a form of writing therapy, a way of laying the ghost, and a psychiatrist is not needed to tell us that. But there is also more to it. War memoirs involve all of us, including the bystanders. They make the reader complicit.
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All wars in history, from the Greek heroes onwards, spawn such intense memoirs, long and short. They are a bedrock of classic literature. We are fascinated by them. They invite us to eavesdrop on the confessional. They are a form of writing therapy, a way of laying the ghost, and a psychiatrist is not needed to tell us that. But there is also more to it. War memoirs involve all of us, including the bystanders. They make the reader complicit. We are not exempt from responsibility for man’s cruelty to man, even if fighting for one’s country theoretically legitimises lethal warfare. Evelyn Waugh, in his great three-volume classic memoir of the Second World War (Sword of honour), quotes from The weeper (Richard Crashaw, 1646), dedicated to Mary Magdalene, who, in her repentance, cries copiously as she follows Christ:
And now, where’er he strays,
Among the Galilean mountains,
Or more unwelcome ways,
He’s followed by two faithful fountains,
Two walking baths, two weeping motions,
Portable and compendious oceans.
Waugh transfers the image of these weeping eyes to one of his characters; and, in truth, it might be an image that pertains eventually to all war writing, all over the world. Old soldiers, the poem seems to say, are ever haunted by the experience.
Coming to terms with the ghosts and sins of our past, guilt, self-loathing and absolution, is how reviewers have also characterised Playland by South African playwright Athol Fugard, which also has a former South African soldier as a principal. Other plays on the Angolan Bush War include Somewhere on the border by Anthony Akerman, and Herzberg’s own earlier Sweet like suga. All these plays have been performed in various countries abroad, which shows that the Angolan War has not been entirely forgotten by an international audience.
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South African writers in general have also attempted to do justice to the war. Dozens of titles have been published over the years, ranging from scholarly articles and books, to memoirs of all kinds.
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South African writers in general have also attempted to do justice to the war. Dozens of titles have been published over the years, ranging from scholarly articles and books, to memoirs of all kinds. A scan of the available literature discloses titles like Combat: South Africa at war along the Angolan frontier by Al J Venter, 19 with a bullet by G Korff, Apartheid’s Contras by William Minter, The SADF and Cuito Cuanavale by Leopold Scholtz, Angolan War of Liberation by Al J Venter, South African armour of the Border War 1975–89 (handbook), Back to Angola: A journey from war to peace by Morris Paul, Portugal’s war in Angola by Wim van der Waals, War in Angola: The final South African phase by HR Heitman, South East Angola 1966–1974 by N Junior, Ratels on the Lomba also by Leopold Scholtz, 32 Battalion by Piet Nortje, They live by the sword by Jan Breytenbach, The last hot battle of the Cold War by Peter Polack, Die brug: Na die hel en terug in Angola by Deon Lamprecht, Operasie Savannah by FJ du Toit and Avontuur in Angola: Die verhaal van Suid-Afrika se soldate in Angola 1975–1976 by Sophia du Preez.
Meanwhile, reporting and journalism have also resulted in books about the Angolan War such as Fragments of a forgotten war by Judith Matloff, an absolutely classic read, which covers the war in an intensely atmospheric and personal way. The personalities of the war have not been neglected either in, for example, Fred Bridgland’s The war for Africa: Twelve months that transformed a continent. This is a definitive account of the Angolan War updated in the latest editions.
Both Matloff and Bridgland are in the tradition of writers on Angola such as Another day of life's Ryszard Kapuściński, as well as the best of contemporary foreign correspondents like Janine di Giovanni, whose evocations of individual suffering in wartime bring to mind Second World War writers and reporters like Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway, et al.
All these titles reflect the general thrust of much of the South African literature on Angola to date. There are at least a dozen more books not mentioned here by South African authors on the Bush War – and more in the pipeline, one suspects. Sober and academic in many cases, but also, in other cases, recollecting the suffering and courage of the soldiers involved on all sides.
It should be added that a scan through books available on Angola by writers elsewhere in the world also shows a significant number being added to world libraries. Angola has naturally been an enormous field of study by Angolan and Portuguese scholars and writers, as well as academics and correspondents based in Cuba and Russia.
Paradoxically, the further the war recedes into folk memory and is supplanted by fresh crises in the world, eg Ukraine and Russia, the more pertinent the distant Angolan War becomes to modern generations. It is being refreshed. It was, after all, at bottom a proxy war between Russia and the West, of an intensity unmatched since the Second World War in Africa. The battle of Cuito Cuanavale alone was the largest set piece tank and artillery battle since Rommel versus Montgomery in North Africa. It was a war waged by Russia in support of the pro-Moscow MPLA with communist Cuba in support. Russian generals were on the ground in Angola, and Russian aircraft and artillery were the mainstays of the Angolan liberation movement of Dr Neto, while Cuban troops and pilots provided the manpower. In other words, Russia provided the cannon and Cuba the fodder. The other two liberation movements – FNLA and UNITA – received Chinese and American backing respectively. In the case of America, South African troops performed the mirror function of the Cubans.
Astute observers may also detect in the Angolan War the seeds of disagreement between the Cuban commanders and the Russian commanders who fell out over tactics and intelligence reports. The Cubans were generally in the right of it, and the Russians paid a heavy price for disregarding the experience and advice of their allies. We have still much to learn from the Russian conduct in the Angolan War, which might be applicable to their conduct in the war in Ukraine, not least in Russian readiness to ditch their allies when things go wrong. FAPLA, the military branch of the MPLA, was simply abandoned in the field on several occasions by the Russians, who are not without form in other parts of the world in this respect. The pro-Russian elements in Donetsk and Donbas and Crimea should not rest on their laurels too easily.
