Third, decline of fighting spirit. I insisted emphatically that it was necessary to keep morale high.
I publicly criticized Compañero Azima for making defeatist statements, and I was explicit about what awaited us: not only hunger, bullets and all manner of suffering, but sometimes even death at the hands of compañeros who had no idea how to shoot. The struggle would be very hard and long. I gave this warning because, at that point, I was willing to accept that the new arrivals should express any doubts and return if they wanted; this would no longer be possible later. My tone was severe and my warning clear. None of the new arrivals showed signs of weakness, but to my surprise three combatants who had taken part in the attack at Bendera (and who had returned with messages) planned to leave. Even worse, one of them was a member of our party.2 These were Abdallah, Anzali and Anga.
I reproached them for their attitude and warned that I would ask for the severest penalties against them. I made no commitment because I was speaking with the new soldiers in mind, but I did promise to let them go at an unspecified future date.
To exacerbate my pain and surprise, Compañero Sitaini, who had been with me since the [revolutionary] war [in Cuba] and served as my aide for six years, raised returning to Cuba. It was all the more painful because he used petty arguments and claimed not to know what everyone had been told about the expected length of the war, namely, that with luck, it was likely to last three years, or maybe five. It had been my constant refrain to predict a long and difficult struggle, and Sitaini knew this better than anyone because he was always with me. I refused to accept his departure. I tried to get him to see that it would harm the reputation of us all, and argued that he had an obligation to stay because of his closeness to me. He replied that this left him no choice but to agree, but he did so grudgingly and from then on he was like a walking corpse. He was ill with a bilateral hernia, and his condition worsened so much that it became necessary and justifiable for him to abandon the struggle.
My spirits were very low during those days, but I cheered up on July 7 when I was told that Kabila had arrived. The top man was at last in the theater of operations.
He was cordial but reserved. I discussed my presence there as something that had been accepted as a fait accompli and merely repeated the explanations I had given several times before about why I had come to the Congo without giving advance notice. I told him that he should inform the Tanzanian government of this, but his response was evasive and the matter was left for another time. Two of his close assistants accompanied him: Compañero Massengo, today head of the General Staff, and Foreign Minister Nbagira (at that time there were two foreign ministers because Gbenyé had one of his own, Kanza). He appeared animated and asked me what I wanted to do. Of course, I repeated my old tune about wanting to go to the front. My most important task, in which I could be most useful, was to train cadres, and cadres were best trained in battle at the front line, not at the rear. He expressed his reservations, saying that someone like me was useful to the world revolution and should take care of himself. I argued that my intention was not to fight at the front, but to be at the front along with my soldiers. Besides, I had enough experience to take care of myself. I was not looking for laurels but carrying out a specific task, and I thought it the one most useful to him because it would result in loyal and competent cadres.
He did not reply, but he maintained a cordial tone and told me that we were going to make a number of trips; we would go to the interior and visit all the fronts, leaving that very night to visit the Kabimba area. For some reason, however, he was unable to go either that night or the next day, and on the day after that he had to speak at a rally about the Cairo conference and clear up some doubts the peasants had about it. For the moment, Aly was sent with 10 men to carry out some modest action in the Kabimba area. Lieutenant Kisua went to Uvira for the purpose of reconnaissance.
The rally proved to be interesting. Kabila showed ample knowledge of his people’s mentality as he explained skillfully and elegantly in Swahili all the salient points of the Cairo meeting and the resulting accords. He let the peasants talk, then gave quick responses in a way that satisfied them. At the end, everyone did a short slow dance to the sound of music and sang, “Kabila eh! Kabila va!”
His activity was intense, as if he wanted to catch up for lost time. He proposed organizing the base’s defenses and he seemed to inspire everyone with fresh confidence, transforming this region that had been so badly affected by a lack of discipline. Sixty men were hastily assembled and assigned to three Cuban instructors in trench-digging and shooting, while we devised a plan to defend the little semicircular bay in which we found ourselves.
On July 11, five days after arriving, Kabila sent for me and said he had to leave that night for Kigoma. He explained that Soumialot was there, and then criticized that leader for his organizational errors, his demagogy and his weak character. According to Kabila, immediately after the Tanzanian government had, on his advice, imprisoned some of Gbenyé’s agents—or enemy agents—who had been sowing discord, Soumialot had shown up and released them. The division of labor with Soumialot had to be clarified once and for all; he had been appointed chairman so that he would spend his time traveling and explaining the revolution and not interfere too much—because he had no organizational skills—but now there needed to be a clearer demarcation.
Kabila assessed Soumialot’s influence in this, his native region, and said that they needed to sort things out between them because his activity could be harmful to the future of the revolution. The trip would last a day, and he would be back the following day.
In the course of our conversation, he let slip that Soumialot had already returned to Dar es-Salaam, so I asked him somewhat sarcastically how he was going to cross the lake, meet Soumialot in Dar es-Salaam and return the next day. But he replied that Soumialot’s departure had not been confirmed, and that if it was true and he had to go to Dar es-Salaam, he would return immediately.
