Both English- and Spanish-language editions of the book-length interview with Cuban revolutionary Víctor Dreke came off the presses just in time for the opening of the fair.

The turnout reflected the intense interest in learning about an important chapter of the Cuban Revolution and gaining insights into the reasons for and results of Cuba's internationalist missions in Africa.

The 10-day book fair, a major cultural event in Cuba and across Latin America, has drawn record numbers of people. On the first weekend alone, 100,000 people flocked to the San Carlos de la Cabaña fortress overlooking Havana Bay, where the event was held. The fair's popularity is a measure of the thirst for ideas and avid culture of reading among Cuban working people. The enthusiastic, festive atmosphere and massive participation, which exceeded the organizers' expectations, was also a registration of the progress in the campaign that Cuba's revolutionary leadership has been waging for the past two years to expand the involvement of the entire population in education and culture as part of the transformation of working people necessary for the advance of a socialist revolution.

One popular feature of the fair has been the daily events held to present a wide array of books. Among these were a number of political titles, such as Following the Trails of Black Civilizations in the Americas, published by the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, Another is Tania, The Unforgettable Guerrilla Fighter, by Marta Rojas, Mirta Rodríguez Calderón, and others on the life of Tamara Bunke, the German-Argentine revolutionary who fought and died in the 1966-67 guerrilla front led by Ernesto Che Guevara in Bolivia.

Pathfinder Press, which as in previous years has a book exhibit at the Havana fair, held special presentations of three new titles. In addition to From the Escambray to the Congo, the publishing house presented English and Spanish editions of Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas, by Fidel Castro and José Ramón Fernández, and Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, by Thomas Sankara. The latter title, now available in French, English, and Spanish, was introduced jointly with Equality and Participation by Mozambican Women by Mozambican author Vitoria Afonso Longa de Jesús, published by Tricontinental Editions.

At the meeting to present From the Escambray to the Congo, Iraida Aguirrechu, who organized editorial work on the book in Cuba, noted the presence in the audience of numerous individuals who have worked with and fought alongside Víctor Dreke over the last 50 years. Among these were combatants of the Cuban revolutionary war to overthrow the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in the late 1950s, the campaign to wipe out the U.S.-sponsored counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray mountains of Cuba in the first half of the 1960s, and internationalist missions to the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, and other African countries that the Cuban Revolution has fielded over the past four decades.

Because the huge turnout for the fair had caused massive traffic jams on the road to La Cabaña fortress, several of the speakers and platform guests arrived during the course of the meeting. As each one came up to the front, the crowded hall burst into applause and another chair was brought up to the expanding platform.

Joining Col. Dreke at the speakers platform were brigadier generals and Heroes of the Cuban Revolution Harry Villegas, Rafael Moracén, and José Ramón Fernández, who is also vice president of the Council of Ministers; Faure Chomón, who commanded the forces of the March 13 Revolutionary Directorate in the Escambray region during Cuba's revolutionary war; Jorge Risquet, head of the Cuban internationalist column that was sent to Congo-Brazzaville at the same time that Guevara led a column of Cuban combatants in Congo-Kinshasa; Armando Entralgo, director of the Center for the Study of Africa and the Middle East; Alexandre Nunes Correia, head of the World Health Organization for Africa and a former combatant in the Guinea-Bissau war for independence against Portuguese colonial rule; and Mary-Alice Waters, one of Dreke's interviewers and editor of the book, as well as president of Pathfinder. Aguirrechu, Entralgo, Waters, Dreke, Nunes, Villegas, Chomón, and Risquet all spoke in the course of the meeting.  
 
'Spreads truth about Cuban Revolution'
"We are here to celebrate this beautiful book," said Aguirrechu of From the Escambray to the Congo, "a contribution to spreading the truth about the Cuban Revolution." She pointed to the 40-plus pages of photos and maps as one of its attractive features.

Entralgo, author of the preface, explained that it is Dreke's account of how he joined the movement against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship as a high school student in the town of Sagua la Grande in central Cuba; his leading role in the struggle to wipe out U.S.-directed counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray mountains in the first half of the 1960s; his participation in the internationalist mission to the Congo in 1965 led by Ernesto Che Guevara; and his subsequent internationalist work in Africa, for which, Entralgo noted, "he is well-respected in Africa" as a representative of the Cuban Revolution.

The book, he added, conveys Dreke's "enthusiastic attitude toward life."

Entralgo introduced one of the themes that ran throughout the afternoon meeting by saying that "it's an oversimplification to debate whether Che's Congo mission ended in defeat or victory" when the Cuban combatants who were aiding Congolese anti-imperialist fighters withdrew from that African country. Those Cuban fighters pointed the road forward and were vindicated by subsequent anticolonial victories in sub-Saharan Africa.

Waters described the book as a political weapon for working people around the world. It demonstrates the fundamental lesson of the Cuban Revolution, she said--that "with a leadership worthy of them, the men and women whose existence is often not even recognized by the rich and arrogant are capable of taking on the most powerful empire the world has ever known. And winning." (See presentation by Waters on page 8.)

