All Intensive Purposes

In a column at Slate discussing Cuba's (temporary?) change in leadership, Christopher Hitchens mentions Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, arrested 17 years ago in Cuba. Hitchens adds that Sánchez was arrested despite that fact that he had been

prominent in the military defeat of South African forces at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987, which contributed handily to the independence of Namibia and the ultimate defeat of apartheid itself.

That's a battle I've never heard of, so I clicked through to Wikipedia. The battle was fought between Cuban and South African forces, both supported by rival Angolan forces (in South Africa's case, Jonas Savimbi-led UNITA). Cuito Cuanavale appears to be an airstrip in southeastern Angolan which the Cuban forces were using as a base for an advance on UNITA-controlled cities. South Africa blocked this offensive, and then counter-attacked towards Cuito Cuanavale.

Curiously, the Wikipedia entry contradicts Hitchens' suggestion that the battle was a "military defeat" for South Africa:

[T]he battle has been called "Africa's largest land battle since World War II"^[1]. It has been widely used as a subject of propaganda with all sides claiming victory, and it is still a controversial subject among scholars.

* * * * *

The South African or UNITA forces never captured the city of Cuito Cuanavale and maintained this was never their objective to capture or occupy the city. Many observers agree that they succeeded in their original goal as they clearly halted the original advance of FAPLA forces from Cuito Cuanavale and also inflicted heavy casualties and it would not have made political or military sense for them to occupy a city deep in Angola far from their own controlled territory. The Cuban and FAPLA forces, however, take the failure of the South Africans to capture the city as a victory.

So why does Hitchens adopt Cuba's propaganda about this battle, when the source he cites suggests otherwise? If Cuito Cuanavale was a loss for Cuba, it tends to explain Sánchez's fall from grace.