U.S. Assistant Secretary for Africa Chester Crocker reassured Pretoria's ambassador: "The resolution did not contain a call for comprehensive sanctions, and did not provide for any assistance to the MPLA. Transport by sea was no less dramatic. By 3 January FAPLA-Cuban forces took the FNLA air bases of Negage and Camabatela and a day later the FNLA capital of Carmona. According to the controversial[citation needed] findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the camp most likely served civilian as well as a military purposes and the raid constituted a breach of international law and the "commission of gross human rights violations". Soviet aid was suspended in 1973 with the exception of a few limited shipments in 1974 to counter Chinese support for the FNLA; only Yugoslavia continued to send supplies to the MPLA. For nine months the mobilization of human and material resources constituted an epic feat of audacity. The Cubans replaced Jorge Risquet by the more conciliatory Carlos Aldana Escalante and agreed in general to withdraw from Angola in turn for Namibian independence. Cuito Cuanavale was a milestone in the history of the struggle for southern African liberation![260]. It could just make use of a few antiquated DC-3s which the Cuban pilots had brought into service. [32] Later, 18,000 Cuban troops defeated the FNLA in the north and UNITA in the south. The Russians declined. In 2013, his daughter Isabel became Africa’s first woman billionaire. Arthur Schlesinger pointed out at the same meeting that the U.S. "might wish to encourage the disintegration of Angola. When Washington got the Barbados to bar refuelling stops, the Cubans set-up a transatlantic flight from Holguin, at the eastern end of Cuba, to the island of Sal, in Cape Verde. l A Far-Away War, Angola 1975-1989, edited by Ian Liebenberg, Jorge Risquet, and Vladimir Shubin, is published by SUN MeDIA Available from www.africansunmedia.co.za / www.suneshop.co.za / africansunmedia.snapplify.com, Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. L’Angola a accédé à l’indépendance à la suite de la révolution de 1974 au Portugal, mais le pays était divisé entre trois groupes armés rivaux. The Soviet approach turned out to be disastrous, with successive offensives crumbling due to logistical problems and the SADF’s control of airspace. [207] In the air borne raid on 8 May 1978 (SADF-terminology: Battle of Cassinga) over 600 people were killed, including some women and children. 20,000 troops stationed south of the 13th parallel could be sent home within two instead of three years on the condition that the SADF retreated from Angola, that U.S. and South African support for UNITA was terminated, that Angola's sovereignty was respected and UN Resolution 435 was implemented. Sie konnten nicht zurückbleiben. [39], Starting 21 December the South Africans planned the final operation to "pick off" the five FAPLA brigades which were still to the east of the Cuito river "before moving in to occupy the town if the conditions were favourable". With the FNLA attacking from the east the situation for the MPLA only a few days before independence looked dim. It was only reiterated by the MPLA in May 1975 when Cuban commander Flavio Bravo met Neto in Brazzaville while the Portuguese were preparing to withdraw from their African colonies. HUMAN EVENTS, (13 October 1990): 12. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. The route from Havana to Luanda is a desolate one, and in today's jet age it is impossible to obtain wind reports relating to the Britannia's cruising altitude of 18-20,000 feet. The Bush administration’s failed regime change and the destructive effects of the conflict across the Middle East turned Operation Iraqi Freedom into a symbol of the limits of American power and the folly of military interventionism — a lesson that Washington’s foreign policy establishment insists on ignoring. So begann die erste internationalistische Mission Kubas in Afrika in der Geschichte der Revolution, eine Zusammenarbeit, die in all diesen Jahren nie aufgehört hat und dazu beigetragen hat, Tausende Leben zu retten, zu alphabetisieren, aufzubauen, zu säen und mit ihrem Blut die Unabhängigkeit des Kontinents zu verteidigen. They had taken the decision without consulting Moscow. SS Quaker City. Yet, U.S. support for UNITA was going to be continued and was not to be an issue at the discussions. García Márquez, Gabriel in: Operation Carlota, 1976, Gleijeses quoting: Matthews, Herbert in: Forward with Fidel Castro, Anywhere, New York Times, 4 March 1976, p. 31, Scholtz, Leopold, Stellenbosch University, Vol. The selection criteria were as strict as the urgency of the situation allowed: not only military qualifications and physical and moral attributes, but also work record and political formation were taken into account by the committees. At least one had no other aim than to defect, and he later hijacked a Portuguese aeroplane to Lisbon, where he applied for asylum. That was no accident, but a consequence of our own efforts to keep the resolution within bounds." Indeed, there were so many ships anchored in the Bay of Luanda that President Agostinho Neto, counting them from his window, felt a very characteristic shudder of modesty. In contrast, Neto's distrust in the Soviet leadership increased and relations with the USSR worsened. of the country. On those early flights the Cuban elite troops were disguised as tourist, dressed in civilian clothes. (1) It is estimated that Cuba may now have as many as 9,000 troops in Angola, based on the number of Cuban airlifts and sealifts which have presently transited Angola. 