Perhaps the most constant enemy was dawa and the various things it required. I called in a muganga, probably one of those considered second rate, but he immediately sized up the situation; he settled into the camp and happily idled away the time in a way appropriate to a first-rate muganga. He was certainly intelligent. The day after he arrived, I told him that he should accompany a group of men who were to spend several days at an ambush because dawa lost its effect with time and the men did not remain in their positions. But he flatly refused to go, saying that he would prepare a stronger dawa for them that would last a fortnight. Such a forceful argument had to be accepted from someone with his authority, and the men left with the stronger dawa which, combined with speed and the opportunity to flee, was wonderfully effective.
Several days earlier I had spoken to Massengo about practical training in the Kalonda-Kibuyu area, and so I started making preparations to send a team of Cubans who, operating in two groups, would select the best Congolese combatants on the basis of how they performed in an ambush. We would use the same system as in the area closest to Katenga, where by that time we had lifted all the ambushes because the number of Congolese had dwindled until only one or two remained. We left behind Azi, who was sick, with a couple of compañeros and concentrated the rest along with ourselves. Despite our efforts, disease and dispersal at the various fronts left few men available, so that only 13 left with Mbili for Kalonda-Kibuyu. Ishirini was the second-in-command. Compañero Ishirini was a regular soldier in Cuba, but his qualities were such that we decided to give him assignments with greater responsibility, as part of a plan for training leaders if we were able to build our army into an operational group with enough Congolese soldiers. The compañeros were scheduled to spend approximately 20 days at the ambush, but no longer, because the rigors of the climate affected the men, especially the Cubans. After that time, another group would transfer the operation to a different region, so as not to saturate the same area with ambushes, while the first group rested and refreshed. Mbili had already left to cross the Kimbi and begin operations when, within just a few hours, a pathetic little note arrived from Siki and another from Massengo. Siki’s note read:
Moja:
The guardsmen are advancing on Fizi, and there’s nothing to stop them, nor do they want to stop them. We are going from Fizi to Lubondja. I’ll try to bring down the bridges. Tell Tatu my trip was a failure.
Siki
10-10-65
The note from Massengo reported that Fizi had already fallen and gave instructions that the entire Kalonda-Kibuyu group should place itself under my orders.1
Meanwhile, some of the previous work was starting to bear fruit; a consignment of food and some medicine was brought up from the Lake [Base] by a number of peasants, and we shared some of our things with them. It was not a lot, but we were able to give them some salt and sugar, and our men had sweetened tea. A letter came from Aly with the same old story, an account of an ambush they had tried to set up in the Kabimba area. On discovering a packet of cigarettes on a trail, they turned back and finally reached the main path with their numbers much reduced; of the 60 Congolese soldiers, only 25 were left; they took prisoner some peasants who were traveling down the road (they had been instructed to clear it), and who said that a truck would be coming along in a few hours from the cement factory in Kabimba. When the commander of the Congolese detachment heard this, he decided to lift the ambush an hour before the truck passed as guardsmen might be coming; this brought the week-long operation to an end. Shortly afterwards promotions were handed out: captain to major or field commander, etc; rewards rained down on them for such an audacious action.
Siki arrived from Fizi, having conducted a forced march because of the situation. He recounted the vicissitudes of the trip. The conversations with General Moulana passed through too many mouths—Siki spoke neither French nor Swahili, and the general had no French—to have any certainty, but in summary, Siki had presented our ultimatum and argued that it was necessary to dig trenches immediately. The existing defenses were a “barrier” consisting of three men, a man and his assistant with a bazooka and another with a pepechá2 plus the usual piece of string across the middle of the road to stop anyone passing; they had not dug a trench nor done any reconnaissance. After I had spoken to Siki, General Moulana had his say and launched into an extremely sharp attack on Compañero Massengo, blaming him for everything because he had not sent arms or ammunition and had not sent him Cubans to fight. Under such conditions, he would not defend Fizi and he was not a corpse to be digging holes (fortunately, he said, he was still alive), and Massengo should bear all the responsibility. Massengo did not even react. We don’t know if this was due to his lack of character or the fact he was in enemy territory (which is how this area might be described). Whatever the case, he weathered the storm in silence and that night they no longer slept in Fizi.
Some compañeros thought that the general could not be so stupid and that he must be colluding with the mercenaries. I have no evidence of this, and he remained in the Fizi area as a rebel when we withdrew. Backwardness might explain his attitude, but in reality he played into the enemy’s hands.
The fact was that internal divisions were producing a number of extreme cases such as this one. The 37 kilometers of road from Baraka to Fizi crosses hills where there are many possibilities to lay an ambush, as well as a river that forms a defensive barrier that is quite difficult for vehicles to negotiate. The bridge there was already partly destroyed and only needed to be completely destroyed in order to create good defensive possibilities; at least this would have slowed down the enemy advance. But none of this was done.
