Fleeing the Wrong Way: Black Angolan Refugees and Apartheid South Africa’s Military Humanitarianism at the Angolan-Namibian Border, 1975–1978

Abstract This article contributes to two sets of growing historiographies: one on refugees and international humanitarian organizations during decolonization in Africa; and another one on military humanitarianism. The article’s focus is on the little-known case of thousands of Black Angolan refugees who fled from the civil war in Angola to the South African-occupied territory of Namibia in 1975–77. Based on archival sources and oral history interviews, I investigate how and why these refugees found themselves in camps administered by the apartheid-era military rather than an international humanitarian organization, such as the UNHCR. I highlight how these refugees found themselves in a two-fold predicament. First, they had the misfortune of having fled to a territory that, in the context of the global Cold War, was legally, politically, and militarily contested. Second, since the refugees included ex-colonial forces and armed fighters from different Angolan liberation movements, the ‘genuineness’ of their refugee status was questioned by various international organizations. My main argument is that while this group of refugees was in many ways exceptional, their story illustrates the struggles inherent in the UNHCR’s expansion beyond Europe. As a result, other actors – such as the apartheid-era military – stepped in to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees.


Introduction
When the Angolan civil war erupted in mid-1975, Helena de Abreu was working as a teacher in the town of Pereira d'Eça (today's Ondjiva) in southern Angola, about forty kilometers north of the border with South African-occupied Namibia. In January 1976, she and her fianc e decided to return north to her hometown of S a da Bandeira (today's Lubango). However, on the very day they were supposed to leave, De Abreu and her fianc e received news that thousands of people were fleeing south and instead decided to follow them in the other direction toward the Namibian border. There, the apartheid-era South African Defence Force (SADF) refused official entry to Black Angolans, many of whom ended up camping at the border for months. However, as De Abreu recalled, 'we were not quiet, we were rioting and going crazy … until they decided to open [the border post] for us' in late March 1976. After crossing the border, the SADF provided them with water, food, and tents in various refugee camps across northern Namibia. Like other Black Angolan refugees, De Abreu was soon moved to a major SADF-administered camp known as 'Ten Mile', where people received assistance by both the military and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). Despite the relative security at the camp, many refugees decided to return to their homes in Angolaoften when there was a lull in the fighting in southern Angola. Others left for Rundu, a major town just north of the Ten Mile camp. In 1978, the SADF decided to close the camp and presented the remaining refugees with two options: return to Angola or join the SADF. 1 How and why did thousands of Black Angolans, like De Abreu and her fianc e, end up in camps that were administered by the SADFrather than refugee camps managed by an international humanitarian organization, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)? By seeking to answer this question, I aim to contribute to a rapidly growing historiography on refugees and international humanitarian organizations during decolonization in Africa. 2 In addition, I speak to new histories on military humanitarianism, here understood as military actors providing in humanitarian assistance (rather than military humanitarian intervention). 3 My main argument is that while the case of Black Angolan refugees like De Abreu was in many ways exceptional, their story illustrates the UNHCR's patchy expansion beyond Europe as both the UN and its refugee agency struggled to adapt existing institutional and conceptual frameworks to the realities of southern Africa's violent decolonization.
Throughout decolonization in the 1950s-1970s, vast numbers of people were displaced by armed conflict, and new territorial borders and cultural boundaries. 4 In response, international humanitarian organizationsprime among them the UNHCRbecame increasingly active in the newly independent states, seeking to institutionalize 'durable solutions' to 'refugee problems'. 5 In a key text on the UNHCR's history, Gil Loescher has shown how the agency expanded beyond Europe, arguing that 'in the early 1970s, the UNHCR became the pre-eminent international humanitarian and relief organization' under its 'expansionist High Commissioner', Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan . 6 Building on Loescher's work, J erôme Elie and Jussi Hanhim€ aki have argued that the UN's refugee agency became a 'universal organization' through a process of expansion and emancipation from its original mandate during decolonization in Africa. 7 In this article, I build on two central critiques of this earlier work on the UNHCR's role during decolonization. The first one concerns sources. In critiquing Loescher's work, Jeremy Rich recently encouraged researchers 'to move beyond pronouncements from Geneva and New York if they want to accurately assess how UNHCR actually operated on the ground'. 8 In a similar vein, various scholars have stressed the need to critically incorporate, if not outright center, 'refugee voices' in refugee history. 9 The second, closely related critique is that scholars have only recently begun to historicize what it meant to be a refugee during decolonization in Africa and other non-European contexts. 10 '"Refugee" status in decolonizing Africa', as Joanna Tague emphasizes, 'was fluid, situational, and frequently defied [UNHCR-led] categorization'. 11 In other words, the understandings and definitions of 'the refugee' were changing rapidly and the UNHCR's involvement was not yet taken for granted.
As the UNHCR struggled to expand in southern Africa, other actorslike the SADFstepped in to provide assistance to refugees. The scholarship on such military humanitarianism has been largely limited to the post-Cold War era, frequently overlooking historical precedents. 12 Recent historical work, however, has begun to look at earlier cases of militaries providing humanitarian assistance, including to refugees. 13 Laura Robson and Benjamin Thomas White, for instance, have examined how the British colonial military both assisted and recruited among different refugee groups in today's Iraq during and after the First World War. 14 Robson highlights the tragic consequences of this military humanitarianism, arguing that the British colonial army's actions 'permanently stamped Assyrian refugees as prot eg ees of the colonial state'a fate strikingly similar to that of the Black Angolan refugees discussed in this article. 15 Previous scholarship on Angolan refugees during decolonization has focused primarily on those who self-settled in the neighboring countries of Namibia, Zambia, and Zaire, as well as the so-called retornados, or returnees, primarily white and mestiço (mixed race) refugees, who were 'repatriated' to Portugal. 16 In addition, some scholars have explored UNHCR's work with Angolan refugees prior to 1975. 17 In contrast, little is known about the history of Black Angolan displaced persons and refugees who found themselves in SADF-administered camps in southern Angola and northern Namibia from 1975 onward. This is in part because their relatively small numbers were dwarfed by their counterparts who fled to Zaire and Zambia. However, I contend that, more importantly, liberation leaders and their supporters perceived Black refugees to have fled the 'wrong way' to South African-occupied Namibia, particularly as large numbers of Namibians were simultaneously going into exile to escape, and fight, apartheid. 18 Black Angolans who fled to northern Namibia found themselves in a two-fold predicament. First, they had the misfortune of having fled to the territory of Namibia that was legally, politically, and militarily contested. In 1966, the UN General Assembly had voted to revoke South Africa's mandate over Namibia and to transfer authority to the UN Council for South West Africa (later renamed the UN Council for Namibia). 19 Five years later, the International Court of Justice found South Africa's continued occupation of Namibia illegal. The dominant Namibian liberation movement, the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), had already secured sole recognition by the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) for its armed struggle in 1965 and was later recognized by the UN General Assembly as the 'authentic representative of the Namibian people' in 1973. 20 Given the UN's direct involvement in Namibia, it was impossible for its refugee agency to uphold its supposedly non-political role.