When they heard that Kabila was leaving, the Congolese and Cubans again became dejected. Kumi, the doctor, took out a piece of paper on which he had predicted that Kabila would stay seven days in the Congo, just two days off. Changa, our valiant “admiral” of the lake, was furious: “Why did that man bring all those bottles of whiskey if he was only going to stay five days?”
I will not record what the Congolese said in protest as it was not said directly to me. But it was along the same lines, and it was transmitted to our own compañeros.
Kabila was becoming discredited, and it would be impossible to overcome this if he did not return at once. We had a final conversation in which I alluded to this problem as kindly as I could. We also discussed other matters, and he raised the question—obliquely, as usual—of what my position would be in the event of a split. I told him that I had not come to the Congo to interfere in internal politics and that it would be harmful if I were to do so; I said that I had been sent by our government to this region and that we would try to be loyal to him and above all to the Congo. If I had doubts about his political position, I told him I would present them to him first and frankly. But I stressed that wars are won on the battlefield, not in meeting rooms at the rear.
We spoke of future plans. He confided in me that he was arranging for the base to be moved further south to Kabimba, and that steps had to be taken to ensure that weapons were not distributed in the zones of his political enemies. I explained that, in our view, Katanga province’s wealth made it the key area of the Congo and therefore where the toughest battles had to be fought. We agreed on this, but for our part we did not think that the problem of the Congo could be solved on a tribal or regional basis; it was a national problem and they had to understand this. I also argued that the loyalty of a particular tribe was not as important as the loyalty of revolutionary cadres; and cadres had to be trained and developed, insisting once again that it was necessary for me to be at the front… my usual refrain.
We said good-bye, Kabila left, and
the very next day activity in the base, which had begun to improve through his dynamic presence, slackened off. Soldiers with the task of digging trenches said they would not work because the leader had left; others who were building the hospital also abandoned their labors. Again everything began to acquire the easy, pastoral rhythm that our General Staff headquarters had—the rhythm of a village far removed from all the vicissitudes of war and even life.
1. Che’s note: It is necessary to stress this point because of the situation in which the Rwandans found themselves. On the one hand, greater confidence in and appreciation of them was shown than the Congolese; but, on the other hand, they got all the blame for the defeat. Both sides made no self-criticism and engaged in a war of incredible insults, using energy that would have been better expended on the enemy. Mundandi told me that on one occasion Calixte went as far as shooting at him, although I have no evidence of this. What is certain is that neither group was efficient.
2. This was the United Party of the Socialist Revolution that became the Cuban Communist Party in October 1965. It was at the public announcement of this new party’s Central Committee that Fidel read Che’s farewell letter in order to explain Che’s absence from the committee. See: “On Che’s Absence” in Che: A Memoir by Fidel Castro (Ocean Press).
WINDS FROM THE WEST, BREEZES FROM THE EAST
It was clear to me that something had to be done to halt the decomposition—a process that, paradoxically, had begun with the only offensive action we had seen the revolutionary movement undertake since our arrival. One thing led to another after the first Cubans proposed to withdraw from the struggle. Two more compañeros followed suit—Ahiri and Hamsini, one of them a party member—and shortly afterwards two doctors who had only just arrived, both party members, made the same request. I was less angry but far more cutting with the two doctors than with the ordinary soldiers, who were reacting to events in a more or less primitive manner.
It was obvious that the screening in Cuba was not satisfactory, but it is difficult to get it right in the present conditions of the Cuban revolution. You cannot base yourself only on a man’s prior record under arms, for subsequent years of easier living can also change individuals. Besides, there’s the huge majority that the revolution has transformed into revolutionaries. I still don’t know how such a selection can be made without the test of fire, and I think that every measure must take into account the fact that no one can be finally approved until he has undergone selection on the battlefield. The reality was that, at the first serious setback, admittedly accompanied by a visible process of decomposition of the active forces, a number of compañeros lost heart and decided to withdraw from a struggle for which they had come to die if necessary—as volunteers—surrounded by a halo of bravery, self-sacrifice, enthusiasm, in short, invincibility.
What is the meaning of the soldier’s cry, “Until death, if necessary!”? It bears the solution to the serious problems involved in creating our human beings of tomorrow.
Incredible things occurred among the Rwandans. Mundandi’s second-in-command was shot, they say, but in reality brutally murdered. Thousands of conjectures surround this event. The least favorable, which is not to say they are untrue, suggests it had something to do with skirts [women]. The result is that Commander Mitchel, a soldier and a peasant have all gone to a better life. The formal charge against him was that he transmitted bad dawa that was responsible for the death of 20 of his compañeros, but it was not specified whether the dawa directly caused their deaths or gave them inadequate protection, or whether operations outside the camp to find the dawa were the pretext on which he was denounced.
The incident was linked to other events at the same time, which it would have been good to investigate. It came after a serious defeat for which Mundandi held the main responsibility, but another man was shot instead. And the whole thing happened while there was a virtual rebellion against Kabila and the high command of the Liberation Army because the Rwandans, flatly refusing to carry out any military action, were either deserting or, in the case of those who remained at the camp, saying that they would go to fight only when they saw the Congolese doing the same. Even if Kabila were to come, they said they would give him food without salt and tea without sugar like they had so that he would understand what it was to make sacrifices. (This was hardly an effective threat because of course Kabila didn’t have the slightest intention of going there.)