On October 12 the enemy took Lubondja in a triumphal procession. Colonel Lambert heard about the capture of Fizi and set off there with 40 men, leaving some heavy weapons behind in Lubondja that were then lost in the bush. He was not open to argument, and Massengo didn’t have the presence of mind to order him to stay to defend the last position preventing a link-up of the forces from Lulimba with those landing in Baraka, namely the barrier in the mountains.
When Massengo arrived in our camp, exasperated I told him that with the men I had I could not take responsibility for defending it from a two-pronged attack. Mbili had strengthened the eastern end by crossing with his 13 men on forced marches, but all we could count on were 13 Cubans on one flank and 10 on the other; to make a defensive stand would mean getting 23 men killed because the rest were not willing to do anything. At the barrier they had an arsenal with 150 boxes of the most varied ammunition, especially for heavy weapons, mortars, artillery pieces and 12.7 machine guns, and the previous night everything had been tried to get the people to work to save it. We had to threaten to throw water over them, to remove the blankets from on top of them, in short, to exert extreme physical pressure, while Massengo, who was spending the night there, was powerless to force them to work and Lambert’s deputies ran off with his followers.
Massengo’s response was to send Lambert a letter ordering him to return and take charge of the defense with his men. I don’t know if this letter ever reached its destination, but it certainly had no effect. Soon after we heard that the position, under threat from both the Lulimba and the Lubondja sides, had fallen without a fight, and that the retreat had turned into a rout. The reaction of our men was worse than bad. The Congolese had been given weapons such as mortars for which they were responsible, and which were then lost; they showed no fighting spirit and, like the Congolese, thought only of saving themselves; and the retreat was so disorderly that we lost a man without knowing how, because his own compañeros couldn’t say whether he had simply got lost or been wounded or killed by enemy soldiers who were firing on the hill over which they were retreating. We thought he might have headed toward the Lake Base or be somewhere else, until his failure to appear convinced us that he was either dead or captured. Anyhow, we heard no more of him. As it was, a great many weapons were lost. I gave instructions that any Congolese who unexpectedly t
urned up without orders to carry out some specific mission should be disarmed forthwith. The next day, I had a considerable amount of war booty, as if we had laid the most productive of ambushes: the 75 mm. cannon, with a good amount of ammunition; one antiaircraft machine gun intact, and remnants of another; mortar parts, five sub-machine guns, ammunition, hand grenades and 100 or so rifles. The man responsible for the cannon, Compañero Bahasa, had remained alone at the position, but when the guardsmen advanced and he received an alarmist report from another Cuban, he had pulled back and abandoned it. The mercenaries were not advancing so rapidly, and Moja gave timely orders saving the cannon, but I sharply criticized that compañero (a party member), as well as a number of others.
With Massengo’s agreement we decided that all fugitive soldiers should be disarmed and stripped of their rank; we would build a new force with those that remained, and I hoped in my heart of hearts there would be very few of them; I said I would accept only those who showed they were serious and had a fighting spirit.
We organized an assembly with the Congolese compañeros, where I told them very bluntly what I thought of them. I explained that we were going to form a new army, that no one was obliged to come with us and that anyone who wanted to leave could do so, but he must leave his weapons there, and the arsenal we had saved with so much effort would also remain with us. I asked those present to raise their hand if they wanted to leave; no one did. This seemed strange, as I had previously asked two or three Congolese (who had agreed to stay). So, keeping an eye on one of those I had selected, I asked everyone who wanted to stay to take one step forward; two stepped forward, and immediately the whole column did the same, which meant that they would all remain part of the force. I was not convinced by this so I asked them to think it over and discuss among themselves before we decided. The result of this was that some 15 men said they would like to leave. But it did bring some benefit: one commander decided to remain as a soldier (as I was not accepting former ranks), and the number of volunteers was larger than anticipated.
It was agreed that Massengo should return to the Lake Base along with Tembo, Siki and the doctor-translator, Kasulu. Paradoxically, the political situation could not have been better, because Tshombe had been killed and Kimba was making fruitless attempts to form a government. We had an ideal situation to continue fighting, taking advantage of the disintegration in Leopoldville. But the competently led enemy troops, away from events in the capital and with no serious opposition, struck out on their own.
Compañero Rafael, who was in charge of our affairs in Dar es-Salaam, came on a tour and to talk to me. We agreed on the basic issues: the signal center would be at the site of operations and would have a transmitter capable of reaching Havana; a weekly shipment of food would be sent to the new army’s base, which would be as well supplied as possible; and a compañero from Dar es-Salaam would go to Kigoma to replace Changa, who didn’t speak Swahili and was having a number of difficulties; Changa would come over here and take charge of the boats.
With regard to provisions, I changed my previous attitude that had proved to be mistaken. I had come with the idea of forming an exemplary nucleus, of enduring all hardships alongside the Congolese and, with our spirit of self-sacrifice, displaying the true path of a revolutionary soldier. The result, however, had been that our men went hungry and lacked shoes and clothes, while the Congolese divided among themselves the shoes and clothes that reached them by other routes; all we had achieved was that discontent became rife among the Cubans themselves. It was therefore decided to form the nucleus of an army that would be better equipped and better fed than the rest of the Congolese troops; it would be directly under my command; it would be the practical school converted into the nucleus of an army. To achieve this, it was absolutely necessary for us to be sent regular basic supplies from Kigoma, with peasant carriers organized from the Lake [Base] to bring them to the front. It was very difficult to get the Congolese soldiers to work, and if our men devoted themselves to that task we wouldn’t have any combatants.