Second, Angolan refugees defied official classifications of 'genuine refugees' as distinct from 'political refugees' or 'freedom fighters'. 21 For one, they included ex-colonial forces and armed fighters from different Angolan liberation movements. More importantly, the South African military began directly recruiting Angolan refugees in 1974. 22 As reports of the SADF's recruitment became public, Angolan refugees in northern Namibia came under general suspicion by humanitarian organizations of not being 'genuine' refugees. SWAPO leaders and OAU representatives accused them of being 'mercenaries' while humanitarian officials reported that they comprised 'militants and sympathizers' of Angolan liberation movements backed by apartheid South Africa. 23 In other words, the refugees became a focal point for states, humanitarian agencies, and liberation leaders over contested issues of international legitimacy, political sovereignty, and the genuineness of people's refugee status. 24 And the UN, not just the UNHCR, became a key theater of these contests.
In terms of sources, I primarily use newspaper articles and archival material of the SADF, the US National Archives and Records Administration, the ICRC, and the UNHCR. 25 This article's narrative ends in 1978 as the third set of UNHCR's archival files on Angolan refugees in Namibia from 1978-1981 remains classified. 26 In addition, I draw on two sets of oral historical interviews, heeding Joanna Tague's call to uncover 'fugitive narratives' in scholarship on refugees. 27 The first set includes several interviews with Black Angolans who fled Angola in 1975-76 that Dino Estevao and I conducted in South Africa in March 2020 and September 2022 for a different research project. 28 The second set is a small number of interviews that I carried out with white SADF veterans who served in northern Namibia and southern Angola in 1975-76 over WhatsApp in early 2021.
During Angola's anti-colonial war of 1961-1974, an estimated 500,000 people fled the country. Most of them headed to neighboring Zaire in the north while some 20,000-40,000 fled to Zambia in the east and Namibia in the south. 29 On 25 April 1974, a military coup in Lisbon overthrew Marcelo Caetano's authoritarian regime, paving the way for Angola's independence process. Following the coup, the anti-colonial struggle in Angola rapidly turned into a civil war between various nationalist movements. Each one was backed by different regional and international powers motivated by the dictates of the global Cold War. The three dominant nationalist movements that fought for territorial control before Portugal's official departure on 11 November 1975 were: the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) supported by Zaire, South Africa, and the US; the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) backed by the Soviet Union and later Cuba; and União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) also supported by apartheid South Africa and the US. 30 As the civil war between the three movements escalated, the racial make-up of people fleeing Angola also changed. One white South African soldier stationed in northern Namibia in 1975 observed: 'At the beginning of my involvement with the refugee evacuations … the majority of the refugees were white, and gradually the composition changed to what the Portuguese Angolans called "mulatto", people of mixed origin. Eventually towards the end, the majority of the refugees were Black Angolans'. 31 As Christoph Kalter and Ricardo Ovalle-Baham on have shown, Angolan refugees' racialized identity largely determined where they could flee. In June 1975, the new regime in Portugal introduced a decree-law on Portuguese nationality that redefined citizenship in terms of descent and linked Portuguese national identity with whiteness. 32 In the process, over 95 per cent of people in Angolathe majority of whom were classified as Black or mestiço (mixed race)were excluded from Portuguese citizenship and ineligible for 'repatriation' to Portugal. 33 In the run-up to independence, over 95 per cent of white Angolans left for Portugal. Between July and November 1975, most of them, roughly 260,000 people, were repatriated through an airlift supported by South Africa, Belgium, France, West Germany, the Soviet Union, and the US. 34 In contrast, the vast majority of Black Angolans either remained in Angola or fled to the bordering countries of Zaire, Zambia, and South African occupied-Namibia. 35 At the Namibian border, refugees' racialized identity also determined whether the SADF would grant them official entry as 'immigration [during apartheid] was limited exclusively to white migrants, with the exception of migrant labourers from neighbouring African countries'. 36 However, the South African military would allow exceptional entry to Black Angolan refugees in late March 1976, as we will see below.