In the United States in particular, Waters added, Dreke's story illustrates the fact that "whatever its imperfections, only socialist Cuba provides an example of how the racist discrimination that still permeates all aspects of social and economic relations in the United States--and elsewhere throughout the Americas--can be eliminated."

Waters noted that Dreke's father had advised him not to get involved in political activity that could only "get you in trouble" because, as he saw it, the rich would always remain on top. The Cuban Revolution, however, proved that it was possible to overturn the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation, she said.

The president of Pathfinder also presented a donation of several dozen copies of From the Escambray to the Congo to the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution.

Picking up on Waters's reference to his father, Dreke explained that "my dad was not a Batista supporter. He was opposed to Batista. But he really didn't have confidence in a future where there would be equality among all Cubans, and even less that Cuba would achieve sovereignty." His father "was a black man who was poor, who sold fish, was a singer, and did various things to feed his family" in face of economic hardship and racist discrimination.

While telling young Víctor not to "get involved," however, his father also taught him, "Don't allow anyone to push you around, don't go down on your knees."  
 
Began as a young rebel against injustice
Taking to heart the refusal to be pushed around, Dreke said, he began as a teenage rebel protesting injustices before he understood clearly what he was fighting for. As he met more experienced revolutionary cadres, however, he developed a deeper political understanding and, from that point on, he and many other young combatants "followed the road of revolution." While "others abandoned that road, got tired, or betrayed it, the majority of us have continued and we will continue," he said.

Dreke described how different revolutionary organizations came together during the fight against the Batista dictatorship. He joined the July 26 Movement, led by Fidel Castro, and then the March 13 Revolutionary Directorate, which was active in the region of the Escambray mountains.

Later, in reply to a question from the audience during the discussion period, Faure Chomón expanded on this question. In October 1958, when Rebel Army commander Che Guevara reached the Escambray after his column fought its way across half the length of Cuba, he took command of all the anti-Batista forces in the region. "We received Che and the Ciro Redondo column [of the Rebel Army] as fellow fighters," said Chomón. "There was never any question that Che was the commander, designated by the commander-in-chief of the Rebel Army, Fidel Castro."  
 
Welcomes discussion
In the book Dreke explains the struggle that unfolded after the victory of the revolution, as tens of thousands of workers, farmers, and young volunteer militia members organized to fight the U.S.-sponsored counterrevolutionary bands that operated in the Escambray, sowing terror among the population until the last ones were crushed in 1965. Dreke noted that what he said in the book about the origin and character of these bands was not something everyone would agree with, that "maybe 2 percent would disagree and 3-5 percent would be undecided," but that he would "welcome discussion" with those who held other views.

Referring to the Cuban column that went to the Congo in 1965 to fight alongside Congolese freedom fighters, Dreke noted that he had not been willing to speak publicly on that experience until Guevara's account was published two and a half years ago. He argued that, while Che's account in his Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War: Congo is completely accurate, he disagreed with Guevara's conclusion that the Congo mission was a failure. He noted that there had been two Congo missions at the time, the one to Congo-Kinshasa led by Guevara and the one to Congo-Brazzaville led by Jorge Risquet, in which Gen. Moracén took part as well.

The revolutionary fighter humorously related the initial comment by Alexandre Nunes Correia on the book's title that "something is missing: what happened to the experience in Guinea-Bissau?" Dreke headed Cuba's military mission to Guinea-Bissau in 1966-68 in support of the independence struggle there. He took the opportunity to invite Nunes, who had just arrived, to join the speakers platform.

Dreke concluded by saying that the donation of From the Escambray to the Congo to the Association of Combatants would be used to make the book as widely available as possible. He noted that the association would be organizing a series of book presentations in Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus provinces after the Havana book fair.  
 
'My commander Moja' in Guinea-Bissau
Nunes then spoke briefly, referring to "my commander Moja," Dreke's nom de guerre in Africa. He explained that when, as a teenager in Guinea-Bissau, he joined the guerrilla movement fighting for independence from Portuguese colonialism, he served in a unit under Dreke's command. He joked that to him, Dreke "seemed like a Guinean who just happened to be born in Cuba." Nunes paid tribute to all the Cuban internationalist combatants who gave their lives in Africa.

Villegas, who is today responsible for the political work of the Combatants Association, came back to the theme of how he, like Dreke and other young combatants in the struggle against the U.S.-backed dictatorship, had begun by reacting to the injustices of the world that surrounded them, and then they realized that they were involved in "a much larger struggle" that had to do with "the principle for which we continue to fight--the full dignity of humankind."

He expanded on the importance of the unification of the revolutionary forces in the old Las Villas province under Guevara's leadership--the July 26 Movement, the Revolutionary Directorate, the Popular Socialist Party, and smaller forces that all came together there to assure the victory.

