In this book Dreke describes the role played by Cuban volunteer combatants in an internationalist mission to the Congo in 1965. At the request of the national liberation forces waging a struggle against the pro-imperialist regime in that country, Cuba sent a column of 128 soldiers to the eastern Congo to assist in training and support their struggle. They were there from April to November 1965. Dreke was second in command of the Cuban troops, under Ernesto Che Guevara.

After the Organization of African Unity withdrew its official support to the fight against the proimperialist regime, and given the deep divisions and other weaknesses in the leadership of the forces in the Congo, the Cuban volunteers, at the request of the Congolese, withdrew in November 1965.

This mission, to which Dreke refers in the excerpt below, laid the basis for Cuba’s internationalist work in Africa over subsequent decades, as it sent volunteer combatants to join with liberation movements throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Guinea-Bissau.

Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, and Luis Madrid, a Pathfinder editor, conducted the first session of the interview with Dreke in Havana in 1999. Pathfinder editor Michael Taber and Militant editor Martín Koppel joined Waters in a second interview in 2001.

This book is available in English and Spanish. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.
 

Waters: You said earlier that "Today nobody could surprise us about Africa. " You yourself, three and a half decades later, continue to be deeply involved in the political work of the Cuban Revolution in relation to Africa. How have you maintained those ties?

Dreke: Ever since the internationalist mission to the Congo I’ve had strong ties to Africa.

I didn’t consider the mission a defeat, although we hadn’t achieved what we’d been asked to do, what we wanted to do, or what was necessary. And we thought we could accomplish other things.

Upon our return from Africa, we were greeted by the commander in chief and the minister of the armed forces. They listened to our opinions with great interest and attention. Both of them encouraged us to continue the fight. And they met with the members of the column.

At first our idea was to keep the column intact so we’d be able to carry out other missions. Later we changed our view on that, and each compañero was reintegrated into the Western, Central, or Eastern Army, wherever they had previously come from, or else they went to school.

I continued in the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and I also maintained my links with Africa. When we left the Congo, a number of Africans returned to Cuba with us, and one of them came to live in my home. He was like a member of my family. His name was Sumba and here we called him Fidelito. He was killed after returning to the Congo to fight.  
 
Mission to Guinea-Bissau
Soon after that, in 1966, I left for my first mission to Guinea-Bissau. I headed up our military mission there and in the Republic of Guinea. Keep in mind that Guinea-Bissau was still under Portuguese colonial rule, while the Republic of Guinea had won its independence from France in 1958.

Amilcar Cabral was the central leader of the liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and because of his knowledge of Africa, he made a big impression on me. Che had held a high opinion of the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde). At that time Che considered it a serious and organized revolutionary movement.

I arrived in Guinea-Bissau with the experience I had gained in the Congo and a little more knowledge about Africa.

From a strategic point of view, Amilcar and I didn’t always share the same opinion on how to wage the struggle. But you have to remember that it’s the leaders within each country who must decide the form to carry out the struggle.

I’ll give an example.

One day the liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau decided to recruit a group of young people. They went into a small town and took six young men and brought them to the camp. I didn’t understand this. How can you compel people to join? I said this to Amilcar. "You can’t force people to fight," I told him. "You must win them over politically."

Amilcar listened to me very respectfully. Keep in mind he had lots of experience and I was a young person--not yet thirty--and new to that country. "Everything you’re saying is true," he said to me. "But here that can’t be done. Because tomorrow the Portuguese will come, and they’ll forcibly take them away and conscript them to fight against us. We have to incorporate them into our ranks before the Portuguese do."

Another question was that of the neighboring Republic of Guinea, with its capital in Conakry. The command of the PAIGC was in Guinea-Conakry. Why? Because there were only two ways to enter Guinea-Bissau: through Senegal--which gave no assistance at all--or Guinea-Conakry, whose government was then headed by Sékou Touré. Without that rear guard, the armed struggle in Guinea-Bissau would have been wiped out, since food supplies, armaments, and ammunition, which came from Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, and other socialist countries had to go through that country.

This was different from the struggle in our country, where our weapons were captured from the dictatorship’s army. The Portuguese remained in their garrisons and rarely came out to fight. So you couldn’t set ambushes to attack them and seize their weapons. They moved troops, supplies, everything, by plane and helicopter. The liberation movement needed a secure rear guard in order to survive.

That’s why in November 1970, the Portuguese imperialists decided on an operation directly attacking Guinea-Conakry, trying to overthrow Sékou Touré while simultaneously trying to wipe out the liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau. That invasion was defeated by militias trained by Cuban instructors.

The Cuban leadership supported the strategy of strengthening the government of Sékou Touré. He asked for our help. We had to prevent the imperialists from toppling his government. We also knew that the French imperialists still didn’t forgive Sékou Touré or the liberation movement for winning independence a few years earlier.

So Cuba responded to the request by Sékou Touré for Cuban instructors to help create a militia. We also responded to a proposal by Amilcar Cabral to help train artillery personnel and doctors to meet the needs of the people of Guinea-Bissau, sending a small military unit. We taught them the use of artillery and trained them to give medical care to the liberation fighters.

We lived together with these compañeros in the same camps. This brought us even closer to the African struggle, and it enabled us to appreciate and to better understand the African people. And at the same time, they made an effort to understand us.

