Customer Reviews

Che in Africa: Che Guevara's Congo Diary

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A great and detailed account of Che's not so famous campaign in Africa. Well written; you can actually capture Che's philosophy and lifestyle.

Filled with excerpts from Che's own Congo diary and replete with insights into the failures of the Cuban backed People's Liberation Army. A haunting look at some of the same failures that would befall Che and lead to his capture and execution in Bolivia. A great read!

Galvez fought with Che during the Cuban Revolution and here he takes Che's Congo diary and expands upon it to offer a comprehensive overview of a historical event whose details remained elusive for more than three decades. The story begins in 1961 when Patrice Lumumba, one of the great African leaders of independence, was assassinated at the behest of foreign and native oligarchies and with the complicity of the United Nations. Che had visited Africa as a representative of the Cuban government and realized that the winds of change sweeping away colonial governments in Africa had made that continent a flashpoint of struggle between the forces of liberation and those of exploitation. By 1963-64, Che was planning a guerilla movement in his native Argentina, but the nascent insurrection was crushed before he was able to join it. With that avenue closed off, Che looked to Africa instead. Vowing to avenge Lumumba's death, he arrived in the Congo in early 1965 with a group of Cubans intent on joining forces with those fighting against the Belgian mercenaries and their native army. Almost from the beginning Che sensed a lack of revolutionary character among many of the leaders of the opposition, as well as poor training, superstition, and lack of military bearing among the rebel army. Believing that this could be overcome through training and an awakening of revolutionary spirit among the troops, Che launched a program of instruction and leading by example that was ultimately unsuccessful, despite great effort by him and his Cuban compatriots. After several months of largely inconclusive skirmishing, Che and the Cubans withdrew at the request of a group of African independence leaders.

Perhaps the most enlightening part of the book is reading Che's self-critique along with his analysis of what was wrong with the conditions of the struggle and other things that contributed to its failure. These same elements, including Che's intense and unyielding sense of mission, would reappear in his Bolivian diary. The interviews with Che's contemporaries that served in the Congo are fascinating and historically invaluable. Anyone interested in Che Guevara or African nationalism will find this an indispensible reference.

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