At the party meeting I again stressed that I needed their support to create a disciplined army, an exemplary army. I asked those present who believed in the possibility of victory, and the only ones to raise their hands were Moja and Mbili and the two recently arrived doctors, Fizi and Morogoro. This could be explained as due either to real conviction or a greater affinity with me, a demonstration of loyalty, in fact. I warned them that I would occasionally have to ask for sacrifices so great that their lives might be at risk, and I asked if they were willing to do so. This time, they all raised their hands.
We then proceeded to analyze weaknesses displayed by various party members, making criticisms that were accepted. When I came to the case of Bahasa, the compañero who had abandoned the cannon, he did not agree. Bahasa had demonstrated extraordinary qualities, including an unshakable enthusiasm that was a model for both Cuban and Congolese compañeros, but a moment of weakness had overcome him, the proof being that the cannon had been saved after he abandoned it. I insisted again and again, until eventually he replied reproachfully: “Okay, I’m guilty.” Of course, what I had been trying to achieve was not a confession but an analysis of our weaknesses, so I asked several other compañeros for their opinion and they agreed that the alleged failing had actually occurred.
By the time I closed the meeting, I was convinced that very few people shared my dream of creating an army that could carry the Congolese cause to victory, but I was reasonably sure that there were men willing to sacrifice themselves, even if they thought it futile.
The key task, however difficult, was to achieve unity between Congolese and Cubans. We had introduced communal kitchens to replace the anarchy of individual ones. But as the Congolese didn’t like our food and continually protested (the cooks were Cuban because otherwise all the food disappeared), this led to a tense atmosphere.
Jean Ila, the commander at Kalonda-Kibuyu, came to join us with 70 men. But I already had too many people and could not accept him; I therefore sent him back to his zone with the assurances that a group of Cubans would come and directly organize the ambush on the Lulimba to Katenga road, where we were still able to carry out effective actions. I took away his mortar, an antiquated machine gun that had some parts missing, and a Soviet-model bazooka without any projectiles; he wanted to take the weapons back with him, but I ordered him to leave them there as I thought they would be more secure.
At Jean Ila’s request, I spoke to his men before they left, warning them that we would have to work together and criticizing their way of behaving toward the peasants as if they had forgotten their own origins. This speech and another to our men, in which I said that anyone who deserted would be shot, did not please the Congolese. Men were deserting all the time and taking their rifles with them, and the only way to prevent this was to take very drastic measures while making it easier for those who wanted to leave to do so without a rifle.
Nevertheless, our patrols kept searching adjacent areas for scattered weapons and we managed to find a machine gun with some pieces missing; with this and one from Kalonda-Kibuyu we were able to assemble a complete one. In response to my warning and to the offer I had made at the same time, some combatants began to be discharged.
Early on October 22, the continual sound of mortar fire from the direction of Lubondja convinced us that the enemy was advancing there; we took some measures, and I sent a rather rushed letter to Massengo asking him to reinforce that position with men from the Lake [Base] so that I would not be forced to wage a defensive battle just then. In passing, I also gave him several pieces of advice (so as not to lose the habit), suggesting he should send some men to Fizi and Uvira to determine the disposition of our troops.
Word came from Lubondja that they had put the ammunition dump out of danger by dividing it into two parts: we chose one location ourselves, while the Congolese compañeros hid the rest in a place that they never felt willing to disclose to us. The Lubondja barrier needed Cubans, bazookas and containment weapons, but I didn’t want to grant any of these requests because it would have meant further dividing our troops and their firepower.
October 24 arrived, a date that marked half a year since we came to the Congo. It was still raining heavily, and the straw huts became soaked when this happened. Some of the Congolese asked me for permission to go and look for some zinc sheets in the old camp, and I agreed. Maybe an hour passed and then we heard a volley of rifle shots and then continuous firing. The Congolese had stumbled into an enemy offensive and been attacked. Fortunately for them, however, they were not at close range and they all managed to escape. Pandemonium swept the camp as the Congolese vanished and we were unable to organize ourselves; they had gone to the muganga’s house to get some dawa, and only then did they start to take up their positions. I began to organize the defense with Siwa’s company, which was supposed to occupy the front line, and we got ready to receive the soldiers in style. But suddenly, various compañeros told me that enemy units were approaching across the mountain to encircle us; I couldn’t see any and, when I asked how many there were, I was told there were a lot. How many? It was hard to tell, but certainly a large number. We were in a difficult position; they might cut off our retreat and we would not be able to defend ourselves if the ridge was held by the enemy; I sent a platoon under Rebokate to try to halt the soldiers as high as possible up there.
