The First Casualty Of War

ALLOW me a space to express my views by instigating a historical debate. Reading my souvenir copy of The Namibian dated 12-18 August 1988 published in the edition of 27 February 2013, I was once again reminded of the saying “the truth is the first casualty of any war”.Under a cartoon showing South African troops surrounded by combat tanks, appears the caption: “Reports from various parts of the world say South Africa had a number of troops trapped inside Angola behind Fapla and Cuban lines and that this is what motivated it to negotiate for a cease [fire] with Angola and Cuba. South Africa denies the charges.”

To put it bluntly, the so-called “reports” from various parts of the world were all wrong and the South Africans were right in denying such fictitious reports.Unfortunately Namibia’s liberation struggle was characterised by that kind of fiction innocently published by the gullible editors who either had no time to ask questions or were simply too willing to play along.
How do you trap a number of South African troops behind Fapla/Cuban lines in Angola in the 1980s? Anyone with a limited knowledge of the situation and the geography would tell you that it  was simply not possible to “trap” South African troops behind non-existent Fapla/Cuban lines.
Such a scenario was neither possible in the Eastern Front (Menongue, Cuito Cuanavale, Caiundo, Mavinga) nor in the Western front (Cahama, Humbe, Xangono, Calueque).
As a matter of fact, no one can tell me where these South African troops were supposedly “trapped”.
So the cartoon and the caption were merely “useful war propaganda” that had nothing to do with facts.
Steven Mvula
Human Rights Activist

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