A Droning, No-Win Conflict

South Africa digs in confidently, with no end in sight

Radio and television messages to the boys at the front. Small-town burials of flag-draped coffins. Posthumous awards for valor. These are daily reminders of South Africa 's seemingly endless, distant bush war, which has droned on for 14 years. The battleground is Namibia (South West Africa), which South Africa has controlled since 1920. A flurry of hope for a negotiated cease-fire was shattered in Geneva last month when a United Nations conference on Namibia's future broke down. Reason: South Africa refused to risk an independent government led by the Marxist-oriented South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). Since then, the South African army claims that its counterinsurgency campaign has gained the upper hand. But not even the most optimistic South African officer sees any real end to the no-win war. Johannesburg Bureau Chief Marsh Clark and TIME's Peter Hawthorne visited the war zone near Namibia's Angolan border. Their report:

The South African command insists that it is succeeding in its drive to "win the hearts and minds" of the Namibian people. The claim is a sardonic reminder of Viet Nam, and, indeed, the parallels in this war do not stop there. The 20,000 troops of the South African Defense Force (SADF) vastly outnumber the 8,000-odd SWAPO guerrillas. The SWAPO forces, armed with Soviet-made rifles and light artillery, are no match for the mechanized, often airborne South African troops. And, like the Cambodia-based Viet Cong a decade ago, SWAPO conducts its raids from sanctuaries--this time in neighboring Angola.

The war, conducted mostly in sporadic, hit-and-run raids by both sides, is focused on the northern area of Ovamboland. This flat bush country near the Angolan border offers SWAPO good cover and a minimum of geographical obstacles. In other sectors, the current rainy season and swollen rivers have slowed down both sides. The rains wash away SWAPO supply routes. At a camp in the Caprivi Strip, one South African company commander complained: "I've got a patrol out there that is cut off by three rivers that flooded last night. I'm going to have to extract them by air."

Like most of the guerrillas, 46% of the population belongs to the Ovambo tribe. In addition, most of Namibia's 1 million inhabitants are clustered within 20 miles of the long Angolan border. Thus it is exceedingly difficult for South African troops to distinguish enemy guerrillas from the local populace. Yet on paper, the South Africans seem to have the war under control. Their claimed "kill ratio" over the past two years: a phenomenal 3,343 SWAPO dead compared with 72 South Africans. Such lopsided figures are vigorously disputed by SWAPO.

South African officers, however, admit that they cannot continue to hold their own without the organized support of the local population. Accordingly, since last year they have assigned troopers to civilian duties, ranging from teaching to livestock breeding. And they have mounted a strong effort to recruit local cadre men for military and paramilitary operations. The aim: a Pretoria-controlled South West Africa Territory Force of seven "ethnic" battalions, each comprising 800 to 1,000 indigenous recruits. At least four such outfits already exist (see box).

"The source of power in an insurgency war lies with the people," said Major General Charles Lloyd, commander of the joint South African and local force. "The population is the battlefield." In the largely "pacified" Caprivi Strip, some 60% of the South African security forces are now made up of local blacks serving under white officers.

The South Africans also cite the effectiveness of their so-called Operation Smokeshell as a reason for recent advances. Smokeshell consists of a stepped-up campaign of systematic cross-border raids inside Angola involving artillery and air forces as well as ground troops.

At the heavily fortified base at Rundu, .50-cal. machine guns were aimed across the Okavango River. They were trained on a deserted, war-torn Angolan village on the other side. Both SWAPO guerrillas and villagers had long since retreated into the bush, out of range of South African fire.

South African soldiers have nothing but contempt for the idea of a U.N. ceasefire proposal that would replace them with 5,000 peace-keeping troops. Says one officer: "Five thousand men haven't got a hope in hell of monitoring a ceasefire. Before the last South African soldier was back across the border, SWAPO would be in Namibia." However, crossing the Angolan border at will, as South Africa has been doing, could backfire. Third World frustration over Pretoria's failure to make concessions at Geneva has generated renewed demands by black African nations like oil-rich Nigeria for international sanctions against South Africa. The call for an embargo by the U.N. Security Council is likely to get widespread support. The South Africans hope to get a more sympathetic hearing from Reagan's Administration. Washington's European allies, however, are expected to continue to push for a negotiated solution. Thus, while Western observers agree that South Africa has the upper hand militarily, they believe that it cannot expect to win the war in the long run.

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