Saney, Isaac. Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s End

At the heart of this work is a detailed account of the Battle of Cuito Carnivale in Angola in 1987-8.Given that "it was the largest military engagement in Africa since the North African battles of the Second World War" (p. 3) and yet, while not unknown, knowledge of it is minimal anywhere in the world beyond in those countries that were directly involved, that in itself constitutes a reason for an academic text addressing this lacunaIn Chapter 2, "Setting the Stage", Saney surveys the abrupt and major changes in power relations throughout Southern Africa following the collapse of Portuguese colonialism there in 1975.The rise to power of the anti-colonial liberation movements in both Mozambique and Angola constituted a major threat to South Africa's whole apartheid system.Hence, its government launched broad and sustained aggression throughout the region against any forces that it felt threatened the continuation of its system of apartheid, even as it likewise sharply increased the brutality of its domestic oppression of efforts to end it.For reasons Saney makes clear, South Africa's efforts to crush the liberation movement in Angola became its politically most important aggression in Southern Africa, and the one to which it committed the most resources.In 1975, it launched a military incursion into Angola.Cuba sent troops to help the Angolan forces repel the South Africans, and that marked the beginning of the twelve-year road to Cuito Cuanavale for Angola, Cuba, and South Africa.Chapters 3 and 4 constitute two carefully researched and referenced chapters on the history of the military-political conflict between South Africa on the one side and Angola, with support from Cuba, on the other.Of great importance to how this history unfolded was the Cold War contest for power and influence in the region that it unfolded in, between the United States on one side and Russia