Word: cuban
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...buildup: 1) to counter potential trouble along the 4,500-mile border with Russia's Marxist archenemy, China; 2) to maintain hegemony over Eastern Europe; 3) to overcome an "inferiority complex" vis-à-vis the U.S. that was aggravated when Moscow had to back down during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; 4) to provide additional arms for its adventurous clients abroad...
...allied with FNLA, which provided weaponry against the MPLA offensive, but, while it retained control of much of the countryside, UNITA was unable to hold the cities. FNLA, without any significant support among the peasantry of the north, was quickly routed by MPLA's expeditionary force of 12,500 Cuban infantrymen...
...influence, preventing a humiliating display at the polls and asserting Soviet control over this area of Africa. Many well-intentioned liberals and progressives point to the Soviet Union's longstanding support of liberation movements as justification of its escalation of the war and the intrusion of nearly 15,000 Cuban troops. Herein lies the deeper, little-understood tragedy of this Angolan war and the issue that lumps the Soviet Union and the U.S. in the very same boat--superpower intrusion. The aid which the Soviet Union gave MPLA during the 14 years of anti-colonial struggle was more than offset...
From his mobile headquarters in southern Angola's arid wastelands, UNITA Leader Jonas Savimbi sent out a recorded message of defiance. "We are to continue our struggle," said Savimbi, "because we cannot accept a minority regime imposed on our people by Cuban troops and Russian tanks." Aided by hidden arms caches, Savimbi's guerrillas last week ambushed several Soviet trucks and troop carriers. With seemingly solid support from the 2 million-strong southern Ovimbundu tribe (out of a total Angolan population estimated to be 5.5 million), Savimbi has the potential to thwart M.P.L.A. control over nearly half...
Most important, Neto ordered his Cuban-led forces to halt their move south, where 5,000 South African regulars are stationed along Angola's 830-mile border with South West Africa (Namibia). The halt forestalled a clash that some feared might trigger an all-out black war to "liberate" white-ruled southern Africa. At the same time, M.P.L.A. Foreign Minister Jose Eduardo