Beginning in 1975 an epic battle was waged for the future of southern Africa. The Angolan people had just thrown off 5 years of Portuguese colonial brutality. Now South Africa’s white supremacist regime, spurred by Washington, had invaded Angola. Its goal: to impose a government beholden to Pretoria and imperialism. Angola’s government appealed for help. The response of Cuba’s leadership was immediate and decisive. A hard-fought war for freedom ended in 1988 at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, with the crushing defeat of South Africa’s army by Angolan, Cuban, and Namibian combatants.
This is the story of Cuba’s unparalleled contribution to the fight to free Africa from the scourge of apartheid. And how, in the doing, Cuba’s socialist revolution also was strengthened.
Harry Villegas
is a brigadier general of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. He is known the world over as “Pombo,” the nom de guerre given him by Ernesto Che Guevara, at whose side he worked and fought in Cuba, the Congo, and Bolivia.
“An old-guard revolutionary offers a wonderfully candid look at Cuba’s international efforts to resist apartheid and imperialism.”
—Journal of Global South Studies
“A welcome addition to the growing corpus of work on Cuba’s internationalism and contribution to the freedom of Angola and other African countries fighting against imperialism and capitalism.”
—African Studies Quarterly Review
“Villegas’ first-hand testimony is not only an account of the Cuban civilian and military missions in Angola between 1975 and 1991 but also an account of his personal interactions with Fidel.”
—International Journal of Cuban Studies