A Congolese commissar at the front on the day this was happening tried to intervene but was simply blocked and forced to leave the camp. This commissar was Alfred (whom I’ve already mentioned), and he reacted by bluntly proposing either Mundandi was shot for murder, or I withdraw from the struggle.
Some Rwandans who had become close to us, and whom we had accepted as troops under Cuban discipline, were demoted and treated with hostility by their compatriots. This foreshadowed a cooling of relations, or something worse.
I discussed these problems with Massengo and stressed what, in my view, was the key point: that if the struggle was to be successful, we would have to integrate ourselves further into the liberation movement and come to be seen by the Congolese simply as soldiers who were just like them. Instead, we had been restricted to the circle of Rwandans, who not only were foreigners, but who stubbornly maintained their distinct status. In their company we were condemned to remain perpetual outsiders. In reply, Massengo gave permission for some of our men to go and help Calixte in his work, which was quickly done.
Moja received instructions to organize fresh operations with any volunteers he could muster, but on condition that it should absolutely be a mixed force, with the same number of Cubans and Rwandans. We discussed with Mbili how to lay the ambush; my aim was for him to learn the basics of this type of warfare, and so he was ordered to attack only one vehicle in the first action.
This was set to take place on the road from Front de Force to Albertville, in an area scouted by Azi that had the right conditions for groups to harass the enemy or for a sizeable column to operate. There was thick forest on the mountainside, although it would be necessary to organize a supply system.
Aly arrived with news from the Kabimba front. On a reconnaissance trip, he had come across four enemy policemen on a mission to improve visibility by burning the nearby hills; three of them had been captured, while the fourth had been killed. Of the 20 Congolese who had been with Aly, 16 took to their heels when the action began. Only one policeman had been armed, the one who was killed. The soldiers’ morale and combat readiness on this front was nothing to be envied by their colleagues at Front de Force or Calixte’s front.
The base commander at Front de Force was now Captain Zakarias, and the plan was that he would join Mbili to carry out the action. Mundandi took quite a large force with him to the Lake Base; he looked dangerous, but in fact he was afraid and wanted to make sure he would be safe when he went to Kigoma to talk with Kabila. Soon he fell ill (genuinely ill) and took the usual month’s vacation along with some of his most loyal men.
He visited me and was solicitous, almost humble. First, we talked about general problems of the offensive and then moved on to the matter of the murder.
He explained the death of those compañeros as follows: Commander Mitchel, confident of the friendship of some local inhabitants, had revealed the secret of the attack to them; one of them, however, was a spy who passed on the information to the enemy. When his compañeros found out, it was necessary to shoot them; he, Mundandi, had disagreed, but he was in a minority at the meeting and had to carry out the wishes of the majority, given that the combatants were threatening to withdraw from the struggle.
I reviewed some aspects of the incident with him. First of all, the defeat should not be attributed to a betrayal, even if there had been one; it was due to flaws in the overall conception and execution of the attack, without denying that we might also carry some blame as a result of Nne’s attitude. Citing examples from our own revolutionary war, I explained that it was highly ne
gative to depend on soldiers’ assemblies in cases such as this, that ultimately revolutionary democracy had never been applied in armies anywhere in the world, and that any attempt to implement it had ended in disaster. Finally, the shooting of a field commander who belonged to the Congo Liberation Army, without even informing the General Staff, and still less asking its views, was a sign of great indiscipline and complete lack of central authority; we all had to do what we could to ensure that such things never happened again.
When I made a remark to Massengo about the weakness of Mundandi’s arguments, he replied that Mundandi had told him a different story but had been reluctant to speak frankly to me because in reality it was superstition that lay behind the drama.
Mundandi was called to a meeting with leaders from various areas to try to improve relations between their groups. This was attended by Mundandi as well as Captain Salumu, Calixte’s second-in-command, and Compañero Lambert, the head of operations in the Fizi zone, and a bunch of aides.
Caught in the web of his lack of authority, Massengo could not extract himself from the crisis as the only way to do this would have been to wipe the slate clean and say: “I am in charge here!” That did not happen. Instead, the response was to maintain the independence of action of the different fronts with a plea that no such incident should be allowed to occur again, which left the problem unsolved and went right against my recommendation that a unified front should be formed under firm leadership.
Measures were taken to show firmness but were put into practice with a multitude of weaknesses. Massengo had a list of weapons supplied to the various fronts, and not one figure coincided with those given by the particular leaders. No one doubted that the weapons had actually been delivered, but assertions to the contrary were accepted and more military equipment was thrown into the equipment-swallowing swamp of the fronts. A commission had been set up to retrieve weapons from the large number of deserters all over the region, who were now lording it over others with the persuasive power of rifles they had taken with them from the front. There was even talk of apprehending the parents of each man in question, if he could not be captured himself. But in the end no deserters were caught and no weapons recovered, nor, as far as I know, was any long-suffering peasant parent jailed.