Pitt II 253 8. COMPLAINT BY ANGOLA AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA Decision of 20 June 1985 (2597th meeting): resolution 567 votes in favour? He stated that his Government was cur- (1985) rently bringing to the Council a case of a threat not merely By a letter’ dated 13 June 1985 addressed to the Presi- to civilian Angolan lives but also to American lives, as had dent of the Security Council, the representative of Angola been revealed when, on 25 May 1985, a patrol of the An- golan armed forces had caught a South African special requested a meeting of the Council, “in view of the threat commando group that had been ready to launch an attack to regional and international peace and security repre- on one of the oil installations at the Gulf Oil compound at sented by the continuous acts of aggression and violence” Malongo, in the province of Cabinda, more than 2,000 kil- by the armed forces of South Africa, resulting in the vio- ometres inside Angolan territory. If that operation, code- lation of the tenitorial integrity and sovereignty of Angola. named Argon, had succeeded, dozens would have lost their At its 2596th meeting on 20 June 1985, the Security lives, including American nationals, with a total damage Council included in its agenda the letter dated 13 June of at least US$l billion. Contrary to South Africa’s asser- 1985 from the representative of Angola and considered the tion that the goal of Operation Argon had been to detect item at its 2596th and 2597th meetings, on 20 June 1985. bases of the South West Africa People’s Organization In the course of its deliberations, the Council invited, at (SWAPO) and the African National Congress of South Af- their request, the representatives of Angola, Argentina, the rica (ANC), the objectives of that aborted operation had Bahamas, Congo, Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, been: (a) to damage the credibility of the Government of Liberia, Pakistan, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Angola with the Governments of Western countries such the Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Yugoslavia as that of the United States of America, with which Angola to participate, without the right to vote, in the discussion2 had excellent economic relations; (6) to destabilize An- At the same meeting, the President drew the attention of gola’s economy and create misery for its people; and (c) to the members of the Council to a draft resolution3 submitted give credit for the aggression to the National Union for the by Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Madagascar, Peru and Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a puppet group Trinidad and Tobago, and to a lette? dated 12 June 1985 which owed its existence to the strategic and operational from the representative of Angola addressed to the Presi- assistance it received from South Africa. He referred to the dent of the Council. recent “murder of civilians” in Gaborone by the Govem- At the same meeting, the Minister for External Relations ment of South Africa as another example of Pretoria’s “lies of Angola said that the records of the Security Council and machinations” and asked the Council to join his Gov- were voluminous owing to the “countless times” his Gov- ernment in condemning the massacre. He further stated ernment had brought before it complaints about the death that the declaration of Captain du Toit, the commando that and destruction of the Angolan people and property as well had been captured alive, had revealed all the details of the as the constant violation of the sovereignty and territorial plan, and that the Captain’s testimony together with the integrity of Angola by the minority Pretoria regime, and arms seized in the operation, including explosives, incen- that, despite all efforts, the Security Council had been un- diary bombs and landmines, had clearly belied South Af- able to stem the policies and actions of South Africa. He rica’s justification for its attempted sabotage. The prepa- recalled seven resolutions5 that had been adopted by the ration of Operation Argon, which had been in progress Council between March 1976 and January 1984, demand- since January 1985, had thus been taking place at the very ing, inter alia, that South Africa respect the independence, time that Angolan and South African delegations had been sovereignty and territorial integrity of Angola and that negotiating the holding of a ministerial-level meeting for South Africa immediately and unconditionally withdraw the purpose of finding peaceful solutions to the region’s its forces from Angola. He said that the Council had also problems. That showed the extent of bad faith and hypoc- called upon South Africa to pay full compensation, and risy on the part of the Government of South Africa. More- had called upon all States to implement fully the arms over, in March and April of the same year, South African embargo that had