2. The outbreak of the Angolan civil war, July-October 1975 In early July 1975, large-scale fighting broke out between the MPLA, the FNLA and UNITA throughout Angola. The transitional government between the three movements had collapsed. 37 'Without a governmental partner', Nathaniel Powell writes, 'the UNHCR could do little in terms of assistance operations'. 38 In July 1975, South African media first began reporting about the increasing number of Angolan refugees arriving at different border posts in northern Namibia. According to one South African government official, 'everything humanly possible was being done to smooth out their entry' but those without the 'necessary documents' were treated as 'people in transit', meaning they would not be allowed to stay in Namibia. 39 Those crossing the border post at Oshikango were accommodated in a tented 'transit camp' before being sent to a refugee camp near the SADF base at Grootfontein. 40 Following the arrival of around 5,000 Portuguese refugees to South Africa during Mozambique's decolonization process in late 1974 and early 1975, the South African government had made some preliminary arrangements for the possible arrival of Angolan refugees in northern Namibia. With the sudden arrival of several thousand refugees within just a few weeks, these arrangements, however, soon proved inadequate, and the SADF was tasked to 'receive, disarm, host, and control' the refugees. 41 'We started seeing refugees virtually from the time we arrived', one former SADF soldier, Eion Gibson, who was deployed to the Namibian-Angolan border in mid-1975, writes. 'Initially, … it was relatively small groups, but the numbers grew quite quickly to become a flood from August [1975] as the situation in Angola deteriorated [and] the conflict amongst the armed factions of UNITA, MPLA and FNLA escalated'. 42 By mid-August 1975, 2,000 people had crossed the border into Namibia. This first group of refugees consisted almost exclusively of white refugees. 43 The refugee camp at Grootfontein soon reached 1,500 people, far exceeding its original capacity of 1,000. At the same time, there were reports of a further 10,000 people fleeing toward Namibia from major cities on Angola's coast, namely Lobito, Benguela, and Moçâmedes (renamed Namibe between 1985-2016). Many of these people had only just fled to the coast during the previous weeks. As Ovalle-Baham on writes, most people in rural areas, regardless of their racial identity, fled to urban centers for 'some protection, however nominal, by the Portuguese forces'. 44 For protection against guerrilla armies and armed gangs, people who could afford to do so fled in convoys, often made-up by several hundred vehicles. In some cases, they were escorted short distances out of town by the Portuguese army. These convoys then moved toward major cities further south, namely S a da Bandeira and Nova Lisboa (today's Huambo). By mid-August 1975, more than 25,000 displaced people had already sought refuge at Nova Lisboa. 45 Among the refugees who had fled from Lobito was Rebeca Manuel. Together with her brother, Manuel left the city in August 1975 after heavy fighting broke out between UNITA and MPLA forces. Earlier that month, MPLA forces had driven the FNLA and UNITA out of Luanda and began to rapidly move south along the coast. 46 Manuel and her brother abruptly decided to flee after their couch, where her brother had been sitting just moments earlier, was hit by a stray bullet. Together with others, they left 'without anything' and fled south-eastward, sleeping 'in the bush and in the rain'. According to Manuel, young children suffered the most with many of them fainting and even dying from exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. After travelling for more than 1,000 kilometers, they arrived at a place near Savate, about sixty kilometers from the Namibian border. There, the SADF provided them with mealie-meal and pots to cook with. Soon afterwards, Manuel and her brother crossed the border into Namibia. 47 At the end of August 1975, the ICRC's representative in Angola, Jeanne Egger, reported on the dire situation in the country: General situation increasingly confused mainly in centre and south. … Tens of thousands of Angolan people fleeing combat zones. Many children either abandoned or living in hazardous conditions. Increased number of missing persons. Increased exodus of Portuguese to Namibia, some groups being in difficulty either at sea or in crossing north Namibian desert. … Food shortages worsening … Means of transport practically nonexistant [sic], with serious difficulties delivering relief. 48 By then, more than 9,000 refugees had arrived in northern Namibia. In response, the SADF opened another refugee camp at Tsumeb after the one at Grootfontein had reached three times its original capacity. 49 On 12 September 1975, the South African minister of foreign affairs, Hilgard Muller, sent a first letter to the UN Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim, informing him of the 'serious situation necessitating the reception, care, and repatriation of almost 10,000 refugees' in northern Namibia. In addition, Muller wrote that South Africa was providing food, medical services, and other aid to more than 2,800 displaced people at three unnamed camps near the Angolan-Namibian border. 50 The three camps were soon revealed to be located at Chitado, Cuangar, and Calai. In his response, Waldheim remarked that 'since this is a matter which falls within the immediate competence of the Government of Portugal, I have arranged to bring the contents of your communication to its attention'. 51 What Waldheim failed to acknowledge was that the Portuguese government had by then concentrated most of its forces in and around Luanda and Nova Lisboa, where most Portuguese citizens who wanted to be evacuated had sought refuge. 52 By late September 1975, the South African government restricted official entry to a 'small number' of people, that is, white Angolan refugees. 53 By then, a further 6,000 displaced people had arrived on the Angolan side of the border. Some of them had decided not to cross the border because they first wanted official reassurances of being granted permanent residence in South Africa. Others sought only temporary safety near the SADF-guarded border posts in the hope that they would soon be able to return to their homes. 54 At a meeting on 30 September 1975, one UNHCR official predicted that Portugal 'may be reluctant' to admit further groups of refugees following Angola's official independence from 11 November 1975. In that case, around 1,000 refugees, who had Portuguese citizenship but refused repatriation, might get 'stuck' in Namibia and South Africa. Nonetheless, they considered the refugees' situation 'already partly a problem of the past'. 55 Exactly two weeks after this meeting, the SADF launched a direct invasion of Angola, codenamed Operation Savannah. The invasion fundamentally changed the course of the Angolan civil war and the fate of Black Angolan refugees in northern Namibia.

The SADF's Operation Savannah, October 1975-March 1976
On 14 October 1975, the SADF's Task Force Zulu secretly crossed into Angola at Cuangar. Commanded by a small number of SADF officers, Task Force Zulu consisted primarily of about 1,000 Angolan soldiers, namely FNLA troops and Angolan San veterans of the so-called Flechas, disbanded tracking units of the Portuguese colonial military. 56 The latter had fled to north-eastern Namibia where the SADF established a camp and formed them into an ad hoc military unit. 57 The instructions given to Task Force Zulu were 'to advance inland, capture the town of Pereira d'Eça and carry on northwards, westwards and then northwards again, seizing all MPLAheld positions [they] encountered … before independence day on 11 November'. 58 Over the next four weeks, Task Force Zulu and other SADF battle groups drove MPLA forces out of Pereira d'Eça, Roc¸adas (today's Xangongo), S a da Bandeira, Moçâmedes, Benguela, and Lobito before arriving at Novo Redondo (today's Sumbe), about 300 kilometers south of Luanda. Within one month, the MPLA had lost all the territory it had gained in August and September. 59 By mid-November 1975, the tide began to turn once more after the arrival of thousands of Cuban troops earlier that month. South of Luanda, they were crucial to halting Task Force Zulu's advance toward the capital. North of Luanda, MPLA and Cuban forces foiled the FNLA's attempt to capture the capital before 11 November in what became known as the Battle of Death Road. After their resounding victory, MPLA and Cuban forces turned against UNITA and the FNLA's forces in the south. The two movements' fragile alliance almost immediately fell apart, leading to a 'war within a war'. 60 As Operation Savannah became public, South Africa's illegal intervention began to backfire politically for the apartheid regime as well as UNITA and the FNLA. 61 In December 1975, with the passing of the Clark Amendment, the US government stopped its financial and material support of UNITA and the FNLA. Internationally isolated, the apartheid state decided to withdraw its forces from Angola. By the end of January 1976, all South African forces had retreated to an area approximately eighty kilometers north of the Namibian border. 62 Many UNITA and FNLA members who had fought in Task Force Zulu and other battle groups also moved south, seeking temporary refuge in the various camps set up and maintained by the SADF. 63 In the eyes of many African states and international organizations, these fighters' movements had lost much of their political credibility after their alliance with the apartheid regime became known. States that were initially reluctant about officially recognizing the MPLA government began to do so, and on 11 February 1976, the OAU would officially recognize the MPLA as the legitimate government of Angola. 64 As we will see below, both UN and OAU officials also began to question whether UNITA and FNLA fighters should be considered genuine displaced people and refugees.
