South African intervention in the Angolan Civil War, 1975-1976 : motivations and implications

Bibliography: leaves 137-146.Between 1975-1976 South Africa intervened in the Angolan civil war. The invasion of a black African country was then an unprecedented event in South Africa's history. This dissertation explores the motivations behind, and implications of, South Africa's involvement in Angola. It firstly scrutinises the rationalisations given by the government of the day, specifically the four key objectives that the Defence Force claimed it had been pursuing. These were: the protection of South Africa's investment in the Cunene hydroelectric scheme; the 'hot pursuit' of Namibian guerrillas; the response to appeals from two of the liberation movements in Angola; and finally, the need to counter communist, specifically Cuban, intervention in Angola