History Is Not Neutral

The inauguration of the Sikhumbuto Wall at Freedom Park was a low-key event, poorly attended and hardly covered in the Sunday papers. The site is not properly prepared and is already crumbling. The organisation was half-hearted and the people who did come were left to bake under the open sky for hours. The programme was blandly “programme-directored” by Vuyo Mbuli, who welcomed the IFP and the PAC but not the SACP or COSATU, who admittedly were not prominently evident in the audience, and possibly were not invited. In the wall, the “Labour” section is empty, and there are hardly any names under the label “Communist Party of South Africa”. Michael Harmel’s name is mis-spelled. We could say more, in detail. In general, the event was too much dominated by those who still want to de-politicise history, and present it as if there is no more historical business to be done, of which the effect is simply depressing. For this reason, we can say that the best South African contributor on the day was a single shouter from the back, who raised the names of Kotane and Hani, so relieving the atmosphere of pious “neutrality”. His final effort was an ironic “We love you, Thabo!” when the Pres came on. No doubt relieved that this was going to be the worst of it, and that there would not be another walk-out, President Mbeki replied “I love you, too”. That was the most remarkable part of his speech. The Cubans took the event seriously. General Cintra Frias, the victor of Cuito Cuanavale, assisted with translation by Roxana Cintra Frias, gave an address which was listened to and applauded more vigorously than any other. The Cuban section of the wall is the most complete, containing over two thousand names of Cubans who died in the liberation struggle. To complete our brief report of the honoured presence of Cuban heroes on this occasion, we shoul report that there were two others apart from General Cintra Frias in his party. They are General Rafael Moracen Limonta and Jorge Risquet. Even the small part of their story that we have been able to recover is quite astonishing. The first thing to note is that Che Guevara’s presence in Africa in the 1960s was not simply an episode that passed without consequences, as it is written of in the bourgeois versions, whether as journalism or as history. “El Che” was the first leader of a continuous process lasting “25 years, one year, one month, and one day” as Jorge Risquet puts it, from Che’s crossing of Lake Tanganyika to land in the Congo (“Leo”) on April 24th, 1965 (in a column of around 50 including General Moracen), to the final departure of the last Cuban forces from Angola on May 25, 1991). These dates and other details given here are based on memory of Risquet’s vivid verbal account, without notes being taken, but only written down later. So they are incomplete and subject to minor corrections. Risquet’s military rank, for example, we do not know. We do know that he was in command of the second column of about 100 that followed Che’s, and that he was later the principle negotiator in the circumstances that followed the victory of Cuito Cuanavale. His firm negotiating stance made the most of the military situation, and contributed equally with Cintra Frias to the historic 1988 settlement that secured the freedom of three countries: Angola, Namibia and South Africa. But even this much is not the whole story. In the course of the 25 years, plus on year, one month and one day, the Cubans proceeded from Congo (Leo) to Congo (Brazza), made contact with the MPLA (whose leader Augustino Neto asked “modestly” for the assistance of only six Cubans at first). Cubans became involved in the Cabinda part of Angola, then in Guinea Bissau, then Algeria (when it was attacked by Morocco following its self-liberation from the French, then Ethiopia (when it was attacked by Somalia under Siad Barre). As we have recalled in recent days, the first full-scale Cuban expeditionary force to Angola was mobilised in 1975 following an invasion of that country by the SADF, and the second major, final and victorious force came over in 1988. These latter events are quite fully elaborated in our CU archive by Piero Gleijeses and by Fidel Castro himself. The above is only a sketch framework around which could perhaps be built a better, more concrete and total history. What one might also say is that revolutionaries are all distinct personalities, and the third visiting general, the one who hardly spoke, namely Rafael Moracen Limonta, the one who marched with Che in that very first column, more than likely has the most fascinating story of all of them to tell. To add a little to the pile of related material on Cuba, see the linked document below from this weekend’s Counterpunch, by Saul Landau. Click on this link: Filming Fidel in 1968, Saul Landau, Counterpunch (3030 words)