Southern Angola

South Africa's active involvement in Angolan politics after the collapse of Portuguese colonial rule escalated with the SADF's invasion of Angola, through Operation Savannah, in the second half of 1975. …Though the SADF's intervention failed to prevent the MPLA from taking power at independence in November 1975, and even though SADF forces were withdrawn in March 1976, South African military and political involvement in Angolan affairs continued for the next thirteen years, with human and other consequences of varying degrees of severity for all the parties involved - Angolan, South West African, South African, Cuban and Soviet. South Africa's forces were not entirely withdrawn; the SADF created an eighteen-kilometre-wide demilitarised zone (DMZ) along a 1 000 kilometre stretch of the border, which it retained after the termination of the invasion. By creating a 'free-fire' zone, the SADF effected further large-scale displacement of people, this time of residents from both sides of the border.