Up until 1987, the apartheid regime made repeated encroachments into Angola and armed a brutal and unscrupulous proxy leader named Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, to try to overthrow the Angolan government. However, at the crucial battle of Cuito Cuanavale, referred to by Mandela in the epigraph of this chapter, the Cubans, Angolans and SWAPO defeated the apartheid forces. The negotiations after this defeat led directly to the independence of Namibia, the unbanning of the ANC and the fall of (political) apartheid.
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