Conflicting Missions is a compelling history of Cuban internationalist policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and its inevitable clash with Washington’s course of deepening intervention to back colonial rule and reinforce imperialist domination. Gleijeses backs his presentation with a range of original sources, including government archives in Cuba, Europe, and the United States, as well as interviews with government officials and leaders of independence struggles in Africa. The book’s extensive maps, illustrations, and notes make the material accessible to those unfamiliar with the period.

Gleijeses mentions a number of important figures in the passages below. They include Amílcar Cabral, the leader of the African Party of Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC); Fidel Castro, the most prominent leader of the Cuban Revolution and the country’s president; Víctor Dreke, a cadre of Cuba’s revolutionary movement, who had served under Che Guevara during Cuba’s earlier internationalist mission to the Congo (Zaire); and Jorge Risquet, another leader of the Congo mission and present-day member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

From Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 by Piero Gleijeses. Copyright © 2002 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher and the author. http://www.uncpress.unc.edu
 

In July a handful of Cape Verdeans who had been studying in Europe left Algiers for Havana aboard a Cuban ship to undergo military training. The PAIGC was also fighting for the independence of the Cape Verde Islands, some 430 miles west of Guinea-Bissau. It expected that the group of students, which would grow to thirty-one, would “then return home to start guerilla warfare in the Cape Verde Islands,” and that several of their Cuban instructors would accompany them.

In January 1966, Cabral made his first trip to Cuba when he led the PAIGC delegation to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana. He was “the most impressive African in attendance,” U.S. intelligence reported, and he made a powerful impression on his Cuban hosts.

After the speech, Cabral and Castro spoke at great length… “Amílcar explained the history of our independence struggle,” wrote Luís Cabral, Amílcar’s half brother and close aide. “Fidel became increasingly aware of … the problems we faced. When Amílcar spoke of our need for artillery, Fidel understood that we would also need instructors; when Amílcar spoke of life in the liberated regions … the Cuban leader understood that we had to have doctors. And he understood that our armed forces needed better transportation to be more effective: Cuba would send us both the vehicles and the men to teach our fighters how to drive and maintain them….” At the end of the conversation, “Fidel said to Amílcar, ‘Come with me. I’ll take you the Escambray [mountains]’” A car took them from Havana to Trinidad; from there they proceeded by jeep and, in some places on foot. The trip lasted three days….

Castro sent for Dreke, who since returning from Zaire, had headed the bureau that trained Cubans going on military missions abroad and foreigners coming to Cuba (the UM, or Military Unit, 1546). ‘Fidel told me: “You have to take charge of the military mission in Guinea.’ ” He also told Dreke to take some of the men who had been with him in Zaire, “the best.”

Dreke was a comandante, a member of the Central Committee, and a man who knew Africa and guerrilla warfare. Moreover, he inspired enormous confidence and respect.… The power of his example and his quiet charisma were evident when I interviewed Cubans who had served under him, thirty years earlier, in Zaire and Guinea-Bissau….

Portuguese general Arnaldo Schultz, who had arrived in Bissau in 1964 predicting “the war in Portuguese Guinea would be over in six months,” was “sadly disillusioned” when he left four years later. A highly respected officer, General António de Spínola, replaced him as governor and commander in chief in May 1968….

The war dragged on, dashing Spínola’s hopes and giving the PAIGC time to hone its skills. PAIGC training, guerilla tactics, and arms were “first class,” a Portuguese colonel told a visiting South African journalist in April 1971. “There are times when I sincerely wish I had some of their young leaders with me in the field,” he added. The PAIGC, a captain told the same journalist, “‘was in a class of its own’… Their tenacity impressed the Portuguese captain. It frightened his men at times.”

Cabral limited foreign participation in two ways. First, he turned only to the Cubans. Throughout the war, they were the only foreigners who fought in Guinea-Bissau. Second, he limited their number to the minimum…. On average, there were only 50 to 60 Cubans assigned to the MMCG [Cuban Military Mission in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau].

And yet, despite their small numbers, their military contribution was, as President Nino said, “of the utmost importance.” There was, first of all, “the boost to our morale,” a PAIGC commander remarked. “Here were men who had crossed the ocean to come to our aid; they lived with us; they shared in our sacrifices.” The Cubans, said another, “were brave; they endured everything, they ate what we ate; we did everything together.”

The Cubans were also the specialists in laying land mines and using sophisticated infantry weapons that the PAIGC was receiving from the Soviet Union. “This was very important,” a PAIGC commander remarked. “They trained us on the spot. We called our first bazookas ‘Cubans.’ They were made in the United States, but it was the Cubans who gave them to us and taught us how to use them.”  
 
 
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