My dilemma was that if we stayed where we were, we might become surrounded; but if we withdrew, we would lose the ammunition dump and all the equipment we had saved, such as two 60 mm. mortars and a radio set; we would have no time to take anything with us. My preference was to confront the enemy, in the hope that we could resist until nightfall and then move out. We were tensely waiting when the enemy came along the obvious route, opposite the Lulimba road, and we opened fire from there, but this lasted less than a minute. A compañero came running up, apparently with a serious wound, but it was actually only the result of a blow he had received when firing the bazooka. He reported that the enemy had already broken through the front line. I had to give the order for a hasty retreat; a machine gun, whose Congolese crew had fled, was abandoned by its Cuban operator, who made no attempt to save it; I sent some men to tell those on the other end to retreat quickly to somewhere safe. Then we made off at full speed, leaving behind many things such as books, documents, food and even the two little monkeys that I had kept as mascots.
One unit did not receive the order to retreat, staying behind to face the enemy and inflicting a number of casualties; this was Bahasa and Compañero Maganga, who also managed to save the cannon; then, after handing it over to the Congolese for safekeeping, they fought on alongside Siwa, Azima and some other compañeros (whose names I don’t remember). It was they who saved our honor at the end of the day. When they finally withdrew, they fired a bazooka round into the ammunition dump, but without effect.
As explained, we were retreating along one flank, evading the encirclement that the soldiers were trying to draw around us from above. Personally, I was quite demoralized; I felt responsible for the disaster because of my lack of foresight and weakness. Quite a large group of men followed me, but we sent some ahead to clear the way if there should be enemy soldiers trying to close the circle; I ordered them to wait for me on the side of a hill, but they continued on regardless and it was only a few days later that I met up again with the Cubans among them; the Congolese began deserting from the first moment. As I rested on the hillside where they were supposed to wait for us, I reflected bitterly that there were 13 of us, one more than Fidel had had at a certain moment [in the Sierra Maestra in Cuba], but that I was not the same leader as he was. With me were Moja, Mbili, Karim, Uta, Pombo, Tumaini, Danhusi, Mustafá, Duala, Sitini, Marembo and “Tremendo Punto.” We had no idea what had happened to the rest of the men.
As night fell and the last shots of the soldiers who had overcome our position died away, we reached an abandoned village and grabbed some fat, well-fed hens, on the grounds that everything there would be lost
the next day as a result of the enemy action. We continued on in order to put a little more distance between us and the camp, which was only two or three kilometers behind us, as we had followed a very long curve on a bad road. One or one-and-a-half kilometers further on, we found some peasants still living in another village. We took some more chickens and were going to pay for them, but the peasants said that we had all been defeated and were brothers in misfortune so they would not charge us anything for them.
We wanted someone to act as our guide, but they were terribly frightened and simply told us that they knew the doctors and another person were at another village a short distance away. We sent a man there, and he came back soon with Fizi (the doctor), Kimbi (the nurse), and two other compañeros; they had set out in the early morning to visit the villages and stopped there when they heard the sound of the battle. Shortly afterwards, a good many Congolese turned up fleeing, among them a wounded man who, after some treatment, continued on his way; everyone was heading in the direction of Lubichako. They heard from the slightly wounded man they treated, and perhaps from another slightly wounded Congolese, that Bahasa was seriously wounded. A note reached Azima explaining where they were, and after a brief nap to regain our strength, we set off with a guide who had overcome his fear. At 6:00 in the morning, we reached the little village where Bahasa lay wounded; there was a good concentration of Cubans and Congolese there.
The causes and nature of the disaster now became clearer. The men I had sent to stop the soldiers’ approach on the nearby hillsides did not find them; and later, when they saw the enemy enter the camp down below, they didn’t open fire because they assumed we would get out through that area in the event of a retreat (which is not what happened, due to reports that the enemy was in the mountains). Siwa later confirmed that the soldiers in question were actually peasants who had fled through the hills on seeing the real enemy approaching and that in fact the enemy never left the plain. This made my distress all the more acute because it meant that, owing to bad intelligence that disoriented our defense and the unjustifiable collapse on one of our wings, we had wasted the chance to set a really good ambush and wipe out a lot of enemy soldiers. Compañero Bahasa had been hit by a bullet during the retreat and was carried on his compañeros’ shoulders to this little village.
While Bahasa was being treated, we took the sides of the hill because we were still in a valley. The bullet had completely shattered his humerus and a rib and penetrated his lung. The wound reminded me of a compañero I had tended to years before in Cuba, who had died within a few hours. Bahasa was stronger, his stronger bones had slowed the bullet down, and it didn’t seem to have reached his mediastinum. But he was clearly in great pain. A splint was applied as best we could, and we began a most tiring ascent through steep hills slippery from the rain. The very heavy load was carried by exhausted men, who did not get full cooperation from their Congolese compañeros.
It took us six long hours to carry Bahasa, terrible hours in which the men could not hold him up on their shoulders for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time, and it became increasingly difficult to replace them as the Congolese, as mentioned, would not help and there were relatively few of us. At one point, it looked as if some soldiers were coming up to block our way and we would have to leave some compañeros to protect the wounded man’s retreat; but it turned out only to be some peasants who were fleeing. From our vantage point we could see a large number of fires because the soldiers were burning all of the peasants’ houses. They simply followed the path that connected the villages and burnt each one to the ground. Their progress could be seen from the columns of smoke that rose into the air, and from the shapes of peasants fleeing toward the mountains.
