Compañeros:
In a few days, for some of us, it will be four months since we arrived in these lands, and a brief analysis of the situation must be made.
We cannot say that the situation is good. The leaders of the movement spend most of their time outside the country, which may be understandable in the case of political leaders whose work encompasses many facets, but never in the case of middle-level cadres. Nevertheless these middle cadres travel just as often and spend weeks outside the country, setting a terrible example. There is virtually no organizational work, precisely because the middle-level cadres don’t do the work and don’t know how to do it, and on top of that, nobody trusts them.
Local leaders blackmail middle-level cadres whose tasks are similar to those of the General Staff, and receive weapons and ammunition without any proof that they will use them properly. More weapons are given to more people who lack training and a fighting spirit, and there is almost no progress in organization. The picture is completed with indiscipline and a lack of self-sacrifice being the main characteristics of all the guerrilla troops. Obviously, a war is not won with such troops.
It’s questionable whether anything positive has come out of our presence. But I think there has been something positive. Many of our difficulties, including my own virtual imprisonment here, stem from the notable differences between the various troops and from fear of conflicts between one leader and another. Our mission is to help them win the war; we should make the most of this negative reaction and convert it into something positive. This requires a greater stress on our political work. We have to show the differences through our own example, but without making ourselves the object of hatred by cadres who might see us as the inverted image of all their faults.
For this, we must first try to exercise genuinely revolutionary comradeship among the rank-and-file from where the middle-ranking leaders of tomorrow will emerge. Generally, we have more clothing and more food than the compañeros here; we should share as much as possible, selectively, with those compañeros who show revolutionary spirit while setting an example at the same time. Our experience must be transmitted in one form or another to the combatants; the urge to teach should be paramount—but not in a pedantic manner, looking down at those who don’t know, but with the human warmth that comes with shared learning. Revolutionary modesty should guide our political work and should be one of our basic weapons, complemented by a spirit of sacrifice that is an example not only to the Congolese compañeros but also to the weakest among ourselves. We should never check to see whether our own position is more dangerous than someone else’s or whether more is being demanded of us; more should be asked of a genuine revolutionary because he has more to give. Finally, we should not forget that we know only a fraction of what we should know. We have to learn about the Congo in order to bind ourselves to the Congolese compañeros; but we also have to learn the things we lack in general culture and even the art of warfare, without thinking that we know everything there is to know or that it’s all we need to know.1
I would like to conclude this message with a couple of warnings:
1) Behavior among compañeros. Everyone knows that a group of compañeros, by proposing to abandon the struggle, dishonored their word as revolutionaries and the trust placed in them. There can be no justification for this, and I will request the most severe moral sanctions against those compañeros. But we should not forget something else: they are not traitors, and they should not be treated with open contempt. Let’s be clear. Of everything a revolutionary can do, their actions are the most open to criticism. But you have to be a revolutionary in the first place, otherwise it would not be so serious but simply an escape by anyone else. Today these compañeros are being cold-shouldered, and they have united among themselves as a defensive measure to justify something that cannot be justified. But they still have to spend some months here; if we take advantage of the shame they surely feel (however much they hide it) and show comradeship we may save a few to share our fate here—which is a thousand times preferable, whatever else may happen, to the fate of the moral deserter. Without forgetting their faults, let’s show them a little warmth and not force them to justify themselves as a defense against rejection.
2) It is evident in some reports, and especially in the expressions used by compañeros, that you feel contempt for the attitude of the Congolese compañeros in battle. There are two problems with this. The first is that the Congolese are aware of this; if you watch two people speaking in one of their languages that you do not understand you will see how they are speaking about you and get the sense of what they are saying. One scornful gesture can ruin 40 positive actions. On the other hand, the Congolese can turn into a toti;2 there are signs that the attitude of the Congolese is being exaggerated, which may provide a justification for not carrying out a particular task. Our primary function is to educate people for combat, and if there is no real coming together this will not happen. The education should concern not only ways of killing a person but also, indeed, above all, the attitude one should have to the sufferings of a long struggle. This is achieved when the teacher can be taken as a model for the students to follow. Don’t forget this, compañeros, and don’t forget either that if any veteran of our war of liberation says that he never ran away you can say to his face that he is lying. We all ran and went through dark periods when we were frightened of shadows. It is a stage that you have to help people overcome—and, of course, the conditions are more difficult here in terms of the development of consciousness because the level of development is much lower than ours was in those days.
This message should be discussed among the party members and any suggestions communicated to me. Then it should be read out to the compañeros and then immediately burned; it should not remain at the front. It will not be read out in those places where some compañeros are giving up the struggle.
Revolutionary greetings to everyone,
Tatu
August 12, 1965
As neither Massengo nor Kabila turned up within the time I had set for myself, I went to the Upper Base on the 16th and left for Front de Force at dawn on the 18th, arriving there in the evening after a long, seemingly interminable hike through the plain that separated these two points. I felt rather like an escaped delinquent, but I had resolved not to return to the base for a long time.
