Intervention Likely

With US support, South Africa can ignore international pressure to give up its illegal occupation of Namibia (Southwest Africa), effectively scuttling any chance of implementing the United Nations plan for Namibian independence. Pretoria has already stepped up attacks on SWAPO, the liberation movement leading the fight to free Namibia, whose bases are located in neighbouring Angola.

As for Angola, with the repeal of the Clark Amendment, Washington will be free to send in the CIA to arm and train South African-backed guerrillas of Unita (Union for the Total Independence of Angola), fighting to overthrow the Angolan government.

Washington is using the presence of Cuban troops in Angola as a pretext to move in and reassert US influence in the country. But US intervention in support of the discredited Unita forces may well turn Angola into a battlefield for the US or the USSR.