On 22 January 1976, Muller sent another letter to Waldheim, requesting UNHCR's assistance for displaced people in southern Angola and refugees in Namibia. According to Muller, the South African government was providing food and medical services to more than 2,800 people at Chitado, Cuangar, and Calai. 65 The Chitado camp was close to the Ruacana hydro-electric dam protected by the SADF. A journalist who visited Chitado in late July 1975 described it as 'an armed refugee camp'. 66 Prior to Operation Savannah, Cuangar and Calai had been small towns with a few hundred inhabitants. Now they provided refuge to thousands of people, primarily FNLA members and their families. 67 Two days after Muller's letter, the ICRC opened a five-person delegation in Namibia's capital, Windhoek, to distribute relief supplies including tents, blankets, medication, food, and toiletries to the people in SADF-administered camps. A large part of the supplies was donated by different national Red Cross societies as well as various governments and NGOs. 68 In late January 1976, a further 2,300 predominantly white refugees arrived by boat at the Namibian port of Walvis Bay; about 1,300 people on the Cypriot cargo ship 'Silver Sky' designed for a crew of 40, and another 1,000 on some two dozen fishing boats. They came from the coastal town of Moçâmedes where they had fled following clashes between UNITA and the FNLA further inland. South African authorities declared that only people who could prove to Portuguese consular officials that they were 'bona fide Portuguese citizens' were allowed to disembark and only on the condition that they agreed to proceed to Portugal. The remaining peoplemany of whom were reported to be FNLA memberswere told to return to Angola. 69 According to ICRC reports, UNITA launched 'a strong appeal' for their return to southern Angola and guaranteed their safety. 'Voluntary repatriation after a relatively short period might therefore be a realistic alternative', one UNHCR report noted. 70 As in other contexts, UNHCR officials appear to have been bent on the 'durable solution' of repatriation irrespective of the security situation. 71 From Walvis Bay, the 2,000 Portuguese citizens were soon transported to Portugal via boat or airlift. The remaining 300 Black Angolan refugees were transported to the refugee camp at Calai. According to Muller, they had decided to return to Angola 'of their own volition'. 72 Based on Muller's reports, UN officials 'assumed [their situation] had been satisfactorily resolved' despite earlier ICRC reports to the contrary. 73 To the refugees, the statements by Muller and the UN must have appeared absurd. Amid a raging civil war, they found themselves 'repatriated' to a place hundreds of kilometers away from their homes.
The refugees' arrival at Walvis Bay had gained the attention of the international media, which started inquiring about what the UNHCR was doing to support them. Put on the spot, one UN official wrote in an internal report that the 'problem' was that 'all this [was] taking place in Namibia … which is subject to the UN Resolutions and policy on Namibia'. However, the official also stressed that the UNHCR's work was 'entirely non-political, and humanitarian and social' and 'should therefore be open … to deal with all cases of refugees in distress, whatever the political situation'. Nonetheless, they asked the UN Secretary-General and the UN Commissioner of Namibia, Se an MacBride, about how to proceed. 74 MacBride emphasized that the 'problem' was indeed that the UN would undermine its own resolutions and authority in Namibia if it dealt directly with the apartheid regime. 75 As South Africa's forces were withdrawing to the Namibian border, they were followed and accompanied by thousands of displaced people. 76 One former SADF soldier, Eugenio 'Rocky' Marsicano, writes about his unit's assistance for refugees at the time: As from early February 1976, … there was a final surge of refugees leaving by road for South West Africa. … The refugee convoys were generally the return leg of our supply convoys after delivering ammunition, fuel, and rations to the forward lines. While some of the refugees rode in their own vehicles under our escort, the majority of the last refugees, were transported on our open back … trucks. Many of the refugees had already run the gauntlet through towns controlled by opposing factions, and some had been exploited and abused by their fellow Angolans. Many had been robbed of possessions and had run out of food and fuel for their vehicles. 77 Another SADF veteran, Gavin Taylor, described the SADF's involvement in Angola as 'an incredible mess' in part because there was 'no way to identify people's affiliation'. Taylor arrived at Chitado in the first week of February 1976. In his understanding, the SADF's control of Angolan refugees was an 'extension' of its 'border patrol duties' in northern Namibia. However, the intelligence that the military received about people moving toward the border was so 'garbled' and 'mixed up' that it was impossible to know whether they were 'genuine refugees', MPLA fighters disguised as refugees, or whether they were fleeing from the MPLA or UNITA. As a result, Taylor's unit regularly deployed to 'intercept' people and escort them to Chitado, which came to comprise primarily white and mestiço refugees. There, Taylor also observed the military's racist screening and processing system of refugees. The local SADF commander offered one white man, who was deemed 'qualified' enough, to proceed to South Africa with his wife and children. This offer was immediately rescinded when the man returned with his Black wife and their three mixed-race children. 78 On 5 February 1976, the US Mission in Geneva reported that the UNHCR had wanted to send an official to Namibia to investigate the situation of Angolan refugees and assist the South African government in 'resolving the problem'. However, 'considerations largely of political nature intervened and UNHCR felt constrained to cancel [the] mission at [the] last moment'. 79 The next day, the US Embassy in Cape Town stressed that reports claiming that the 'refugee problem no longer exists' because refugees had 'voluntarily returned' to Angola provided 'a totally wrong assessment of [the] situation'. In addition, the embassy staff warned that the 'prospect of fighting lines moving southward in coming weeks means dimension of problem could mushroom'. 80 That is exactly what happened. Already by early February, MPLA and Cuban forces were rapidly advancing southward following the SADF's retreat. Without the SADF's support, both UNITA and FNLA fell into further disarray. 81 At the beginning of February 1976, the South African government authorized five Portuguese officials to visit the camps in southern Angola in order to identify Portuguese citizens for repatriation. 82 By then, the SADF counted 3,000 displaced persons including 1,600 FNLA supporters at Chitado, roughly 1,500 at Calai, 670 at Cuangar, and 5,000-6,000 at Pereira d'Ec¸a. In contrast to the other camps, the majority of people Pereira d'Ec¸a were white. 