Video documentary: From Cuba to Congo, dream to disaster for Che Guevara. Lake Tanganyika 1965.
07-10-2017
Che Guevara In Africa - Lake Tanganyika 1965 Published by Miguel Ferreira November 22, 2015
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928 – 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture
In early 1965, Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. According to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism's weak link and so had enormous revolutionary potential.
Guevara traveled to Congo using the alias Ramón Benítez.[173] He led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo crisis. Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in Congo on April 24, 1965 and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward.
As an additional obstacle, white South African mercenaries, led by Mike Hoare in league with Cuban exiles and the CIA, worked with the Congo National Army to thwart Guevara's movements from his base camp in the mountains near the village of Fizi on Lake Tanganyika in southeast Congo.
From Cuba to Congo, dream to disaster for Che Guevara
Evacuation By November 1965 Guevara's dream had collapsed against the reality of the Congolese forces' complete incompetence and lack of realism. Grimly he had asked Havana for help to pull out his men, though he toyed with the idea of staying on as a lone exemplar of revolutionary duty.