A meticulously researched account of Cuba’s internationalist assistance to anti-colonial fighters in Africa, beginning with the country’s aid to newly-independent Algeria in the early 1960s; Che Guevara’s efforts in support of Congolese forces resisting U.S.-backed mercenaries in Zaire; military and medical aid missions to Guinea-Bissau and the former French-ruled Congo. Gleijeses tells the story of the initial months of "Operation Carlota"—in which thousands of Cuban volunteers and Angolan independence fighters defeated repeated South African invasions and secured the independence of Angola.
Making use of thousands of classified documents from the governments of Cuba and the United States, Gleijeses shows Washington’s inability to understand that Cuba’s revolutionary aid to African fighters was not a plot hatched in Moscow, but the actions of a country committed to internationalism and national independence.
Maps, photos, extensive source notes, bibliography, index.
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