By the time of Guinea-Bissau’s victory in 1974, I was no longer there. But later I began to work in Cape Verde, as well as in other countries such as the Congo-Brazzaville. These governments requested Cuba to train people in medicine and other specialties, and we also trained their armed forces. I took part in all that.  
 
Internationalist missions to Africa
In 1969-70 I was head and deputy head of the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. One of our responsibilities was to work with Africans, as well as working to prepare Cubans for internationalist missions in Africa.

As vice president of the Cuba-Africa Friendship Association, I’ve had relations with Africans from all countries on the continent, not just those I’ve been to as a combatant or a worker. Because, as I said, many Africans come to Cuba to study. At first we set up a school, where the teachers were all Cuban compañeros who had been in Africa. I was the director of that school. Later on, many of the teachers came from these countries.

I also got to know many Angolan compañeros, even though I didn’t participate in that struggle.

In 1990 I returned to civilian life, but I’ve maintained my ties to Africa. I’ve headed up work in Africa for ANTEX and then UNECA, Cuban enterprises involved in trade and construction. I’ve been sent on missions to numerous African countries, negotiating projects that would help these countries--this time from the point of view of construction and health care.

In this capacity I’ve had the opportunity to live in some of these countries, such as Ghana, the Republic of Guinea, and the Congo. In each I spent one or more years helping to build housing.

Today I work for UNECA with responsibilities for Central Africa. My job is to work with those countries on construction projects, reconstruction of countries that have been destroyed by wars. We build housing, roads, and other things.

Waters: At the World Youth Festival in Algeria this past summer, young people who went from the United States, France, Britain, and other imperialist countries noted that African young people there were eagerly seeking information on their history. They wanted books by revolutionary leaders like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, as well as Che and Fidel. Unlike earlier generations, it’s not just a question of fighting for independence from the colonial master. The vanguard of the new generation is seeking to prepare the necessary conditions of struggle against imperialist domination in all the forms it takes today.

Dreke: I agree. Within Africa there’s a different response from what it was back then. The times are also different. There’s a political struggle. It’s not simply an armed struggle for national liberation, like the just struggle the people of Africa had to wage in the 1960s.

The people of Africa are not political novices. I know this because many Africans have come to study in Cuba. I’ve often had the opportunity to exchange ideas with them and listen to their opinions. And the views they express are very clear.

What are some of my conclusions?

For one thing, of the parties in Africa that I’m familiar with, there are none I would venture to call Marxist or Leninist. They’re deeply nationalist; that’s what they are. There are still places where nationalism has not yet taken root, where tribal or ethnic divisions continue to prevail. That’s where imperialism seeks to intervene, sowing divisions among the people of Africa. And whenever a leader emerges who to a greater or lesser degree fights for independence or sovereignty and has a following, it seems they often die in an "accident" or through an assassination attempt. Sometimes they even just "disappear."

Then you see all these conflicts. There are countries that have been at war for years. One of the most important steps forward recently is that Africans are coming to a clearer understanding that internecine wars lead only to internal destruction. I’m not talking about wars for independence, sovereignty, and liberation. That’s something entirely different.  
 
Battle against AIDS
One very big battle they are waging, as you know, is the battle against AIDS and other terrible diseases that afflict these peoples. Our doctors are making a great effort in this war. In Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, and other countries, there are Cuban doctors working. Some compañeros were in Africa earlier as combatants in wars of liberation; now they’re serving there as doctors.

That’s why I think it’s true that there is a great movement in Africa of people seeking to read, to study, to learn their true history.

Waters: What has been the impact here in Cuba of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Cubans--a high percentage of the population--have participated in internationalist missions in Africa over the last thirty years?

Dreke: The thousands of Cuban compañeros who have been fighting, or working in health care, in education, in sports, or in other areas in Africa, have brought back knowledge to Cuba. Cuba and Africa have influenced each other deeply. Our doctors have brought back experience in treating diseases they had read about but never seen; these experiences have helped save lives there, in other countries, and then even here in Cuba. Our doctors have worked in the most difficult places, they’ve taken care of the people, and they’ve won their affection. But in addition to those kinds of things, the Cuban people have also developed real affection and respect for their African brothers and sisters.

It’s important to tell the truth. There was a stage, at the very beginning, when some people in Cuba didn’t feel this way about Africa. What was said about Africans was not always good. Back then, any black African was called "Congo." It didn’t matter if they were from Tanzania or wherever.

But most of the hundreds of thousands of our compañeros who have returned feel like they’ve left part of their family there. Whenever someone comes back from a visit to an African country, compañeros here ask: "How’s so-and-so doing?" "How’s his aunt, who took care of me when I was sick?" A brotherhood has developed between Cubans and Africans.

Within Africa, too, there’s a lot of sympathy and respect for Cuba and for Fidel, and for the Cuban compañeros who served in internationalist missions on that continent.

Through our experiences in Africa, we saw firsthand the extreme poverty in which a great part of humanity lives. We’ve learned more about imperialist exploitation. It’s not only that you’ve read something about the exploitation of man by man in a book by Karl Marx or Lenin. You’ve seen it, you’ve lived it concretely.

We say we have African blood in our veins, and you see this in Cuba every day, with our dance, our music, everything. It doesn’t matter whether your skin color is lighter or darker. There’s an African presence in all of us.

Fidel Castro and the revolution have taught us to identify ourselves deeply with our ties to Africa and to appreciate them. The presence of so many of our compañeros in Africa has played a big role making it possible for us to internalize this appreciation.