How South Africa Aided Savimbi's Guerrillas

 
Whereas the FNLA troops effectively disintegrated after losing the civil war, on the contrary, the UNITA troops re-grouped and launched guerrilla warfare against the victorious MPLA. Immensely aided by South Africa, Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA followers established guerrilla bases in the forests of central and southern Angola - the provinces the MPLA government has hardly any control over.
 
In its relentless effort to destabilise the Angola government, South Africa devised a strategy of sustaining the MPLA-UNITA civil war. Under the pretext of pursuing SWAPO guerrillas (nationalist freedom fighters of the South African-occupied Namibia), South African armed forces invaded southern Angola and remained there. But the real reason behind the invasion to prop up Savimbi's UNITA and hence to bog down Angola in perpetual belligerence. South Africa provided Savimbi with military equipment, logistics, transport, propaganda and public relations facilities, and sometimes troops.
 
Jonas Savimbi
 
South African withdrawal definitely meant the effective collapse of UNITA's military muscle-the cover under which Savimbi claimed that he controled a large portion of Angola's territory.
 
Due to the presence of South African troops in Angola and a possible massive invasion of Angola by South Africa, and to a lesser extent the guerrilla activities of UNITA, the MPLA government decided to retain the Cuban soldiers in Angola. In his prolific propaganda, Savimbi gave the impression that his troops were almost daily fighting Cubans- whatever the validity of the claim.
 
South Africa complicated Angola's problems further by refusing to negotiate Namibia's independence before the Cuban troops were withdrawn from Angola. Is the MPLA government gullible enough to succumb to such a trick?

National Movements and New States in Africa