Regarding the 1965 Congo mission, where the Cuban column withdrew after serving there for several months, Villegas said, "This was not a failure by Che. I believe the objective conditions did not allow for any other outcome" at the time. But the internationalist mission did contribute to "the revolutionary ferment" in Africa and "gave an example that yes, this can be done," leading to the final defeat of colonialism and apartheid in Africa a quarter century later.

After the presentations, Dreke's suggestion for a question and answer period was enthusiastically taken up by the audience. Jorge Risquet responded to a question about the Congo mission. Like many other anti-imperialist movements that have suffered ups and downs, including Cuba's own revolutionary struggle, he said, this was not a failure "from a historical viewpoint. Just like the [1953] assault on the Moncada barracks cannot be considered a failure." Evidence of this, Risquet said, was the fact that from April 24, 1965, when the first Cuban fighters crossed Lake Tanganyika to join the Congolese anti-imperialist forces, to May 26, 1991, when the last Cuban military units left Angola after inflicting a crushing defeat on South Africa's apartheid army, "there were always Cuban combatants in Africa."

A questioner asked Dreke what his book's message was for the new generations in Cuba. He replied by reiterating a point he had made earlier, that "the old oaks are proud of the new pines," paraphrasing Cuban national hero José Martí about the veteran revolutionaries and the young generations. If young people in Cuba follow the example of the five framed-up Cuban revolutionaries who today are political prisoners in the United States, refusing to give up their fight for justice, "then the revolution's future is assured," he said.

As the discussion was taking place, sales of From the Escambray to the Congo were brisk. Members of the audience purchased 160 copies of the book, and dozens of them lined up for Dreke to autograph their copy.

The meeting was covered on Cuban television, and a photo with a brief article on the event appeared in the daily Granma.

The day after the Havana book fair ends, the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, in collaboration with the provincial governments of Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritu, is organizing a series of presentations of the book in more than a half dozen towns and cities of central Cuba. These include Dreke's hometown of Sagua la Grande, Santa Clara, Trinidad, Placetas, Sancti Spíritu, Manicaragua, and Topes de Collante.
 

HAVANA--The day before the February 9 presentation of From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution at the book fair, the book was launched here at a workers assembly of some 70 people at the National Union of Caribbean Construction Enterprises (UNECA).

UNECA is a Cuban construction enterprise that works on development projects around the world, especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, such as the building of hospitals, roads, airports, and schools. UNECA construction workers, for example, helped build the international airport in Grenada during the 1979-83 revolution in that country, and put up fierce resistance when U.S. troops invaded the island in 1983, suffering some of the heaviest casualties. Dreke is currently director of UNECA's construction projects in Africa.

The meeting was addressed by local union secretary Margot Abreu; Arnaldo Hernández, local secretary of the Communist Party; Ivo Conde, of the national construction workers union; Iraida Aguirrechu, who coordinated work on the book in Cuba; Dreke; and Mary-Alice Waters, the book's editor. After the event, employees eagerly snapped up all 50 copies of the book that were on hand, as well as other Pathfinder literature on display.

The highlight of the meeting was Dreke's presentation of autographed copies of the book to UNECA employee Magali Llort, the mother of Fernando Llort, one of the five Cuban revolutionists framed up and convicted last year in a U.S. federal court on charges of "conspiracy to commit espionage" and, in one case, "conspiracy to commit murder."

Llort expressed her appreciation for this act of solidarity and assured all those present that the books would rapidly reach the hands of the five heroes of the Cuban Revolution, who have now been dispersed by U.S. authorities to prisons around the United States.

At both meetings, Dreke concluded his remarks by reading the dedication written in each of the books: "To the five heroic prisoners of the empire: I congratulate you for your firmness and bravery. You are worthy representatives of the people of Martí, Maceo, Camilo, Che, and Fidel. I send you this book with all the respect and affection you deserve. The old oak trees are proud of the new pines. Víctor Dreke."

--M.K. and A.H.
 

Militant readers are encouraged to contribute to the Books for Cuba fund, which helps make it possible for Pathfinder books to reach working people and youth in Cuba.

Like their brothers and sisters around the world, Cuban working people find the titles published by Pathfinder to be effective revolutionary political weapons, including in the defense of the Cuban Revolution.

Through the fund, Pathfinder is able to send books and pamphlets to Cuban organizations and institutions which request them. During book fairs, the titles are made available to Cubans in pesos, at prices they can afford.

Among other initiatives, the fund also makes it possible to respond to the political interest in the books in Cuba with special donations to libraries and other cultural institutions.

Contributions, large or small, are welcome. Please send checks or money orders made out to the Militant and earmarked "Books for Cuba Fund" to the Militant, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014.
 
 
Related articles:
Havana book fair celebrates publication of 'From the Escambray to the Congo'
'One more political weapon in our arsenal in battle of ideas'
Rebel Army sought unity of whites, blacks
Cuban leader opens book fair  
 
 
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