The African Dream Read online

  When I set off on the mission, I positioned the mortar, the cannon, the antiaircraft and terrestrial machine guns so they had a direct line of fire at the enemy from a distance of 300 meters, except for the mortar that was at 500 meters, and followed up with 49 Rwandans and five Cubans. We crossed the river that was 150 to 200 meters from the enemy mortars. Then, at 100 meters from the enemy position, one of the Rwandans accidentally fired a shot; the troop became disorganized and we lost five, leaving 44. I organized the men into three groups, with two Cubans in mine and one in each of the others. By 3:00 a.m. on the 29th we had occupied the positions, some at 25 meters from the enemy, others further away. We could hear several bursts of enemy machine-gun fire. At 5:00 a.m. as planned, the cannon, the mortars, the antiaircraft and other machine guns opened fire and we continued shooting at the infantry. All the weapons hit the mark; firing went on uninterrupted until 6:00, by which time I had three wounded men on my front. At 7:00, I couldn’t hear firing to my left from our troops. I moved around a little and saw that many Rwandans were missing. Then I armed three Cubans with machine guns instead of FALs: these were Achali, Angalia and myself, plus a Rwandan captain. At 8:45 two Rwandans were killed; I went off to the left to look for Tano to send a message to Moja; the men in the center and the group on the left, including the Rwandan officers, had withdrawn on their own initiative. I was left with 14 Rwandans, and I had one Cuban missing (Tano, in the center group). I sent Angalia with the first message to Moja. By 10:00 I had four Rwandans left, including one officer. I held out until 12:00 and then withdrew 25 meters with two dead and three wounded. I sent another message to Moja, held on there until 12:30, and then withdrew to the mortar and cannon position, passing the river. Before withdrawing, I looked for the position where Tano and Sita were, but I could see neither. Sita turned up later. At the mortar position, I received orders from Moja to withdraw the mortar, the machine guns and the cannon and to leave an ambush in case the enemy guardsmen crossed the river. I maintained this position until 6:00 a.m. on June 30, when I received an order to withdraw from that place completely. Only Cubans were left at the ambush: Anzali, Achali, Ahiri, Abdallah, Almari and Azi; there was not one Rwandan. The Rwandans were ordered by the command post to occupy the positions, and they went over the mountain to the camp. The Rwandans abandoned their weapons and ammunition, and did not collect their dead. Compañero Azima was under my orders, carrying out the mission of occupying the other side (right bank of the river, some 500 meters from our positions) along with Alakre, Arobo and 40 Rwandans. On the night when they moved to occupy the positions, the Rwandans heard a noise and said it was a tembo (elephant), and then left the two Cubans alone on the mountain; thus the Cubans had to return to the command post at 7:00 on the 29th.

  This was more or less the theme of the whole operation. It began with a lot of bravado—even though men were missing at many of the positions even before the fighting started—and then turned into a complete rout.

  Compañero Tano appeared seven days later. He had been wounded and abandoned by his compañeros. He then dragged himself toward the mountain, where he was found by Rwandan soldiers on patrol. His wound healed and he was able to rejoin the struggle.

  To complete the picture, here is another report [from Moja] from the same day:

  We can report that the Rwandan compañeros retreated in disorder from the front, leaving behind weapons, ammunition, dead and wounded. These were collected by our compañeros, as the compañero Commander Mundandi witnessed.

  Compañero Nne’s mission, which was the principal one, was to occupy the Albertville to [Front de] Force road to prevent the passage of enemy reinforcements, but according to the information we have at present, he didn’t reach the agreed place because the guide said he was lost. Compañero Nne then made a wrong decision to attack the military academy, where, according to the reports from our Rwandan compañeros who took part in the action, the only men still there when it began were our own compañeros and some Rwandan compañeros who died or, in two cases, were wounded. Right at the start of the action, Compañero Nne asked them to deploy the cannon, but the Rwandan compañeros who had been carrying it took off in the direction of the camp and left the shells and other pieces which were collected by some of our own compañeros.

  When we learned of Compañero Nne’s death, we sent Compañero Mbili with 20 reinforcements to see how things really stood there, and they discovered that Compañero Maffu’s ambush included Compañeros Kasambala, Sultán, Ajili and others belonging to Nne’s group. When Compañero Mbili saw the situation, he informed me of it and asked for some more men so that, if I thought it appropriate, he could head off with them to the road. By this time it was 18:00 on the 29th.

  When I discussed the problem with Commander Mundandi, he told me that the Rwandan compañeros were refusing to fight. We therefore had no more men to send for the ambush because the surviving Rwandan compañeros from Nne’s group had set out for the base, while the 20 Rwandans with Compañero Mbili also refused to fight, and the men under Maffu’s command were in the same situation. We therefore thought of sending word to Mbili that he should leave four or five of our compañeros to look for dead bodies, while the others should return on the night of 6/30/65. But at 04:00 on the 30th, only he and the other Cuban compañeros were left at Compañero Azi’s position, and their situation was raised with the compañero Commander Mundandi. The decision was then taken that they should withdraw to a nearby hill.