1. The ideas expressed in this “Message to the Combatants” are consistent with Che’s ideas on the guerrilla struggle and its political dimension, both as the setting for the transformation of individuals and the social change that is being sought. It heralds the new society and the new human being. In this case, the political aspect was augmented because this was an experience under the banner of internationalism, the highest expression of solidarity between human beings. “This type of [international] struggle gives us the opportunity to become revolutionaries, the highest form of the human species, and it also allows us to emerge fully as men,” he would write on August 8, 1967, in his Bolivian Diary (Ocean Press).
2. A reference to a saying used in certain situations when a person for some reason is blamed for actions that in reality most or all people do.
SCATTERING SEEDS
I had only just reached Front de Force and thrown myself on the ground to enjoy my overpowering exhaustion, when the compañeros began with their complaints about the attitude of the Rwandans, especially Captain Zakarias, who was inflicting corporal punishment on his men and who, they had no doubt, was capable of killing someone. Our reception, however, had been cordial enough. The site chosen for the camp was at the edge of a mountain that rose from a gorge above hilly natural pastures which, in this dry period, were bare of grass. By day the temperature was pleasant, but at night it was very cold and a fire was needed when you went to sleep. To protect myself from the rigors of the climate, I lay on a hide very close to the fire. I slept well, but immediately fell prey to one of the local fiends, the birulo, a louse that lives mainly in clothing and roams freely all
over this region of relatively temperate climate and zero hygiene.
From the heights of our camp, it was possible to make out the town of Bendera and its electrical installations. As I saw it spread out before me, I realized how foolish it had been to consider a frontal attack. At our present level of strength, it was quite impenetrable.
The latest news completed our general picture of the various fronts in this eastern sector of the struggle in the Congo. Although many more weapons had been distributed, the quantities actually available were as follows:
At Uvira, roughly 350, plus one piece of artillery, a few antiaircraft machine guns and a mortar.
In the vast region of Fizi, including Baraka, the number of armed men was between 1,000 and 2,000, largely scattered among the local settlements. There were some antiaircraft weapons, one artillery piece and a few mortars.
At Lulimba, we assessed that Lambert could count on 150 rifles, three antiaircraft batteries, one piece of artillery and two mortars. Farther along the Kabambare road, Lambert had another small force with about 45 men, some light weapons and bazookas.
Various other groups were scattered along the Kabambare road, supposedly as far as Kasengo; most of them had only a few weapons—just a small number of rifles. There, too, the authority of the General Staff was treated with scorn. One of our men personally overheard a discussion with someone sent from the Lake [Base], in which another person from the plains said that those who remained were unarmed and those who had escaped to the refuge of the mountains had all the weapons.
Between Lulimba and [Front de] Force, there were other detachments that we did not know much about: the one at Kalonda-Kibuyu apparently had some 60 weapons at that time; the group at Mukundi had roughly 150; the famous Faume, who was almost a legendary figure because he could never be found, also had 150 or so. Then there were the two groups in the mountains: Calixte with 150 weapons; while Mundandi had managed to get some 300, with three machine guns, two artillery pieces and two mortars, although by now the number was much reduced because of the desertions, which usually involved the loss of guns and equipment.
In the south, at Kabimba, there were approximately 150 weapons, two antiaircraft machine guns, one artillery piece and two mortars. And there was a profusion of weapons washed by the waters of the lake, including rifles, a number of antiaircraft guns, some reserve mortars and a piece of artillery whose original emplacement I mentioned before.
We heard satisfying news from Mbili’s ambush. This time there was more booty, but they were not able to complete the action because some peasants were traveling along the road at the time and might have seen evidence of some strange group and run off to report them at Front de Force, a few kilometers away. When it became clear that the peasants had spotted the ambush and fled, Mbili ordered everyone to remain alert and reinforced the positions on the Front de Force side, preparing to move by night if nothing else happened. At 10:00 a.m., however, a jeep with an armored car escort came along the road from Albertville; Sultán was again responsible for opening fire, and he damaged the first vehicle and destroyed it with a second round. Compañero Afendi, at a distance of barely 10 meters, destroyed the jeep with a bazooka round, fragments from which injured both Afendi and Alakre. The compañeros at the rear blew up the second armored car with hand grenades (these are armored open vehicles, with a machine-gunner in a kind of turret, an aide and a driver). In all they counted seven dead—including some with fair skin whom Mbili thought might be North Americans, but were later discovered to be Belgian. As they were going to collect all the equipment, enemy troops arrived from Front de Force, evidently having been tipped off by the peasants, and shooting began at one end of the ambush. The men had to withdraw at once and were unable to retrieve the documents and weapons from the vehicles. Some lost their way at first but turned up again later. Only one Rwandan did not return to base, and since the imperialist news agencies that gave the correct figure of seven dead among the mercenaries spoke of one guerrilla dead, it is logical to assume that he was hit by a stray bullet.
