Word: anc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...nine homes and an office, ripping through doors and windows with automatic-rifle fire and hand grenades. Their targets: members of the African National Congress, the main guerrilla organization opposed to South Africa's policy of apartheid. According to the South Africans, the 35- min. attack left 13 ANC guerrillas dead. At least two other people also died, according to authorities in Botswana, including a six-year-old girl and a Dutch social worker...
...attack came less than a month after nine South African commandos were ambushed, and one captured, during a clandestine foray into Angola. It showed South Africa's determination to continue hitting foreign ANC bases, even in nominally friendly countries like Botswana, in defiance of international opinion. Already angered by the Angola raid, Washington reacted to the Botswana adventure by calling U.S. Ambassador Herman Nickel home for "consultations," a gesture intended to show extreme displeasure. State Department Spokesman Bernard Kalb declared that the two incidents raised "the most serious questions" about South Africa's recent actions. The U.S. response, the angriest...
General Constand Viljoen, head of the South African Defense Force, accused the ANC of carrying out dozens of terrorist acts in South Africa from bases in Botswana. He said the organization was planning an assassination campaign against government officials and black and mixed-race moderates. The South African raid resembled a 1982 attack on ANC bases in Lesotho and later operations against guerrillas in Mozambique. South African officials contend that the guerrillas regrouped in Botswana and Angola after being driven from Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha said that South Africa had warned Botswana repeatedly about harboring...
Botswana rejected South African claims that the dead were ANC guerrillas, referring to them instead as "South African refugees." It has accused South Africa of trying to bring pressure on Botswana to sign a formal nonaggression treaty similar to the ones it now has with Swaziland and Mozambique. Last week's raid also appeared to be designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the ANC just before the organization's planned weekend "summit" meeting at an undisclosed location in southern Africa, where the rebels were expected to plan their future campaign against the South African government...
...week's end it seemed that the commando incident had produced its first political casualty. Pretoria announced that the hawkish General Viljoen, 51, had decided to retire. Nevertheless, government spokesmen continued to claim that the outlawed ANC is increasing its actions against civilian targets in South Africa. Lending support to this claim, a bomb went off last week in a building used by the Defense Forces in Johannesburg, injuring 17 people. Two days later, a second blast in the city damaged the offices of an organization that sends money, books and food parcels to South African troops. The ANC claimed...