We divided our force into two companies, led by Siwa and Azima as second-in-command, under the orders of Mbili and Moja respectively, after a minimum period of training. The basic composition would be 15 Cubans and some 45 Congolese, with others to be added as required; one company commander, three Cuban platoon commanders and three Cuban squad commanders (with five men in each squad). Thus, there would be three squads to a platoon and three platoons to a company, with a total of nine squad commanders, three platoon commanders, the company commander with his second-in-command, and a small auxiliary squad, all Cubans.
We transferred to the new camp, an hour by road from the previous one, in the first mountain foothills but still on the plain.
1. Che’s note: In reality, this group was never incorporated. A few individuals did come, under the orders of a political commissar who seemed to be a good guy, but who was overwhelmed by that mob. The rest had remained in the peasants’ houses. I sent them all away, including the political commissar, as I couldn’t handle any more disorder.
2. An old-model Soviet machine gun.
DISASTER
At this time, “Tremendo Punto” came to join me; his mission was to be a type of high-level political commissar. Charles, who also accompanied me, would be a more practical battle commissar, as he could work directly with the Kibembe-speaking people who made up the majority of our force. I considered “Tremendo Punto’s” presence to be very important because we were looking for people to develop as cadres. Our ambassador in Tanzania informed us of the very strong pressures that country’s government was exerting for an agreement with Gbenyé. I didn’t know what might happen, but I was prepared to continue the struggle up to the last moment; it suited me to have someone with me who would hold high the insurgent banner should we have any dealings with those people.
The new camp had a better natural environment than the previous one, but it was far from perfect. There was very little water, just a little spring that emitted muddy water, and we knew from experience the gastric upsets that this could produce. A hill rising proudly between the main road and the camp prevented wide visibility. It would have been much better to establish ourselves higher up, but all the hills appeared to have no water and it would have been a problem to transport it there for a group as large as ours. I gave orders for an ammunition dump to be created higher up, so that we would not have the burden of defending the 150 boxes of assorted ammunition that we had saved in Lubondja. I scoured the area for a suitable site and took some further precautions, such as maintaining a platoon ready to defend the upper reaches in the event of a threatened attack.
With some peasants who had joined us, we already had the germ of a third company; I thought of continuing until we had four and then pausing to assess the situation because I didn’t want to overdo the numbers until the men could be rigorously selected in combat. Local peasants came to join up in response to Compañero Massengo’s appeal; he “read the rule book” to each one individually, translated by Charles into strong language.
A note came from Machado at the Lake [Base], informing me that he could not cross because there was no boat available (in the end he left on a motumbo with an outboard motor). He was prepared to take Arobaini, the compañero wounded in a previous engagement, and try to save his finger which was in a very bad state. That meant another reduction in our numbers. Machado said that he had spoken to the doctors who were planning to abandon the struggle and tried to persuade them to stay another six months, until March. But when this didn’t work, he decided to leave them behind anyway. This procedure was a little hasty, but undeniably effective in achieving its aim, and I totally agreed with him.
We sent two scouts to inspect the ammunition dump from Lubondja and to make an attempt to put it in a safe place; it was larger than the one we had saved at Lambert’s barrier. They reported that the dump, although intact, was completely undefended. But they were proven wrong because a group of men at a weak barrier
had been mobilized from the Lake [Base] to protect it.
Many scattered combatants from Lubondja, Kalonda-Kibuyu and Makungu were wandering around in the immediate area, taking shelter in villages and extorting things from their inhabitants. We decided to do something about this, and Charles was sent on a punitive trip to clear the soldiers out, demobilize them and retrieve their weapons. This was well received by the peasants who were very upset by the actions of these vagabonds that engaged in more pillaging than when they had come as a group displaying some elements of order.
We decided to start accelerated construction work and training to fill up all the spare time that both the Congolese and the Cubans had on their hands. We held two meetings to decide on a plan of action: one of the General Staff with the officers, the other with party members. The first of these established the method to be used for the military training; it defined the special features of each of the companies, drew up a list of forthcoming operations, and stipulated the means to achieve internal discipline and integration with the Congolese. The spirit among the officers was not very high; they showed great skepticism about the tasks, although they performed them in an acceptable manner. A start was made on building the accommodation, the latrines and the hospital, on cleaning up the well, and on digging defensive trenches in the most vulnerable areas. Everything went very slowly because the rain was by now more intense, and I didn’t have the resolve to make the men move the ammunition dump but waited for the upper-level construction work to be completed first—a weakness on my part that would prove fatal. At the same time, imbued with a false sense of security by the fact that the enemy was some kilometers away, we did not create outlying posts (as would have been normal in such cases) and instead the lookout stations were fairly close.