The Angolan War
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Much water has gone under the bridge since this war began as an uprising against Portuguese colonialism in 1964. Three indigenous movements tackled the Portuguese – MPLA, FNLA and UNITA. The MPLA drew support from metropolitan, educated Angolans, while the FNLA reflected the aspirations of the Bakongo ethnic tribal group, and the largest ethnic group in Angola, the Ovimbundu, were represented by UNITA.
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Much water has gone under the bridge since this war began as an uprising against Portuguese colonialism in 1964. Three indigenous movements tackled the Portuguese – MPLA, FNLA and UNITA. The MPLA drew support from metropolitan, educated Angolans, while the FNLA reflected the aspirations of the Bakongo ethnic tribal group, and the largest ethnic group in Angola, the Ovimbundu, were represented by UNITA.
In the mid-1970s, Moscow perceived an opportunity when Vietnam and Cambodian liberation movements achieved victory. Meanwhile, in Africa, the Russians ditched their Somali allies to make common cause with Ethiopia’s socialist rulers. Several other Russian alliances were cemented with Guinea, Madagascar, Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. Angola was seen as ripe for a good spot for a Russian/Soviet base, as was Mozambique.
The Portuguese revolution in 1974 led to an immediate decision to abandon the former colonies, and the Russians seized their moment to supply the socialist MPLA with vast quantities of artillery and light weapons. The pro-West FNLA couldn’t match the firepower and dwindled to almost nothing. Pretoria responded to this threat by deploying troops to the northern border of South West Africa, which was then still administering as a UN mandate.
For the Russians, the opportunity of gaining a strategic foothold on the west coast of Africa was too good to pass up. The Six-Day War in the Middle East had made the Suez Canal perilous for large oil tankers, which now used the Cape route. Control of Angola, followed by SWA/Namibia and eventually South Africa itself, would be a great prize for Moscow. The liberation movements of Namibia (SWAPO) and South Africa (the ANC) found themselves enjoying complete support by Moscow, and both SWAPO and the ANC established training camps in Angola.
The way the threat was seen from the West was that Moscow would gain access to South Africa’s mineral riches. Russian bombers, the Tu-95 Bears and the Tu-16 Badgers, would also present a serious threat to Cape sea routes if they gained operational bases in Angola.
Henry Kissinger, then the power behind American foreign policy, urged the South African Defence Force (SADF) to get involved on the side of pro-West UNITA. The scene was set for a classic proxy war when Cuban military forces began to land in Luanda.
Towards the end of 1975, both the SADF and the Cubans (armed by Russia) dramatically increased their firepower in Angola, and subsequent years saw a mix of conventional set piece battles taking place both in the air and on the ground. The detailed history of the war is too long and involved to elaborate on in this article, but several of the books mentioned earlier provide chapter and verse of every battle if readers are interested.
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Suffice it to say that by 1981, South African-built Eland light tanks were directly engaged in combat with Russian T-34 tanks. The T-34 tanks were easy pickings for the highly mobile Eland 90-mm guns, and so were gradually withdrawn and replaced by heavy artillery. Russian support for the MPLA at this stage of the war has been estimated at over a billion dollars.
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Suffice it to say that by 1981, South African-built Eland light tanks were directly engaged in combat with Russian T-34 tanks. The T-34 tanks were easy pickings for the highly mobile Eland 90-mm guns, and so were gradually withdrawn and replaced by heavy artillery. Russian support for the MPLA at this stage of the war has been estimated at over a billion dollars.
UNITA advanced towards the centre of Angola with South African air and ground troop support, and Moscow decided to deploy the latest hardware in response: surface-to-air missiles and the Russian tank T-62 MBT.
By 1985/6, the war had spread in deadly fashion. American stinger missiles supplied to UNITA brought down Russian aircraft, and the scene was set for open combat between SADF forces and Cubans at Cuito Cuanavale. Several artillery battles took place. Casualties were severe.
At this stage of the war, some 40 000 Cuban soldiers were deployed in Angola, and the SADF was being outgunned by sophisticated weaponry. Pretoria lacked the high altitude missiles and radar needed to deter the Russian MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets which were roaming freely across South African air space, and by 1988 the SADF fell back to the SWA border.
That was more or less the end of the Angolan Bush War in which South Africa was directly involved. Pretoria withdrew from SWA/Namibia at the conclusion of peace talks, and SWAPO won the election. UNITA carried on its war against the MPLA government in Luanda, but it was a hopeless cause, and Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was eventually killed. All sides left behind a legacy of countless landmines.
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Some 11 000 Cuban and MPLA soldiers are thought to have been killed in the fighting, while SADF troop fatalities were around 750. It is not known how many UNITA fighters were killed, but the figure is estimated to be in the thousands.
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Some 11 000 Cuban and MPLA soldiers are thought to have been killed in the fighting, while SADF troop fatalities were around 750. It is not known how many UNITA fighters were killed, but the figure is estimated to be in the thousands.
Civilian casualties were tragically heavy, with women and children being caught up in almost all attacks. As for the aftermath, that must be for historians to determine, but it is noteworthy that today Angola is open for tourism.