  The other problems that Compañero Mbili encountered during this operation he will explain to you in detail.

  The command post, where Commander Mundandi was also located, was some 800 meters from the front (beside the river). We had there: Moja, Mbili, Paulu, Saba and Anga.

  We did not leave more at the command post as we thought that the ambushes should be strengthened because of the distances involved.

  Bahasa and Ananane were too ill for combat and remained at the base camp.

  Moja

  Everything was against Compañero Nne. He had discussed his plan beforehand with Maffu, thinking that he would carry out the ambush and then turn to attack the enemy’s position; he had proposed this idea to the command but did not get approval; nevertheless, he went ahead with the idea. Once the battle was underway elsewhere, there was little possibility of reaching the designated place because the guide was so terrified that he would not take another step, and no one else knew the way. Nne decided to attack the position he had in front of him at the start of the fighting—that is, the military academy—but he was met with intense, well-coordinated fire from heavy weapons. According to eyewitnesses, Nne himself was soon wounded and handed over his machine gun position to Kawawa, but then Kawawa was killed by a mortar, and another two compañeros were slightly wounded and withdrew. A scout sent out shortly afterwards found Thelathini’s body; Ansurune was missing and presumed dead. They had started the engagement at a point within the enemy’s sights, at a distance of some 200 meters. In addition to the four Cuban compañeros, at least 14 Rwandans were killed—including the brother of Commander Mundandi. The exact number cannot be established as the Rwandan accounting was very poor.

  In this ill-fated action, I assign much of the blame to the Cuban command. Compañero Nne, underestimating the enemy, launched an undeniably daring operation to carry out what he considered his moral duty, although not his specific task; he launched a frontal attack and perished along with other compañeros, leaving open the way from Albertville along which enemy reinforcements were expected to come.

  As part of the contingency planning before the engagement, all the compañeros had been instructed to leave behind any documents or papers that might allow them to be identified. They did do this, although Nne’s group kept some documents in their packs and were meant to leave their belongings at a certain distance before joining the ambush. When the fighting started, however, they still had their packs with them, and the enemy found a diary which suggested that Cubans had participated in the att
ack. What they did not know was that four had been killed at that place,2 as the newspapers always spoke only of two.

  A very large quantity of weapons and ammunition was hastily abandoned, but we could not know exactly how much because there had been no previous records. The wounded were left to their fate, as were the dead, of course.

  Meanwhile, what was happening in Katenga?

  One hundred and sixty men took part in the attack, with weapons greatly inferior to those of the Rwandans. The best they had were automatic rifles and short-range rocket launchers. The surprise factor was lost because, for reasons that Mundandi never explained, the attack had been ordered for a day later (the 30th), when enemy aircraft were flying over the whole region and those in defensive positions were naturally on the alert.

  Of the 160 men, 60 had deserted by the time of the engagement and many others never managed to fire a shot. At the agreed hour, the Congolese opened fire on the barracks, generally shooting in the air because most of them kept their eyes shut while pressing the triggers of their automatic weapons until the ammunition ran out. The enemy answered with accurate 60 mm. mortar fire that inflicted a number of casualties and provoked an immediate rout.

  The losses were four dead and 14 wounded, the latter during the disorderly retreat, in which men ran away in terror. At first they explained the defeat by saying that the medicine man was no good and had given them bad dawa. He tried to defend himself by blaming women and fear, but there were no women around and not a single man was honest enough to admit his weaknesses. The medicine man was in a tight spot and was replaced. It became the main task for Calixte, the group’s commander, to search the entire zone for a new muganga with the right qualities.

  The result of this dual attack was great demoralization among the Congolese and Rwandans, but also a loss of heart among the Cubans; our combatants had morosely witnessed assault troops melt away at the moment of combat and abandon precious weapons in order to flee more quickly; each had also observed the lack of comradeship as they left their wounded to fend for themselves, the terror that gripped the soldiers and the ease with which they dispersed without following orders of any kind. Often it was the officers—including the political commissars (a blot on the Liberation Army that I will discuss later), who were often the first to run away. The heavy weapons, which had mostly been handled by Cubans, were nearly all saved; the FM and DP machine guns, handled by Rwandans, were lost in significant numbers, as were rifles and all kinds of ammunition.

  In the days after the attack, a large number of soldiers either deserted or requested a discharge. Mundandi wrote me a long letter, as always full of tales of heroism. He lamented the loss of his brother, but stated that he had died after wiping out a truck full of soldiers (a complete fabrication because there were no trucks there). He regretted the loss of several of the more resolute cadres in his group, and protested at the fact that the General Staff was in Kigoma while the men were fighting and laying down their lives in the Congo. He mentioned in passing that two-thirds of the enemy troops had been killed, but he could not have had any reliable source for this and it was, of course, false. True to his inclination to fantasy, he could not refrain from making such assertions, while at the same time apologizing for his own weaknesses.

  To sum up, Mundandi made a complete confession of his discouragement. I had to send him a reply replete with advice and an analysis of the situation in an attempt to lift his spirits. But his letters suggested the disintegration that would later overcome the Liberation Army and catch the Cuban troops in its mesh.

