Biology Reference
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500km north. An airlift exceeding that of the Berlin Airlift during WWII was undertaken but
could not be sustained. Furthermore, South Africans were ignorant of the attack. That pattern of
keeping the South African public uninformed was maintained for the entire 18 years Border
War; hence the history has been largely debated and poorly documented. Some 600,000 white
South Africans were called up for military duty of which about 320,000 served on “The
Border.” It was estimated for every 10 injured, one died immediately and a further one died
later even though the medical corps was organized to evacuate all injured soldiers as quickly
as possible. The South African Government handed the captured areas over to UNITA and
withdrew to Southern Angola, keeping control of the Ruacana river hydroelectric scheme that
was vital for electrical power generation and water for Ovamboland in South West Africa,
ironically where SWAPO, the Namibian insurgency group, gained most of its electoral support
from. A friend of mine nearly killed himself in a Cessna spotter plane flying down the valley
because of all of the power lines. When South Africa withdrew from Ruacana, 12 soldiers
were killed on the dam wall and the dam was destroyed, affecting Ovamboland. Interestingly,
China also supported UNITA since it was seen by them to be strategically better to support
UNITA against Russia and Cuban—strange bedfellows communist China and South African
apartheid regime.
Castro poured thousands of Cuban troops into Angola, clearing the vegetation along the
border with napalm and executing all males over the age of 10 years. South Africa continued to
fight on along the border. During the summer of 1980 - 1981 I was stationed at the border.
Two of my medical school classmates were killed during that period—one during an ambush
at night when being illegally sent to a forward base. My elite battalion, some of them Bushmen
trackers but mostly Nguni Africans, went over on sorties with other battalions on operations
like Aseptic and Daisy. Where they went was mostly kept secret and even the troops did not
know where they were. Many years later in 1988 the units in the north east Rundu sector were
involved in the largest mechanized battle in Africa since El Alamein during the WW2. The
battle at Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 was a pitched battle initially with MPLA and Cubans. As the
battle raged, largely helped by 155mm G5 howitzers, the Cubans had to be bailed out by
Russia. A peace accord was later signed; however it was only after the assassination of
Savimbi, the charismatic leader of UNITA, in 2002 that the civil war in Angola was finally
resolved. Nevertheless, Dos Santos, as leader of MPLA, was never elected to lead Angola, his
daughter and son in law sit on company boards that control oil interests and his son directs the
Angola Sovereign Fund investments.
Apart from the humans killed, the wild animal population in Angola was decimated by
troops, poaching, land mines, and people just trying to stay alive by eating “bush meat.” The
elephant population was largely exterminated or migrated into Botswana and white ruled
Rhodesia (until 1980), now called Zimbabwe. Only recently has it been discovered that the
fabled giant sable of Angola with scimitar horns 60 inches long has been rediscovered; a fine
specimen exists in the Chicago Field Museum. Attempts to breed super long horned sable in
South Africa has shown even with a high protein diet, ordinary sable cannot grow such long
horns. The right genetic makeup is required but unfortunately the giant sable has been cross
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