been imposed against South Africa in military transport planes had crossed Angolan territory 80 resolution 4 18 (1977)? He further recalled that, on one oc- times, parachuting a total of 80 tons of military equipment casion, in August 198 1, following an appeal by his Gov- that had been intended for use by the surrogate army of ernment addressed to the Security Council, a draft resolu- UNITA in Luanda and Malange provinces. The targeting tion’ had failed of adoption, despite having received 13 of those two provinces, together with the attempted incur- sion into Malongo, represented, respectively, a strike at the production areas of coffee, diamond and oil, the three fore- most sources of his country’s foreign exchange. The Min- ister inferred that the objective of those acts of aggression *S/l 7267. was the suffocation of Angola’s economic development *For details, see chap. III of the present Supplement. and the promotion of Pretoria’s plan to create a “constel- 3S/1 7286, subsequently adopted as resolution 567 (1985). lation of southern African States”, which would be eco- ‘S/17263. %ecuri ty Council resolutions 387 (1976), 428 (1978), 447 nomically and militarily dependent on South Africa. The (1979), 454 (1979), 475 (1980), 545 (1983) and 545 (1984). For Pretoria regime, having failed in its attempts at stifling his the texts of the resolutions, see respectively, OR, 31s~ lo 39th yrs., Resolutions and Decisions of the Security Council, 197601984. 6For the consi d e ration and imposition of a mandatory arms em- bargo against South Africa under resolution 418 (1977), see Rep- ertoire, Suppl. 19754980, chap. VIII, part II, sect. 2. ‘S/14664/Rev.2. *For the vote, see WPV.2300, para. 45. country’s economy, had resumed air reconnaissance opera- to carry out further acts of aggression, subversion and de- tions against Angolan troop deployments 300 kilometres stabilization against those very States. The latest act of from the border with Namibia, a territory illegally occu- sabotage by South Africa against the Malongo oil complex pied by South Africa, and 22 violations involving a total deep inside Angolan territory, in violation of the Charter of 26 aeroplanes had been recorded between 3 1 May and of the United Nations and the resolutions of the Security 10 June 1985. Furthermore, the Minister referred to a Council, called for the strongest possible condemnation by “movement of South African forces”, unprecedented since the Council. The representative recalled the Conference of the last big invasion of his country in December 1983, and Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries said that Pretoria had currently deployed along the Ango- that had been held at New Delhi in March 1983, which had Ian border a total of 20,000 men, including an estimated considered the occupation of Angolan territory as an act of four motorized brigades and 80 to 90 aeroplanes stationed aggression against the Movement of Non-Aligned Coun- at the air force bases on Ondangua, Oshaki and Ruacana, tries, and expressed the hope that the Council would take and that South Africa might at any moment launch a new firm measures against South Africa as provided for by the invasion of Angola. His Government, while it remained Charter before it was too late! committed to the re-establishment of peace and coexis- tence in southern Africa, considered itself duty-bound, as At the same meeting, the representative of the United a Member of the United Nations, to continue supporting Republic of Tanzania stated that the terms of Security SWAP0 and the freedom fighters of the people of Namibia Council resolution 546 (1984) remained unimplemented; and South Africa. The official Angolan position on all out- that, while the aggression continued, there were also re- standing issues had been laid out in the “global platform” ports that the regime was massing its troops along the submitted by his Head of State in November 1984.9 De- southern border of Angola in preparation for a fourth full- spite the publicity campaign about troop withdrawal, the scale invasion of that country; and that, therefore, the South African troops had not only attacked Angola repeat- Council was called upon to consider an illegal act of ag- edly since August 1975, they had also continuously occu- gression which contravened international law and violated pied the southern parts of his country since 198 1 on the Charter of the United Nations, in particular Article 2, grounds of fictitious justification fabricated by those paragraph 4, which required all States to refrain from the who ruled South Africa as a slave State in which the 22- threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and million majority inhabitants were disenfranchised and political independence of any State and from acting in any had no protection from the violation of their human, manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United civil, political and economic rights.