Word: benguela
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Cuban troops fighting on his behalf. Armed largely with captured Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles, Savimbi's 12,000 guerrillas freely roam the countryside, seizing towns and villages at will, disappearing when the Cubans or government troops appear. Savimbi's soldiers have shut down the vital Benguela railroad, which once carried ore from mines in Zaire and Zambia to the Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito. The disruption of rail service has given Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda no choice but to reopen his country's rail link with Rhodesia, the only alternative route...
...UNITA commandos periodically cut the Benguela railroad that formerly carried Zaïrian and Zambian ore to the seaport at Lobito. The sabotage has deprived Angola's government of $100 million a year in rail revenues. UNITA'S guerrilla attacks have also disrupted diamond mining, as well as farming in the Huambo district, which is Angola's main granary. The country's only sizable revenue (about $700 million last year) comes from oil rigs in Cabinda that are operated under Cuban protection by the Gulf Oil Corp...
Some of the rebels retreated along the east-west Benguela railroad toward the town of Chicapa, where the F.N.L.C. fighters and their families make up a community of 35,000 people. Others traveled dirt roads in northern Zambia to a forward camp at Kameni, just across the border in Angola, where recent travelers in the area reported seeing the lights of hundreds of campfires...
...invasion apparently caught Mobutu's troops in Shaba by surprise. The rebels came from two directions. Some moved along the Benguela railroad, which runs from Shaba through Angola to the Atlantic Ocean. Others passed through the northern tip of Zambia, whose Lunda tribesmen are friendly kin of the Katangese exiles. They traveled in small groups and wore native dress, but carried AK-47s and other Soviet-made equipment over their shoulders. They insisted that no "Cubbanos" had come with them. Nonetheless, guerrillas declared that their goal was not simply the liberation of Shaba from Kinshasa's rule...
...They have apparently been successful in quieting the area-especially since Zaïre President Mobutu Sese Seko closed his border with Cabinda after Luanda protested that supplies were being funneled to the rebels. The rebel problem is more persistent in the south, where Cubans are also guarding the Benguela railway. Running clear across central Angola, the railway is difficult to defend against sabotage. The line has been blown up in a dozen places in recent weeks; three locomotives have been destroyed by saboteurs of Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) who simply...