2,000 students were granted scholarships in Cuba and by 1987 there were 4,000 Angolan students studying on the "Isla de la Juventud" (Isle of Youth). Commander Pedro Rodriguez Peralta, now a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, was captured by the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau and imprisoned for several years. twitter [257] Pretoria pulled its remaining forces out of Angola by 30 August 1988. While Cuban soldiers actively helped Neto put down the coup, Alves and Neto both believed the Soviet Union supported Neto's ouster, which is another indication of the mutual distrust between the Soviets and Neto as well as the differing interests between the Soviets and the Cubans. While the Security Council demanded the SADF retreat into Namibia, Ronald Reagan provided South Africa with diplomatic support. The obelisk, designed by Virgil Broodhagen, looks out to the Caribbean Sea off Paynes Bay, St. James, Barbados. [264][265] (see Martti Ahtisaari and History of Namibia). [150][151], The South Africans had managed to keep their intervention hidden from world view for quite some time. On 20 December the UN Security Council passed yet another resolution (546) demanding withdrawal and reparations by South Africa. He thus came to realize how deep rooted in men's hearts is that pernicious force which cannot be vanquished by bullets: colonization of the mind. Botha asserted that South Africa would withdraw from Angola only "if Russia and its proxies did the same." The CIA was a prisoner of Congress and stood deeply compromised in the eyes of public opinion. At the time, these obstacles were all the more worrying since the Cuban ships were subjected to all kinds of provocation by U.S. destroyers, which followed them for days on end, and by warplanes that menacingly buzzed and photographed them. On 23 August 1981, the SADF launched Operation Protea with eleven thousand troops penetrating 120 kilometres into southwestern Angola and occupying about 40,000 km² in southern Cunene (holding the territory until 1988). UNITA sent peace negotiators to the capital, where the MPLA murdered them, along with thousands of UNITA members. [102] In a memorandum of 11 August 1975, Major Raúl Diaz Argüelles to Major Raúl Castro explained the reasons for the visit and briefed on the contents of the talks. August 1983 begonnen hatten, schickte die kubanische Leitung eine Verstärkung, wodurch die kubanische Präsenz sich auf 184 Soldaten erhöhte. Radio Musical Nacional, Partido Comunista de Cuba | Another infiltrated into Cabinda and later crossed the river Congo to implant itself in the I)embo region-the birthplace of Agostinho Neto, where the fight against the Portuguese had been going on for five centuries. Dois anos depois, Castro não duvidou em baptizar de "Carlota" o nome da operação de ajuda ao MPLA angolano. 64-65. [129], Cuba operated independently through December and January bringing in their troops in slowly, but steadily. [77]. [207] Scarcely a couple of weeks later, brigades of Cuban and Angolan engineers had to repair thirteen bridges in twenty days to catch up with the routed invaders. Following the Portuguese revolution in May 1974, the retreating colonial Portuguese authorities in Lisbon went into negotiations with MPLA, Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and FNLA. [124][125] Urged by the CIA and other clandestine foreign services, the FNLA and UNITA announced the proclamation of a Democratic People's Republic with the temporary capital at Huambo. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores | In December 1974 / January 1975 Cuba sent Major Alfonso Perez Morales and Carlos Cadelo on a fact finding mission to Angola to assess the situation. [155] The Tripartite Accord, signed by Angola, South Africa, and Cuba at the United Nations headquarters on December 1988, ended international involvement in Angola. [213] By late 1978 the MPLA's security had been steadily deteriorating and UNITA emerging as a formidable guerrilla army, expanding its operations from Cuando Cubango into Moxico and Bié while the SADF intensified its cross-border campaigns from Namibia. Cuba and Africa 1975–1988". In 1843, a female slave called Black Carlota had taken machete in hand to lead a slave uprising at the Triunvirato sugar mill, in the Matanzas region, and had been killed in the rebellion. [60], Other western countries with their own clandestine support for FNLA and UNITA were Great Britain and France. Even more shocking was the case of Arnaldo Ochoa, the war hero who led the advance toward Namibia but was sentenced to death in 1989. Some imperialists wonder why we help the Angolans, which interests we have. [215] Despite its overwhelming presence in Angola, the Cubans remained uninvited to the negotiations. [70], Cuba's first informal contacts with the MPLA dated back