Our Resolve is a Calm Resolve: Aborted SADF Raid at Ponto do Ouro

Our Resolve is a Calm Resolve: Aborted SADF Raid at Ponto do Ouro

On 18 March 1981, the front page of the Mozambican daily newspaper, “Noticias”, which was referred to in the official organ of the African National Congress (ANC), Sechaba (May 1981), was a picture of the body of a dead South African Defence Force (SADF) soldier covered in mud, blood and sea-sand. Around this soldier were several items, such as his weapon, binoculars, helmet and other equipment.

According to the “Noticias” report, the soldier was on of the two South African Defence Force (SADF) Boer soldiers that were killed in a clash with the Mozambican armed forces at the seaside resort of Ponto do Ouro, which is situated on the border with South Africa. According to a United States media report, “A rifleman from the Pietermaritzburg Commando was killed in action in a skirmish with FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front) troops of the Mozambique Army near Ponta do Ouro”. Apparently, in 1981, the Pietermaritzburg Commando was converted to a regiment as an infantry battalion under the Citizen Force, being renamed as the Natalia Regiment.

In the early morning of 17 March 1981, the racist South African Defence Force (SADF) forces were attempting to infiltrate Mozambican territory and, unfortunately for them, they were spotted by a local villager who alerted the country’s border security. Consequently, the invading force was quietly encircled and firing broke out, resulting in them retreating in panic, carrying one of their dead with them, and leaving the other behind.

This was not the first dead man the racist SADF had left behind in the People’s Republic of Mozambique, as they had left another in the garden of the African National Congress (ANC) residence in Matola on the fateful night of 30 January 1981, when twelve members of the organisation were butchered in their beds of machine-gunned down against a wall, Chicago gangster style, by the racist aggressors who crudely daubed swastika symbols on their helmets.

The local media in Mozambique, press and radio, were quick to point out that in all the criminal incursions into Mozambique launched by the Rhodesian Smith regime, never was a precious white corpse left behind. The Mozambican media correctly pointed out that this attested to a certain timidity and panic that was sown amongst the apartheid SADF Boer soldiers when they were on the receiving end of hot fire.

The raid on the ANC residences illustrated this perfectly. For all the advantage of surprise on their side, superiority of numbers, heavy weaponry, rockets and so on, they failed to press home the initiative. This was to be seen clearly at one house where cadres of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) were lined up against the wall, and where the SADF soldiers found themselves under fire. There they scattered in panic and this gave some of the MK cadres the chance to escape. There the SADF soldiers scattered because they could not stomach the battle and there at least three of them were stopped dead in their tracks.

Reliable eyewitness accounts indicated that several must have been wounded. Half a dozen weapons were abandoned together with the dead body and there was ample evidence that others had been seriously hit. This was indicated by pools of blood, by drag marks as bodies were hauled away, and by blood-soaked pieces of uniform and army webbing cut from their wounded.

At the funeral oration of the Matola cadres, President Oliver Tambo stated, “Our resolve is a calm resolve. It acknowledges that we are dealing with a kind of Hitler here, which is Nazism and Fascism. It is merciless, it is strong even, it can yet put up a fight, but let us rise like one man, as one people, to overthrow that regime.”

The struggle was reaching a high stage, a point of increased dangers, but a point of increased opportunities for revolutionary advance. The apartheid SADF aggression against Mozambique was part of their overall strategy to export their contradictions into neighbouring states. They were attempting to turn the whole of Southern Africa into a region of war, from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans.

But they were biting off more than they can chew. Their raids into Angola were designed to intimidate the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) from supporting the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and the ANC. Their aggression against Mozambique was designed to warn FRELIMO against supporting the people’s vanguard movement in South Africa, the African National Congress. But these plans were blowing-up in their faces. Solidarity between FRELIMO and the ANC was strengthened and reinforced by the Matola raid. Likewise, SADF aggression helped to bind SWAPO and the MPLA closer together. This was happening on a regional basis between all the forces of national liberation and socialism.

President Samora Machel said in his 14 February 1981 speech denouncing the Matola murders that “We can thank the Boers for bringing the Cubans to Angola”. The aggression of the SADF was strengthening the ties of the revolutionary forces of the southern African region and was increasing the resolve of the joint millions of its people to overthrow Apartheid. President Machel said, “Let the South Africans come. But let them be sure that the war will end in Pretoria and that the majority will take power in Pretoria.”

Sources:
Caryle Murphy, “South Africa Raids Angola, Battle Mozambicans on Border”, The Washington Post, 18 March 1981.
ANC Khumalo, “Matola, Ponto do Ouro and Chiawelo”, Dawn – Monthly Journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Vol. 5, No. 4, April 1981.
Sechaba, “Our Resolve is a Calm Resolve”, Sechaba, May Issue 1981.
Jan Marsh and Paul Fauvet, “South Africa’s Undeclared War Against Mozambique”, Mozambique Angola Committee, 1984.

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!