It would have been very handy to have obtained the documents because we later learned from two prisoners picked up on the road that those men had been assigned to make special plans for Front de Force, and probably also to devise a general plan of attack, or reconnoiter the area to achieve this. The jeep had pulled a little trailer, the contents of which were not identified. It might have been electrical equipment for microwaves, or it might have contained documents. Everything suggests that those killed in this incident were pretty big fish, so any documentation would have been very valuable.
As before, the Rwandans proposed to return immediately because of the lack of food, but Mbili had learned his lesson and said that he and his people (the Cubans) were staying to the end and, after a long meeting, the Rwandans decided to stay as well. We had sent some food from the camp, and they had managed to kill an elephant—there are quite a few in that region—so they were not devastated by hunger.
After the usual meetings, a new location was chosen for a second ambush. But we only captured two traders traveling on bicycle paths with food and two big jugs of pombe. (Mbili immediately dumped the liquor in order to avoid scenes like those that occurred after the earlier engagement.) Once again peasants had spotted the ambush and headed off in the direction of Front de Force, so it was agreed with the Rwandans to lift the ambush and return to base. Before leaving, they attempted to bring down the power lines with a bazooka round but failed.
I went to greet the people as they climbed up the steep slopes with high spirits and higher morale; the Rwandans had conducted themselves much better and, although there had again been no fighting because the Belgians had been taken completely by surprise, many of the combatants had stayed and done their share of the shooting. Then I met with Captain Zakarias. Although our interviews were not very cordial, his attitude began to change. They were holding the two traders captive, and as they were related to each other, I suggested keeping one hostage and sending the other to help our people establish some contact in Albertville. But Zakarias disagreed, saying they might be spies, and in the end they were sent to the Lake Base. They tried to escape, and at least one suffered a horrible death at the hands of his guards.
I sent another note to Massengo in which I stressed the need for an intelligent and consistent approach toward the peasants, so that we could avoid the kind of problems encountered at these ambushes. I proposed starting intelligence work with prisoners, and I also suggested that we involve the peasants in a plan for supplying the front and reward them with part of the goods they brought as the route from the lake was still open. At the same time, I stressed the need for a single command at the front; the dispersion of independent forces was unacceptable, especially given the tendency to anarchy and rivalry that led to extremes of violence among one or other of the groups.
We were convinced that the Rwandans, despite their recent progress, were unable to give much more and that we had to focus our training more on the Congolese, who, after all, had to liberate the Congo. It was decided, therefore, to leave Compañero Maffu behind in charge of 12 men, so as not to hurt the Rwandans’ feelings, and to send the rest of the troops to Calixte’s front, where I would also go for the time being. Before we left, it was further decided that Tom should make a political inspection at the Lake [Base], and then go on to Kabimba to clarify the situation there, as I had some reservations about how Compañero Aly was behaving in terms of his relations with the Congolese.
Before Tom left, we had a party meeting where we again analyzed all the problems and elected some members to help the political commissar in his tasks. Ishirini and Singida were unanimously chosen to be part of the group that would continue with us, and Arasili to join the small group that would remain with Maffu. Three great guys. We did, however, criticize Compañero Singida at the meeting for certain violent outbursts against the Congolese, and from the General Staff I criticized Azi and Azima for their incorrect treatment of the Rwandan
s.
Before we left for Calixte’s front, the Rwandans asked for a meeting with me that was attended by Captain Zakarias, the party organization secretary, the youth leader and a couple of others. We spoke about general issues of the war, such as the conduct of military operations and training and other practical problems. At the end, the organization secretary asked me to evaluate critically the work of the Rwandans up to that time, and I pointed to what I saw as two weaknesses:
First, the fatalistic attitude to food. The Rwandans depended on the peasants to bring them cattle; the most they did was send some soldiers to look for food. (They had started to eat monkey meat—which can vary from tasty to merely edible as one’s hunger decreases—and, apart from the last few days, they had been incapable of going to find cassava on the plains.) I explained that it was necessary for the people’s army to be self-sufficient, in permanent communion with the people and not be a parasite. On the contrary, it had to be a mirror in which the peasants could look and see themselves.
Second, the excessive lack of trust in the Congolese. I urged them to unite with the Congolese, arguing that the outcome of the struggle in Rwanda depended on the result of the struggle in the Congo because the latter involved a broader confrontation with imperialism.
In response, they accepted the first criticism and gave some examples of how they were mending their ways; but they did not broach the second point, which suggested that they did not agree with my remarks, or at least that they were not prepared to change their attitude.
Messengers arrived from the base, bringing letters from Dar es-Salaam and various pieces of news. A letter from Pablo explained some important points. It is dated August 19, 1965.
Tatu:
The trip was planned as you ordered,1 but a change was made because of a cable from Havana saying that a messenger was being sent here. The messenger is here, preparing for and making sure of the crossing, and will be with you soon.
The African Dream Page 10