  On June 30, when the engagement at Front de Force was already underway but no news of it had yet reached us, I wrote a monthly review in my diary:

  This is the most pathetic review so far. When everything seemed to suggest that a new period was opening for us, Mitoudidi died and the fog became denser. The exodus to Kigoma continues. Kabila has repeatedly announced his return but never carried it out; there is total disorganization.

  On the positive side is the idea of men going to the front; but on the negative side, there is the announcement of an attack that may be crazy or totally ineffective, and would alert Tshombe’s forces.

  A number of questions remain to be clarified. What will be Kabila’s attitude toward us, and especially toward me? In a word, is he the right man for this situation? Will he be able to size it up and see that everything here is chaotic? It’s impossible to tell until we meet in the field, but on the first question at least, there are serious signs that he is not at all happy with my presence. It remains to be seen whether this is due to fear, envy or feelings hurt by the method.

  During these days I wrote a letter to Pablo Rivalta, our ambassador to Tanzania, and among other things instructed him to inform the government of my presence here, to apologize for the way in which I had arrived, to explain the problems resulting from the fact that Kabila had not then been in the country, and to emphasize that the decision had been mine, not the Cuban government’s. The bearer of the letter was first to meet Kabila in Kigoma and to discuss his views. But when he learned of my intentions, Kabila categorically forbade anything to be said, saying he would talk to me about it when he returned to the Congo.

  1. The diagram Che mentions was not in his original manuscript.

  2. Those who died in this action were: Wagner Moro Pérez (Kawawa), Norberto Pío Pichardo (Nne), Víctor M. Valle Ballester (Thelathini) and Crisógenes Vinajera Hernández (Ansurune).

  THE SHOOTING STAR

  I received no fewer than four different verbal or written messages from Kabila before he arrived. I no longer believed anything despite all these promises, and focused my attention on a number of concrete problems.

  From time to time Mundandi would write, each letter more critical than the last and all heaping blame on the Congolese: their lack of fighting spirit would leave him without men to make the revolution in Rwanda; all his cadres were dying; he had thought of continuing as far as Albertville before heading for Rwanda, but by then he would no longer have any combatants left, etc.

  They had tried small-scale operations such as exploratory patrols at Front de Force to establish the enemy’s location and to look for men who might have been abandoned by their compañeros as no one knew the exact numbers missing. But it was all to no avail, and the Rwandans refused to go farther than the first descending mountain slopes. Faced with our complaints, Mundandi explained that it was a political question and that his men were disheartened by the lack of cooperation from the Congolese and that’s why they refused to act.

  It was difficult to know what to make of these statements as one of his concerns had been to keep away from the Congolese troops. He had taken the initiative for the operation and its failure could be attributed to him, and maybe us, but there was no reason to implicate the Congolese from whom he kept his distance.

  Wounded men kept arriving from Katenga and Front de Force. The peasants gradually brought them in because the combatants were also unwilling to carry someone on a makeshift stretcher along mountain paths.

  Once again I tried to speak to those in charge. This was Major Kasali at that time, but he didn’t receive me because he had a “headache,” sending Compañero Kiwe, an old acquaintance, to speak with me and pass on my views to Kigoma.

  I didn’t have a lot to say:

  a) What was being done with the 40 of our men who had recently arrived? Where were they being sent?

  b) For the record I expressed my disagreement with the way everything for the attack on Bendera had been handled.

  At the same time I gave him a brief letter for Kabila, explaining that my presence at the front was becoming daily more necessary.

  Certainly, symptoms of the decomposition could be observed among our troop. Already during the retreat from Front de Force some compañeros were saying that they would no longer fight alongside such people and would withdraw from the struggle; it was rumored that some might formally propose to leave the Congo. Maintaining the morale of the
Cubans was one of my fundamental concerns. I had requested an urgent reply to my note, but none arrived. I sent another letter via Commissar Alfred, in which I analyzed the defeat at Front de Force and added some further observations:

  The attacks had not been coordinated; the Front de Force group attacked on the 29th and the Katenga group on the 30th, but Mundandi was not the only one to blame as nothing had been done on the other front either.1 I recommended the creation of a single command to unify operations across the entire front, and suggested that a Cuban should be part of it. As we have seen, the conflicts made it impossible to transfer even a box of bullets from one group to another. I again insisted that it was necessary for me to be present at the front.

  I went to the Upper Base to explain the defeat to our compañeros and to give the new arrivals a solemn warning. My analysis of our defects was as follows:

  First, we are underestimating the enemy. We thought they would be like the rebel soldiers confronting them. So we attacked bare-chested in the spirit of conquerors, thinking we could just sweep the enemy aside, without taking into account that they had had military training and seemed to be on the alert in well-protected positions.

  Second, lack of discipline. I emphasized the need for rigid discipline. Even though it was painful, it was necessary to criticize Nne’s action, which, although heroic, had done a lot of damage by leading to the death not only of three other Cuban compañeros but also of more than a dozen Rwandans.