With the commemoration of the battles around Cuito Canavale coming up,<br />various authors are striding Angolan battlefields again. In South Africa a variety of<br />publications is seeing the light. Unfortunately many of these are by former senior<br />officers highlighting their own interpretation of the war, as did many previous<br />publications in South Africa. Many publications here are espousing one side of the<br />war. The role of Special Forces is but one example. This trend was set in the 1980s<br />and seems to continue in South Africa. The role of Special Forces - as if others were<br />not involved - deserves a lot of attention. More so the role of other actors such as the<br />Angolan armed forces (FAPLA), the Cubans and the Soviets is mostly ignored<br />except for some stereotyping underpinned by an ideology from times gone by -<br />indeed a sad state of affairs.