to the late 1950s. By March, the FNLA from northern Angola was driving on Luanda joined by units of the Zairian army which the U.S. had encouraged Mobutu to provide. The Kremlin responded mockingly that Angola and Afghanistan hardly had more in common than the initial letters in their name. There were security reasons for keeping secret the details of repatriation. The first South African resistance was encountered near Calueque on 15 March, followed by three months of bloody clashes as the Cubans progressed towards the Namibian border. The black Africans, conditioned by centuries of hatred of the Portuguese, were initially hostile to the white Cubans. [86][87] First arms shipments for FNLA and UNITA from South Africa arrived in August 1975. Following the death of historic leader Agostinho Neto and the displacement of his number two, Lúcio Lara, the force became increasingly corrupt — a recurrent source of frustration for Cubans in the country. [184] Cuba saw its second main task in training and equipping the FAPLA which the Soviets generously supplied with sophisticated weapons including tanks and an own air force with MiG-21 fighters. They were flown over a span of 13 days from the military section of Jose Marti Airport in Havana to the airport at Luanda, still occupied by Portuguese troops. Military assistance to the MPLA may have cost Cuba the equivalent of US$30 million. There were also stories about when the Cubana de Aviación aircraft was departing, that the Barbados Police would follow the aircraft down the taxi-way and wait until it took off. Man geht davon aus, dass die kubanischen Verteidigungsstellungen von nicht weniger als 1.500 Artillerieprojektilen getroffen wurden. [234][242], In the meantime, on 10 March 1988, when the defence of Cuito Cuanavale after three failed SADF attacks was secure, Cuban, FAPLA and SWAPO units advanced from Lubango to the southwest. In the meantime UNITA received its first military aid from the U.S., which included surface-to-air Stinger missiles and BGM-71 TOW anti-tank-missiles. It was this last condition that created the greatest obstacles to the decisive integration of the Cuban fighters with the armed population of Angola. In elections held in February 1980; the leader of the leftist Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and outspoken opponent of apartheid, Robert Mugabe, was elected president, ending white minority rule in Zimbabwe. On July 26, after the MPLA's first request for aid had already been received, Castro asked Colonel Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, who was then in Havana, to obtain the Portuguese government's authorization for the dispatch of Cuban supplies to Angola. The negotiations usually took place in third countries and were mediated by third countries. [83] Thus, the timeframe of withdrawal remained the biggest obstacle for a settlement. Our recent focus has been to create audio books from the Church Committee's Final Reports for the 40th Anniversary of the Committee. [134], It was several days before the U.S. realised the severity of the FNLA defeat at Quifangondo, but even then had little idea of the extent of the Cuban involvement. [131][132] The South African contingent on the northern front had already been evacuated by ship on 28 November. The dam’s bombing on June 27, 1988 signaled Cuban air superiority and shattered the SADF’s hopes for military victory. On 5 August, the three parties signed the "Geneva Protocol" laying out South African withdrawal from Angola starting 10 August and to be completed 1 September. [141], It was only when the U.S. administration asked Congress for US$28 million for IAFEATURE that Congress really paid attention to the events in Angola. It had Soviet weapons, but not the personnel capable of handling them. First heavy weapons had already arrived from Cuba by ship on 7 November, among them cannons, mortars and 6 BM-21 (Katyusha) multiple rocket launchers. [208] Thus, Cuba suffered its highest single-day casualty of its Angolan intervention. 100 members for training in the Soviet Union and the requested financial assistance (100,000US$) it received from Yugoslavia. Savimbi was still ready to continue the elections. Thus even before the Cuban revolution declared its socialist character, it was giving such considerable aid to the Algerian FLN [National Liberation Front] in its war against French colonialism that the De Gaulle government retaliated by banning Cubana flights over France. The coalition government established by the Alvor Agreement soon fell apart as the various nationalist factions, each distrustful of the other and unwilling to share power, attempted to take control of the country by force, marking the transition to the Angolan Civil War that grew into a Cold War competition that continued, with some interludes, until 2002. St. Philip, Barbados in the 1950’s & 1960’s. Gleijeses, Piero, "Moscow's Proxy? The attacks by far exceeded the previous hit and -run operations and were aimed primarily at the Benguela Railway. By contrast Cuba was nonwhite, poor, threatened by a powerful enemy, and culturally Latin America and African.” Castro also exploited his personal fame and Cuba’s record as a Latin American showcase for socialism to leverage independence. On 14 July 1975, South African Prime Minister John Vorster approved weapons worth US $14 million to be bought secretly for FNLA and UNITA. As revolutionary leader Víctor Dreke explained, “Cuba defends itself by attacking the aggressor.”