South Africa to Pull Its Troops Out of Angola
South Africa will withdraw its troops from Angola by the end of the week, Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said today.
South Africa invaded southern Angola in December, 1983, and said the raid was designed to eliminate guerrillas of the South-West Africa People’s Organization, which is fighting Pretoria for control of Namibia, formerly South-West Africa.
Pretoria agreed 14 months ago to a phased withdrawal of its forces provided Angola kept the vacated area free of SWAPO fighters and Cuban forces supporting the Luanda government.
But last year it stopped the pullback at Ngiva, 25 miles north of the Namibian border, saying SWAPO was still active in the region.
“Despite SWAPO’s continuing activities, the South African government has given instructions for the disengagement of the South African forces in the area in question from southern Angola to commence as soon as possible and to be completed this week,” Botha said today.
He said the safety of the people of Namibia would be assured from Namibia itself.
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