83 After a visit to Pereira d'Eça in February 1976, one South African journalist wrote that while some displaced people had found shelter in the deserted buildings of the town, the majority lived in tents on the outskirts of the town. The SADF was reportedly 'occupied mainly with keeping order and humanitarian work'. Working together with a liaison committee of refugees, the SADF distributed tents and blankets from the Red Cross, provided medical services to the sick and wounded, installed generators in the town, and rounded up cattle from nearby farms for slaughter. 84 In contrast to the situation at Pereira d'Ec¸a, ICRC representatives who had visited Chitado noted that conditions there were 'relatively poor, especially now in the rainy season, with a shortage of tents, blankets, food, etc'. The representatives also pointed to potential 'physical difficulties' in case people had to suddenly flee into Namibia because 'the border is the Cunene River which is full of crocodiles and has no bridges, and there is only one (small) boat'. 85 The situation at Calai was similarly precarious as the SADF's pontoon ferry was the only larger form of transport across the river. 86 On 6 February 1976, Muller sent yet another letter to Waldheim. This time, Muller not only asked for the UNHCR's 'active assistance', but warned that the South African government could not 'maintain these camps indefinitely' and 'might be forced to limit its relief measures'. 87 In an interoffice memorandum to the UN Secretary General from 9 February 1976, MacBride gave his assessment of Muller's previous letters. In it, he highlighted several dilemmas facing the UN and UNHCR. First, MacBride referred to 'persistent news agency reports' that the SADF had established the camps in southern Angola for 'the recruitment and training of mercenaries'. According to MacBride, the tricky question was whether the people in these camps were genuine refugees or displaced persons: 'The obvious question also arises as to the extent to which these camps are now being utilized for the recruitment and training of mercenaries. Are they being used as "press gang" staging posts for mercenary purposes?' 88 Second, MacBride stressed that there was 'no legal basis' for the SADF's presence on Angolan territory since South Africa had never declared war on Angola. The SADF's camps in Namibia, in turn, were 'illegal' according to the International Court of Justice, the UN Security Council, and the General Assembly. Lastly, MacBride warned that Muller's letters may be a 'trap' to get the UN 'to validate South Africa's illegal presence and military build up in Namibia or in Angola'. As a result, he urged 'the exercise of the utmost caution in any dealings with the South African government'. 89 In response to Muller's letters from 6 February 1976, Waldheim declared that he was 'deeply concerned about the humanitarian aspects of the Angolan conflict' but that the UN would 'not be able to respond to a request from South Africa for assistance in camps set up on Angolan territory'. 90 In another letter to Muller from 17 February 1976, the UN Secretary General clarified that the UN could 'only undertake programmes of humanitarian assistance with a country at their request, and with the co-operation of the competent authorities in the country concerned'. 91 Regarding the refugees in Namibia, Waldheim again wrote that South Africa did not have 'legal standing in the territory of Namibia and [was] therefore not a competent authority with which the United Nations [could] deal in the resolution of the problem'. 92 Of course, who the 'competent authorities' were was being violently contested both in Angola and Namibia.
Between 8 and 17 February 1976, MPLA and Cuban forces captured Nova Lisboa, Lobito, Benguela, S a da Bandeira, and finally Moc¸âmedes. 93 Within just four months, the latter three cities had changed hands three times, each time causing further displacement of people. In late February, South African prime minister John Vorster called Waldheim's previous responses 'inexplicable and unacceptable', warning that if the ICRC was unable to assume responsibility for the Angolan refugees, his government would stop its support due to the 'excessive costs'. 94 Later that month, the MPLA government officially requested the UNHCR's assistance for displaced people in Angola and refugees wishing to return. 95 After considering MacBride's memorandum of 9 February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadruddin Aga Khan, wrote to Waldheim on 5 March 1976. While Sadruddin Aga Khan agreed with MacBride that 'utmost caution must be exercised in any dealings with South Africa', the High Commissioner also felt that the UN 'would itself be injured if humanitarian assistance were impeded for reasons deriving from the unique status of Namibia'. To provide the necessary humanitarian assistance while safeguarding the UN's legal position in Namibia, Sadruddin Aga Khan suggested that the UN Commissioner of Namibia or the UN Council for Namibia could 'make it clear that the assistance was based on entirely non-political, humanitarian considerations and … it had no legal or political significance regarding the status of Namibia'. Moreover, any refugee camps could be designated as being 'under UNHCR auspices', like the so-called safe havens established in Chile in 1973. 96 These proposals never came to fruition.

The SADF's withdrawal from Angola, March 1976
By early March 1976, the advance of MPLA and Cuban forces had slowed down as they approached the remaining SADF forces north of the Namibian border. 97 On 12 March, South African minister of defense, P.W. Botha, declared that the ICRC was 'trying to find a solution with regard to those refugees within a couple of weeks'. 98 A few days later, Botha warned that the SADF had 'done more than its share in connection with the refugees' and that it would 'provide no further service' at Cuangar and Calai after 27 March 1976, the date scheduled for the official withdrawal of all SADF troops from Angola. 99 At the same time, the ICRC's regional representative, Nicholas de Rougement, claimed the camps at Cuangar and Calai were still 'safe' but expressed concern about 'uncontrolled elements' in the surrounding areas. De Rougement further explained that many of the remaining refugees had 'only one desireto return to their homes as soon as possible', adding that he thought this would be 'the solution'. In addition, he hoped for a smooth and timely transfer of responsibility for the displaced people from the SADF to the MPLA government. 100 Soon after, however, the ICRC reported that the MPLA had rejected the suggestion of creating a 'neutral zone' in southeastern Angola. Instead, the MPLA wanted to establish a presence before admitting any international organization. As a result, the ICRC urged the MPLA government to 'assume as soon as possible appropriate responsibility over its territory' as the organization could not implement 'effective action in absence of proper sovereign authority'. 101 Of course, the MPLA government had been trying its very best to assume 'appropriate responsibility' of all of Angola for months.