. [65] Israel aided the FNLA from 1963 to 1969 and the FNLA sent members to Israel for training. In spite of these preparations, on 27 July Castro proposed Cuba's participation in the negotiations, indicating that he was interested in curtailing its involvement in Angola. The Cuban intervention in Angola (codenamed Operation Carlota) began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops in support of the Communist aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola against United States-backed interventions by South Africa and Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in support of two Pro-Western independence movements competing for power in the country, with the National Liberation Front of Angola … Translated by G. E. Luton. On top of everything else, the troops travelled with their weapons loaded and carried their explosives without their protective wrappings to cut down on weight. The MPLA’s victory over FNLA and UNITA at the battle of Quifangondo — in which Cuban forces played a leading role — galvanized anti-apartheid activists in Namibia and South Africa. While the vast majority of the Cuban troops remaining in Angola stayed in the bases, some of them helped in 'mopping-up' operations, clearing remaining pockets of resistance in Cabinda and in the north. Mandela, Nelson and Castro, Fidel: How Far We Slaves Have Come, New York: Pathfinder 1991. “The intervention of Cuban combat forces came as a total surprise,” wrote a frustrated Henry Kissinger, whose previous offers for détente were replaced with contingency plans to “clobber” and “squash” the island, establishing a blockade, mining its harbors, and launching airstrikes. [51][52], The initially weaker MPLA retreated south but with supplies finally arriving from the Soviet Union then succeeded in driving the FNLA out of Luanda by 9 July. They supported 850 FAPLA, 200 Katangans and one Soviet advisor. [183] In Angola, they put up dozens of training camps for Namibian (SWAPO), Rhodesian (ZAPU) and South African (ANC) guerrillas. The Soviet Union started modest military aid in the late 1960s. [88] The defence of the Calueque dam complex in southern Angola was South Africa's justification for the first permanent deployment of regular SADF units inside Angola. And thus after 15 years and four months Operation Carlota came to an end. When the Portuguese left, only thirty doctors remained in the whole country. Clicking On An Amazon Link From southernafrican.news Does Not Increase The Cost Of Any Item You Purchase. [62][63], As the CIA was suspicious of the left-leaning MPLA it "had no wish to see the US government deal with the MPLA" and it did not want them to be part of the transitional government. In his 1999 account, Cuban writer Norberto Fuentes, previously close to the Castro brothers, suggested leading authorities had orchestrated the smuggling deals with Colombians and Ochoa was used as a scapegoat for political intrigues. Contrary to numerous assertions, it was a sovereign and independent act by Cuba; the Soviet Union was informed not before, but after the decision had been made. Gleijeses quoting: Ministerio de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias: Batallon de Tropas Especiales, n. d. N. Broutens, Soviet Politbüro, dept. Soviet command did not include the Cuban forces in Angola. [1] [75] These considerations in 1972 bore no fruit and Cuba's attentions remained focused on Guinea-Bissau. In a meeting of the United States National Security Council (NSC) on 27 June 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford said that, in spite of planned elections, it was important to get "his man" in first, referring to then UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi being in control of Luanda before the elections. The cat was then out of the bag! The United States had a history of supporting the Salazar regime in Portugal, e.g. Portugal's sudden retreat from Angola and Mozambique in 1975 ended a history of South African military and intelligence cooperation with Portugal against the Angolan and Namibian independence movements dating back to the 1960s, later formalized in a secret alliance codenamed Alcora Exercise. Recognising that the tables have turned, negotiations ensued as early as July 1987, in-parallel to the fighting in the trenches. We’re Celebrating Our 10th Anniversary. In July 1987, Cuba and Angola had offered to speed up Cuban withdrawal. A failed coup d’etat and endless civil war — fought with increasing brutality, and lasting until Savimbi’s death in 2002 — made Angolan leaders callous and autocratic. "There are moments, " he said, with no claim to heroism, "when you cannot possibly get more tired than you already are. " It first intervened in the region between 1961 and 1965, sending military supplies, instructors, and doctors to support Algeria’s National Liberation Front in its struggle for independence and  subsequent border war with Morocco.

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