One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December is the Spanish edition of Soldier of the Cuban Revolution: From the Cane Fields of Oriente to General of the Revolutionary Armed Forces by Luis Alfonso Zayas. A teenager from a peasant background, Zayas joined Fidel Castro’s Rebel Army, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Millions of Cuban workers and peasants were transformed as they made a socialist revolution. Between 1975 and 1988, more than 375,000 Cuban volunteer soldiers aided newly independent Angola in repelling invasions by the South African apartheid regime. Zayas served in three internationalist missions in Angola. The excerpt below is from the chapter “Defending Angola’s Sovereignty.” Copyright © 2011 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
I first arrived in Angola in early December 1975. At that point, South African forces, backed by Washington, were just three hundred kilometers from the capital city of Luanda, coming from the south. They were advancing along a line extending from Porto Amboim to Quibala. They had a powerful force, with armored vehicles, artillery, planes, and infantry.
Approaching Luanda from the north, with another powerful force, was the FNLA, led by Holden Roberto, backed by the Zairian and US governments. They had been stopped just twenty kilometers away, in Quifangondo. They were practically at the gates of the capital.
And then there were the forces of UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi. UNITA had the political and military support of the South Africans and Washington, which gave them weaponry and supplies of all types.
In response to this dire situation, Agostinho Neto, the president of Angola and leader of the MPLA, asked for Cuba’s help. Cuba had supported the MPLA since 1965, when the guerrilla struggle against the Portuguese was in its early stages. If Neto had not requested Cuba’s help, or if the Cuban forces hadn’t arrived in time, the South African military would have captured Luanda. UNITA and Savimbi, or the FNLA and Holden Roberto, would have been installed as the government, thwarting the independence struggle of the Angolan people.
The people of Luanda supported the MPLA, which had led the struggle against Portuguese colonialism. …
With the support of the Cuban volunteers, the Angolan army — FAPLA, the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola — turned them back. …
The Soviets had some advisers in Angola, although not many. They had a different strategic military conception from ours. The Soviets favored big armies. What was needed in Angola, however, wasn’t big armies or grand military strategies. The help they needed was much more practical.
The Soviets did give a lot of support in weaponry and equipment. It was for Angola, but it was handled by the Cubans. Why? Because few Angolans knew how to use most of it. They had to be trained. …
“Fidel Castro’s direct
participation was
decisive in the victory”
Many Angolan technicians and armed forces personnel were trained here in Cuba. The Soviets also provided training to the Angolans — to pilots, combat engineers, communications personnel, and so on — teaching them to use the equipment. They trained a lot of Angolan military personnel in Russia. But the Angolans generally accepted the Cuban advisers more readily than the Soviet ones. They understood our advice better, since it was more practical, more in tune with the needs and character of the struggle in Africa. …
Using a map of Angola, Fidel led the war as if it were here in Cuba. He knew what was happening in every little corner of the country. He received information every day from those of us who were over there and from his liaisons, who would come and go.
Sometimes Fidel knew things you wouldn’t even imagine, and he’d give instructions for what had to be done. “Do this, do that, because the South Africans are going to do such-and-such.” And he’d be right. Fidel directed the battle of Cuito Cuanavale against the South Africans, as if he were in the forward command post in Angola.
The big decisions to send forces to Angola were made by Fidel. The US government never imagined Cuba could send fifty thousand armed men to fight in Africa. How could Cuba do so, since we had no transatlantic merchant ships set up for troop transport, nor did Angola? But we Cubans, of course, are prepared for the greatest sacrifices, and that’s how our forces were able to be sent to Angola. All of Washington’s great strategists couldn’t even conceive of that.
How was it possible to send thousands of men aboard aged turboprop passenger planes and merchant ships? Onboard the freighters, they had to travel in the cargo hold. The men couldn’t go on deck or they’d be spotted. But then how do they relieve themselves? How do they bathe and wash up? How do they eat, since the ship wasn’t set up to provide meals for thousands of men? To spend three weeks like that, who can bear it? You need to have the kind of consciousness the Cubans who went had.
Their spirits were high, because they had confidence in Fidel. Fidel tried to meet with every group of soldiers that left. He’d go and talk to them. He’d explain what the situation was.
And if he couldn’t go himself, he’d send someone else.
Only with a leadership like Fidel’s could something like that be achieved.
Our forces arrived in Angola in November 1975, right when they were needed. It was the same in 1987, with those needed during the siege of Cuito Cuanavale. Because in both cases, there was no force in Angola capable of taking on the advancing South African troops. Fidel made the decision to send what was needed to win, and they arrived in time to achieve that.
Fidel led everything that had to be done to defeat the South African forces. He’d spend entire nights analyzing and figuring out what had to be done and how. His direct participation was decisive.