By early March 1976, a further 7,000 Portuguese citizens had been identified by Portuguese officials and flown to Portugal via Namibia. 102 In preparation for its withdrawal from Angola, the SADF began to evacuate the two camps at Chitado and Pereira d'Eça and gather the remaining peopleprimarily FNLA and UNITA supporters and their familiesat two camps at Cuangar and Calai. FNLA supporters and their families were transported to Calai while UNITA supporters were sent to Cuangar. About 1,000 Black displaced people had gathered around Pereira d'Ec¸a but were reportedly unsure where to go. They were apparently informed that 'if they do not take advantage of the opportunity now, they will not be allowed to cross the border later'. In case they decided to leave with the SADF, they would also be sent either to Cuangar or Calai, again depending on their political affiliation. 103 By 10 March 1976, the camp at Chitado had been cleared and the one at Pereira d'Eça reduced to about 400 people. 800 people, mostly UNITA supporters, remained at Cuangar. The number of people at Calai had doubled to 3,000 with the arrival of primarily FNLA supporters and their families. 104 At Cuangar and Calai, people received food, tents, blankets, toiletries, medication, and medical treatment from the SADF and the ICRC. 105 With the official date of the SADF's withdrawal only days away, Muller wrote yet another letter to Waldheim on 24 March 1976. Muller warned that 'others must now assume responsibility' for the people in the camps to prevent 'chaos and great human suffering', and requested the UN Secretary General 'to do everything possible to facilitate the transition of responsibility'. 106 Meanwhile at Cuangar and Calai, a South African journalist reported that 'fear was spreading like an epidemic among the refugees who believed that they would be massacred by MPLA troops once the protection of South Africa was withdrawn'. 107 On 20 March, people at Calai organized a mass demonstration when two ICRC representatives visited the camp. One banner read 'We will follow behind South African forces on 27 [March] 76 0 , and another one 'Internacional [sic] Red Cross yes, but security with South Africa Force' (see Figure 1). 108 In a signed petition, the demonstrators also asked the UN for 'justice' about Cuban and Russian 'imperialism' and for help with the 'expulsion of Russian-Cuban [forces] from Angola'. 109 In anticipation of the so-called D-Day on 27 March 1976, the SADF rebuilt the camps at Grootfontein and Tsumeb, and established a new one, about sixteen kilometers south of Rundu. 110 Officially called 'Woodpecker Charlie', the latter camp came to be known as 'Ten Mile', named after its distance to Rundu, or as 'Tin Mine', likely following the mispronunciation of the former. At its largest, Ten Mile comprised 4,000-5,000 refugees who, apart from a handful of white people, were all Black Angolans. 111 Some of the people hoping to follow the SADF to Namibia on 27 March had been in or around Cuangar and Calai for several months. Among them were Luisa and Armando Cambinda. When the Angolan civil war broke out in mid-1975, they were both working at a school of higher education in Serpa Pinto (today's Menongue) in southcentral Angola, about 300 kilometers from the Namibian border. Luisa Cambinda worked with young women, teaching them needlework and other handicraft, while her husband served as the school's director. On Christmas Day in 1975, they fled in panic. As Luisa Cambinda recalled: 'It was about 10 o'clock [at night]. I left my pots on the stove. It was festive season, the food [was] on the table, drinks [were] on the table. We left the house. We took nothing [except] the clothes on our bodies'. Some days earlier, UNITA had begun an attack on Serpa Pinto and was now rapidly encircling the city. Seven months pregnant with their first child, the couple fled together with other people toward the airport as UNITA forces had left open a narrow passage. From there, they walked towards the Namibian border without adequate food or drink. According to Luisa Cambinda, some pregnant women, possibly from stress, gave birth by the road or in the bush. Following the SADF's withdrawal from Angola, the couple eventually ended up at the Ten Mile camp. 112 On 27 March 1976, a first group of 700 refugees, 'approximately 300 FNLA and 400 UNITA associates' according to ICRC reports, followed SADF forces into Namibia. 113 Within two days, they were reportedly followed by a further 2,800 to 3,300 people according to the ICRC and the so-called Commissioner for the Indigenous People of South West Africa, Jannie de Wet. 'We don't want the refugees and we don't want to be responsible for them', De Wet explained to the press, 'but we can't just leave them out in the bush'. 114 Accounts by other South African officials, ex-SADF soldiers, and refugees dispute both the number and the make-up of refugees in these reports. On 30 March 1976, the South African permanent representative to the UN reported that 800 people were still in the camps at Cuangar and Calai and that around 2,000 were believed to have fled into the bush. 115 In his written recollections, Marsicano vividly describes the SADF's withdrawal from Calai on the morning of 27 March 1976: Our trucks assembled and waited on the Rundu bank of the Okavango. I crossed over on the pont [i.e., pontoon] to Calai, where we were to receive a final group of refugees who were being processed. If I recall correctly, it was by emigration authorities from Portugal and Brazil. Acceptance was being granted, based on skills and qualifications. This group was predominantly Black Angolans, and I witnessed the saddest scenes of family separations imaginable. Young adults were being accepted without their elderly parents, who were being told to go back to the Calai refugee camp, which was within sight of the pont. Much pleading was being done for the emigration authorities to accept further family members, but strict guidelines were being followed. The pleas were essentially based on fear of retribution that was being anticipated when the MPLA forces would arrive in this region, which was enemy territory. A few river crossings were made, access to the pont was being regulated based on issued documentation, and the maximum number of people permitted for each crossing. When the pont launched for its last crossing from the Calai riverbank, there was a rush of desperate people trying to get onto it. Sadly, these had to be unceremoniously pushed off by our Engineer Corp operators. 116 In response to Sadruddin Aga Khan's letter of 5 March, Waldheim consulted with the UN Office of Legal Affairs and the President of the UN Council for Namibia. On 31 March 1976, Waldheim informed Sadruddin Aga Khan that the Office of Legal Affairs advised that a program of humanitarian assistance in Namibia 'would not be inconsistent with the position of the United Nations on the legal status of Namibia provided that the operation is conducted on the basis of the agreement of the Council for Namibia'. According to Waldheim, the President of the UN Council for Namibia in turn 'felt that the UNHCR should make a public statement announcing that your attention had been drawn to the arrival of refugees in Namibia and that your office was prepared to provide them with whatever humanitarian assistance they may require in accordance with the terms of your mandate'. Furthermore, Waldheim wrote that the President had reassured him that 'such an initiative would be acceptable to the Council', adding 'I trust that you will take the appropriate action'. 117 With the backing of the UN Secretary General and the UN Council for Namibia, Sadruddin Aga Khan seemed ready to intervene more directly.

