ABSTRACT
The principal army effort was in South West Africa or Namibia against the guerrillas of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) and its military wing, the People's Liberation Army ofNamibia. Indeed, as suggested by the announcement in January 1961 by Khrushchev of the Soviet Union's support for 'wars of national liberation', the link between communism, anti-colonial nationalism and insurgency was more than coincidental. The new Portuguese methods and the influence of popular commanders like Spinola, Costa Gomes and Arriaga was sufficient to produce stalemate in Guinea, low-intensity stalemate in Angola and the possibility of outright victory in Mozambique. SWAPO's tactics were characterised by the South Africans as 'shoot and scoot', being largely dependent upon long-range bombardment by mortars and rockets, supplemented by mine laying. SWAPO was to claim that the South Africans had 100,000 men in Namibia by 1980 but, in reality, the number never exceeded 40,000.
