The following is taken from the June 1993 issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review:
“From 1986 onwards, a series of incidents occurred which allegedly produced chemical casualties among UNITA forces. These patients exhibited a medically intriguing, neurological syndrome which became known as ‘steppage-gait’ syndrome. Briefly, the patients exhibited the progressive onset of a permanent, spastic paralysis. This mainly affected the lower limbs. There was a variable mix of motor and sensory affects...The author personally saw approximately 50 of these patients, although claims have been made that more than 400 existed.
…only young men from military areas were affected. Moreover, groups of affected men from particular units were seen. To date, no woman or child has been seen with the syndrome. One would expect that if dietary or infective conditions were responsible then a cross section of the population, including soldiers, would be affected, especially as UNITA troops lived in close contact with the local population.”
Licua, Angola
40 Miles East of Cuito Cuanavale
December 10th, 1987
By the time the Puma helicopter set down and unloaded his rifle team, Willi Coetzee could see that there wasn’t much left of the BTR-60 they’d been chasing. It had broken out of the armoured convoy they’d found awhile ago, and they’d chased it all the way out here, almost 20 miles of snaking and winding roads before it must have finally hit a mine. The lightly armoured vehicle simply couldn’t take the hit, and had flipped once before coming to a stop against a tree.
Willi jumped lightly out of the helicopter, leaning low under the whirling blades. He could hear his sergeant yelling to the rest of the troopers to begin checking for bodies and any FAPLA guerillas that might be in the area.
“Tim!” His sergeant turned, and nodded. “Let’s get the hatch open. See what they were running for.”
They went in through the underside escape hatch, which was now facing the helicopter due to it’s uneasy stop. It popped open easily. Immediately, Willi could hear groaning, and switched to English to yell into the vehicle.
“Keep your weapons down, and we won’t go in there with grenades!”
“Si. Si.”
His sergeant smiled and nodded, then ducked through the hatch. As he watched him go in, Willi noticed an odd plastic cover on the inside of the door.
“It looks like an equipment carrier, Lieutenant. Nothing-” The sergeant’s voice stopped. “Shit. Holy shit.”
He popped out with a small canister that Lieutanant Willi Coetzee instantly recognized: an 81mm mortar round. With a skull and crossbones on it?
His sergeant was scowling at him. “Sir? This is fucking insane. The Reds are fucking insane.”
Willi’s mind raced. “Grab it. Take any of those Cuban bastards that are still alive in there. We’re getting back to SWATF HQ. Pretoria’s going to want to know about this.”
So there you go. I've been thinking about writing a story about this. The Jane's Intelligence Review article said they estimated the dates of Chemical Weapons usage in South West Africa between 1986 and 1990, which would mean that the South Africans could've found them during their campaigns into Angola. (Operation Hooper, etc.)
If the South Africans had found Cubans in possession of chemical weapons in the 1980s, I think things might have gotten much worse in the Bush War before they got better.
South Africans on the board, feel free to shoot it up, shoot it down, whatever. I'm not South African, I've just read a few books. So I'm just letting my imagination go free.