The aftermath of Operation Savannah, April 1976-August 1977
On 1 April 1976, the UNHCR issued a press release vaguely stating that 'according to the terms of his mandate the [commissioner] stands ready to provide these refugees [in northern Namibia] with whatever humanitarian assistance they may require'. 118 The release received immediate backlash by parts of the OAU and the SWAPO leadership in exile. Their responses demonstrate how the UN refugee regime 'had become a site for the articulation of sovereignty', as Malika Rahal and Benjamin Thomas White have shown in the case of the UNHCR's earlier involvement in Algeria. 119 Peter Katjavivi of SWAPO explained that while he recognized the UNHCR's humanitarian considerations behind the press release, what was at stake was 'far beyond the fate of a handful of Angolans driven to Namibia by panic', namely 'the constitutional future of Namibia'. On that, neither SWAPO nor the international community would 'tolerate the smallest compromise'. As for the UNHCR or any other UN organization wishing to act in Namibia, Katjavivi suggested that they should do so through a 'local agency', such as the Lutheran World Federation or the ICRC. 120 Lastly, Katjavivi emphasized that any 'open cooperation' with the South African administration would be contrary to 'the fact that the Namibia Council and SWAPO [were] considered the only legitimate representatives of the people of Namibia'. 121 In an official statement, the OAU's Secretary General reacted to the press release 'with great disappointment'. They took offence that the UNHCR had not consulted with the OAU, the members of the Council for Namibia, and SWAPO. In addition, they accused the UNHCR of considering helping 'the so-called Angolan refugees' at the request of the South African government, amounting to a de facto recognition of its illegal regime in Namibia, and warned the organization to 'not allow itself to be misled by some pro-South African do-gooders'. 122 The UNHCR was quick to respond to the OAU's attack, noting that its tone was 'most surprising' given 'long standing [and] highly productive working relationship' between the two organizations. First, the UNHCR stressed that the press release had not been issued in response to a request from the South African government. Second, it made it clear that any direct or indirect action by the UNHCR did not constitute a de facto recognition of South Africa's presence in Namibia. Lastly, 'with respect to alleged pro South African do-gooders in UNHCR', the organization wrote, the 'OAU is no doubt well aware of leading role played by UNHCR in relation to liberation movements within the UN system'. 123 During an address to the UN's Decolonization Committee a few days after the UNHCR's response, Lucas Pohamba of SWAPO claimed that the Angolan refugees in Namibia were mostly former UNITA and FNLA members being trained by the SADF, and requested that the UNHCR stop any assistance. 124 In a last letter to the UNHCR, Peter Onu of the OAU wrote that he had 'the highest regard in the person of High Commissioner himself whose consistent and high prudence in matters affecting Africa is well known'. For the sake of 'future smooth relations', however, Onu also advised more direct consultations between the UNHCR and the OAU and against any direct contact with the South African government. If any direct assistance were to be provided to refugees, the OAU also recommended that this should be done through an NGO. 125 Which NGO that would be was left open. The most obvious choice, the ICRC, had closed its delegation in Windhoek on 27 March 1976 and handed over its remaining relief supplies to the South African Red Cross. 126 In October 1976, the ICRC also had to withdraw its delegation from Angola. 127 In October 1976, the responsibility for the Ten Mile camp was officially transferred from the SADF to the South African Department of Bantu Administration and Development. 128 The camp supervisor was a white department official, who was assisted by a committee of Black Angolan refugees and SADF soldiers responsible for controlling access to the camp. In an interview with the SADF magazine, Paratus, the camp supervisor explained that 'the military's assistance, especially with the security of the camp, is of great value. The help of the South African government is highly appreciated by these people, and I do not believe it will ever be in vain'. In addition, he explained his political aims for the camp and the refugees: 'If we can only get one person from this group who will remain loyal to South Africa and refuse to betray us, then everything was worth it'. 129 On 15 October 1976, government officials informed the 4,000-5,000 refugees at Ten Mile that they would be temporarily resettled across the border to Mucusso about 200 kilometers east of the camp. However, since the government's aim was that refugees would return to Angola permanently, anyone who wanted to return on their own terms was promised to 'receive the necessary support to get across the border'. 130 According to one SADF official, the refugees were in fact threatened that they would be dumped across the border unless they left 'voluntarily', in which case they could choose where they wanted to cross the border. 'The idea [was] to see how many would fall for the bluff', the official wrote. 'We then put them across [the border] and those who will remain [at Ten Mile], we take to the intended camp at Mucusso'. The 'bluff' worked. Within a few days, a first group of 300 people was ready to cross the border at Sifuma about 400 kilometers east of Ten Mile near the border triangle of Angola, Namibia, and Zambia. Another 1,000 people wanted to cross at the Katwitwi border post roughly 180 kilometers west of Ten Mile. 131 By the end of November 1976, 2,500-3,500 people had left Ten Mile. 132 According to Helena de Abreu, the people who were dropped across the border at Sifuma were UNITA supporters who wanted to rejoin the movement. However, as De Abreu would find out during a chance encounter in Zambia years later, UNITA did not come to pick them up and so the people decided to cross into Zambia where they settled. The families who returned to Angola further west apparently hoped to join the MPLA. They were never heard from againa fact made all the more cruel since the threatened move to Mucusso was never carried out. 133 The SADF's scattering of refugees could not have happened at a worse time. In November 1976, after a temporary lull in the fighting, MPLA and Cuban forces launched their first major post-independence offensive against UNITA in southern Angola. 134 As a result, a further 3,000 people, reportedly mostly elderly women and children, crossed the border into Namibia. 135 As previously, the South African government asked for assistance from the UNHCR, which once again denied the requests. 136 Instead, the South African Red Cross distributed clothing, baby food, powdered milk, bread flour, and toiletries, which had been donated following a public appeal. 137 More significantly for the refugees, the ICRC had become hesitant to get involved again following a critical letter by SWAPO's president, Sam Nujoma, addressed to the UN Council for Namibia. 138 In his letter, Nujoma demanded the Council 'address a protest' to the ICRC 'to the effect that the [organization] must stop giving any aid to the "Angolan refugees" deliberately kidnapped by the racist forces of South Africa'. 139 By then, SWAPO's allegations that the SADF was recruiting and training Angolan refugees had been officially confirmed. In August 1976, MPLA forces had captured one SADF soldier and three former FNLA fighters, who explained that they had come from a military base in northern Namibia where they were being trained by South African officers. 