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The Raid on Gaborone (called Operation Plecksy by the South African Defence Force) occurred on 14 June 1985 when South African Defence Force troops, under the order of General Constand Viljoen, crossed into Botswana and attacked the offices of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress, in Gaborone. The raid, the fifth South African attack on a neighbouring country since 1981, killed 12 people including women and children; only 5 of the victims were members of the African National Congress. ==Background== In the 1980s, relations between Botswana and South Africa were strained. Anti-apartheid groups like the African National Congress (ANC) used Botswana and other countries in Southern Africa as refuge. The ANC set up bases in Gaborone that issued crash courses for terrorist attacks; under the guise of weekend tourists, new recruits would receive training on grenade handling and a list of targets to attack. Despite Botswana's non-alignment policy, the South African Defence Force conducted several cross-border raids to stop the groups. In 1981, the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) purchased Soviet weaponry. President Quett Masire justified the deal as a way to allow BDF to better prevent groups like the ANC from crossing into South Africa. Shots were fired across the Botswana-South African border in April 1982. Grenade attacks earlier in the week outside Cape Town that killed two South Africa members of Parliament and news of an expected attack on Pretoria in July 1985 pushed General Constand Viljoen to launch the attack. The following locations were identified as MK safe houses in Gaborone by the SADF: *Plot C, Tlokweng: Safe house used for ANC training of the Transvaal and Western Cape suicide squads *Plot A, Tlokweng: Occupied by "George" who accommodated terrorists *7819 Broadhurst: Occupied by Duke Machobane, provided accommodation for Umkhonto we Sizwe *13212 Broadhurst: Occupied by Nkukwane Motsweni, alias Mkhulu, responsible for the transportation of trained terrorists from Zambia to safe houses in Botswana *2914 Pudulugo Close: Occupied by Mike Hamlyn, responsible for accommodating terrorists and for transporting ANC recruits attached to the "Transvaal Suicide Squad" *Cycle Mart Building: housing the offices of the intelligence gathering apparatus of the ANC in Botswana and who also distributed a propaganda pamphlet in "newsletter" form aimed against South Africa *15717 Broadhurst: Occupied by George Pwale, controller of ANC financial affairs and responsible for the bomb blast at the Carlton, Johannesburg, in December 1976. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Raid on Gaborone」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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