We finally made it to a little village, but there was practically nothing to eat there. It was full of refugees, all silently blaming the men who had taken away their security, filled them with belief in an eventual victory and then withdrew without defending their homes and fields. All this mute anger was expressed in one disconsolate and distressing phrase: “So now what do we eat?” It was true that all their fields and little animals remained down below. They had fled with only what they could carry in their two hands, loaded down with children, as always, and unable to take food for more than one or two days. Other peasants explained to me how the soldiers had suddenly appeared and captured their women, adding angrily that with a rifle they might have been able to defend themselves, but with a spear all they could do was run.
Bahasa seemed to improve. He spoke and felt a little less pain (although he was still very agitated), and was able to drink some chicken broth. Reassured by his condition, I took a photo in which his large, habitually bulging eyes expressed an anxiety that we had not known how to allay.
At dawn on October 26, the nurse came to tell me that Bahasa had had a crisis, ripped off his bandages and died, apparently of an acute haematothorax. Later that morning we had to carry out the sad and solemn ritual of digging a grave and burying Compañero Bahasa, the sixth man we had lost and the first whose body could be given the appropriate honors. It was a mute and powerful accusation against my stupidity and lack of foresight, as had been Bahasa's brave conduct from the moment he was wounded.
The defeated little band came together and I gave the farewell, almost a soliloquy full of reproaches against myself. I recognized my mistakes and stated very truthfully that of all the deaths in the Congo the most painful for me was Bahasa’s because I had severely criticized him for his weakness and he had responded as a true communist in what he did, whereas I had not been equal to my responsibilities and was to blame for his death. I would do everything in my power to erase my failings, by working harder and more enthusiastically than ever. The situation was growing worse, and we would not be able to form our army unless we became integrated with the Congolese. I asked the Cubans to reflect that it was no longer only proletarian internationalism that should inspire us to struggle, as the support of the base enabled us to have a point of contact with the outside world; if that contact was lost, we would be cut off for who knew how long in the interior of the Congo. We would have to fight to keep that channel open.
I spoke to the Congolese later, explaining the gravity of the situation and the fact that our defeat had been due to fear of asking them to make an exceptional effort in their work. Appealing to their revolutionary consciousness, I said that there had to be more trust between us, and that we had to form a more unified army that would enable us to react more quickly to any situation that might arise. With the mournful ceremony over, we moved on to Nabikume, quite a large village located on the banks of the river of the same name, in a pleasant and fertile valley. Two tendencies manifested themselves among the Congolese: a small one, led by “Tremendo Punto,” that wanted at all costs to be closer to the base; and another, led by Charles and comprising most of the men from the region, that wanted to remain close to where the guardsmen were operating and to defend that area.
I decided to stay; to continue retreating would add new defeats to those we had already suffered and increase the demoralization of the men who had now almost lost all faith. The Cubans would have preferred to go to the base because the Lake [Base] had affected them too and they felt closer there to possible escape routes. But we stayed where we were and resumed the task of forming two companies with the men who remained. We gathered together as many Congolese as we could, and recalled all the Cubans who had stopped off elsewhere during the retreat.
I analyzed the lessons of the disaster as follows:
From a military point of view, the first mistake I made was to choose the camp’s location without making a closer investigation and not organizing more solid defenses. There were no outposts sufficiently far removed in order to be able to fight several kilometers away from the camp. I failed to impose the extra work and effort required to establish the ammunition dump in the upper part of the site (which would have given us much greater flexibility in our actions) and to have deployed weapons such as
the mortar, which was lost in combat. On the other hand, the reports that soldiers were encircling us through the hills upset all our plans and made the defense an uncoordinated operation, a confused mass of men scattered around without rhyme or reason. Our own wing, which included many Cubans, collapsed almost without a fight; this time we could not put the blame on the fleeing Congolese; we were Cubans and we retreated. When I was told that the soldiers had already reached the top of the little hill we were defending, my intention was to pick up an automatic rifle and go and fight there, but then I reasoned that this would be to risk everything on one strike and I preferred to retreat. In reality, however, they were not on top of the hill; the report had been the product of nervousness, just as nervousness had made us see soldiers when there were only peasants and large numbers when there could not have been more than 15 men.
From the military point of view, we lost the whole dump and its 150 or so boxes of ammunition for artillery, mortars and machine guns, as well as an 82 mm. mortar and a machine gun, two 60 mm. mortars and two incomplete machine guns, a Soviet bazooka without projectiles, a Chinese-model radio transmitter that I had finally acquired, and a lot of less important equipment; the bazookas in the hands of the Congolese were lost along with their handlers and the projectiles, and above all the embryonic organization we had managed to achieve up to that time.
The African Dream Page 18