140 In response to Nujoma's attack, an ICRC delegate on a visit in Pretoria explained that they had no plans to visit the refugee camps in Namibia, and pointed out that the ICRC had long been supplying medical aid to SWAPO. 141 By late 1976, the genuineness of Angolan refugees in Namibia was also being called into question by Angola's MPLA government. In December 1976, vice prime minister Jos e Eduardo dos Santos explained that all Angolan refugees in Namibia were free to return, including 'those taken away by South African forces'. However, Dos Santos reportedly shared Nujoma's concern about the SADF's recruitment of refugees and also proposed further meetings between the Angolan government, the ICRC, and the UNHCR 'to discuss the modalities and other aspects of voluntary repatriation of any bona fide refugees'. 142 Following a visit to two refugee camps in northern Namibia, two ICRC delegates reported that the refugees' situation seemed 'to have improved', and that camp conditions appeared 'to be satisfactory'. They further stated that 'there may be need for assistance for resettlement or repatriation' but it was 'too early for the [organization] to become operational' before any meetings between the Angolan government, SWAPO, and the UNHCR. 143 After another visit in early January 1977, the ICRC reported to the UNHCR that the Ten Mile camp was 'well organized and the infrastructure is satisfactory' but that certain supplies, such as 'tools, household goods and scholastic materials' were lacking. According to the ICRC, the 1,500 people in the camp included 'a large number of intellecturals [sic], including doctors, lawyers, ex-officials' who 'desired refugee status, and a number of individuals, mainly intellectuals, had requested travel documents and assistance for resettlement or further education'. In a meeting between the UNHCR and ICRC on 10 January 1977, the UNHCR noted that it could potentially finance the ICRC to organize resettlement or repatriation which 'should present no problems'. Once again, the refugee agency made no mention of the ongoing civil war. Both the ICRC and UNHCR, however, agreed that 'no action should be taken' before the meeting with the Angolan government and SWAPO in Luanda for which still no date had been scheduled. 144 By April 1977, SWAPO no longer referred to Angolan refugees as having been 'kidnapped' by the SADF. Instead, the organization considered them 'instruments' of the South African government, who did not require any international assistance as they were cared for by the SADF. According to SWAPO, any refugees who wished to return to Angola could 'easily get in touch with [SWAPO] leaders on the frontline', and ask them for assistance. The movement claimed that there were in fact countless precedents, and that the Angolan government would not object to this procedure. 145 In August 1977, an ICRC official reported to the UNHCR that the situation at the Ten Mile camp was not as 'dramatic' as the South African government and certain international journalists had made it seem, and that South African authorities were proceeding with the 'integration' of 'interested' refugees in the surrounding villages. The official also again noted that among the 1,500 refugees were 'several members or sympathizers of UNITA [which] maintains good relations with South Africa'. 146 While the relocation to Mucusso never took place, the future of people seeking resettlement or wanting to stay remained in limbo until 1978. By that year, the number of people at Ten Mile had dwindled to a few hundred and the South African administration decided to close and destroy the camp. The remaining refugees were given two options: either join the SADF or return to Angola. 147 Among those who followed the SADF were Luisa and Armando Cambinda, and Rebeca Manuel and her partner.

Conclusion
This article began with the story of Helena de Abreu and the question of how and why thousands of Black Angolan refugees like her ended up in camps organized by the apartheid-era South African military, rather than instead by the UNHCR. Part of the answer to this question is that the case of these refugees was in many ways exceptional because they fled the 'wrong way'. At the same time, I have argued that their story also demonstrates how, even in the 1970s, the UNHCR was still far from being the 'pre-eminent international humanitarian and relief organization' as Loescher put it. Both the UNHCR and the UN struggled to adapt existing institutional and conceptual frameworks to the new realities of southern Africa's violent decolonization. As a result, other actors, such as the SADF, intervened to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees.
Throughout this article, I have also sought to highlight how people's racialized identity was central to their experience of forced displacement, further affirming previous research that has stressed the need to account for race in refugee histories. 148 While most white Angolans were 'repatriated' through an internationally organized airlift, most Black Angolans were excluded from Portuguese citizenship and thus ineligible for travel to Portugal. At the Angolan-Namibian border, the SADF allowed official entry to white Angolans but pushed back Black Angolans for months, only relenting in late March 1976. Most Black Angolan refugees who eventually did make it across were temporarily gathered at the Ten Mile camp before being strong-armed into returning to Angola or leaving elsewherein some cases to be never heard of again. In short, it was not nationality but race that primarily determined the fate of Angolan refugees. As an important aside here, the specific history of mestiço refugees deserves further attention.
By incorporating oral history, I have sought to move beyond the institutional level of analysis and to illuminate the various initiatives taken by Black Angolan refugees in the face of limited humanitarian protection and assistance. 149 At the Angolan-Namibian border, Black Angolan refugees demonstrated until they were allowed into Namibia. From the SADF-administered Ten Mile camp, many refugees made the risky decision to return to Angola when the security situation seemed to allow it. 150 With the closure of the Ten Mile in 1978, many of the remaining refugees decided to join the SADF. Others self-settled around the nearby town of Rundu while still others also returned to Angola but ended up in western Zambia. Very little is known about the fate of the latter two groups, and further research is required on refugees' experiences in the various SADFadministered camps in southern Angola and northern Namibia, and of returning, self-settling, or enlisting in the military. 151 In line with previous work on military humanitarianism, the SADF's assistance to Angolan refugees is yet another case that challenges the supposed distinction between military/combatants and civilian/humanitarians at the core of humanitarian discourse. 152 At the same time, I want to draw attention to some specific features of military humanitarianism and, perhaps more importantly, their consequences for refugees. These include the military's lack of accountability, its abrupt end to assistance that left refugees in the lurch, and the widespread view of refugees as 'militants' and 'mercenaries' because of their association with the apartheid military. These aspects are strikingly similar to the cases of refugees assisted by colonial militaries elsewhere, and merit further, comparative research. 153 Thus, while many scholars have rightly emphasized the blurred lines between humanitarian and military action, I suggest that they should not be overstated either.