Customer Reviews

Cuba: An African Odyssey

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cuba: An African Odyssey is a brilliantly-executed documentary on Cuban involvement in Africa from the 1960s to the 1980s. It's a two-dvd package, the first dealing mainly with Congo in the early 60s, the second with Cuba's intervention in Angola in the 70s and 80s. The director Jihan El-Tahri includes interviews with many of the power-players involved, from Fidel Castro to Pik Botha. It includes fabulous archive footage, in particular of Congo at the time of Lumumba's assassination. Then CIA station chief Larry Devlin puts his version on the record. It documents Che Guevara's intervention in the Eastern Congo, which, strangely, is sometimes hilarious. The Cubans age well. Some of them look like they could do it all again, almost fifty years later. It's the best high-profile documentary I've seen, and that's unqualified. It gives the viewer a crash-course in the sequence of cynicism that resulted in the manmade tragedy of Sub-Saharan Africa today. Watching old men trying to make their peace before they meet their maker can be far more revealing than the subject of the interview realises. Absolutely excellent, I'm buying it for Christmas for all my friends.

This is an impressive and surprisingly balanced first-hand account of what really happened in Angola. The production team interviewed South Africans, Cubans, and Angolans to compile a visceral account of how Angola came to be a cold-war battleground between the US, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and South Africa. The film starts with a stunning and revealing question: Why did Nelsen Mandela choose to visit Cuba and embrace Fidel Castro for his first international trip? The rest of the film answers this question by covering Cuba's involvement in Congo and Angola. In the end, the Cubans swung the deal by agreeing to leave Angola if the South Africans would leave Namibia and release Mandela. The film also covers the reasoning behind the US funding for UNITA and Cuba's extensive support to the eventual victors (MPLA). It is also a disturbing tale of how US paranoia helped produce an African arms race that need never have taken place, all in an effort to contain a Soviet threat that never existed.

Perhaps the most interesting characters are Castro and his lieutenants. It's easy to lose site of Cuba's totalitarian, oppressive regime in all the full-throated, enthusiasm to bring freedom to Africa. One highly interesting point is a portion of the film that describes the advice of Russian advisors who insisted the MPLA aggressively assault enemy positions only to be pasted time and time again. It was only after Castro himself began directing the war effort (over the phone!) that MPLA/Cuban combined forces were able to crush UNITA forces. There is also an entertaining aside about Jorge Bisquet (and a personal interview with him) about his constant cigar smoking during the negotiations. The production team did not ignore the American side and included remarkably frank interviews of Crocker. Perhaps the most disturbing portion of the film is Larry Devlin's personal account (CIA Congo station chief at the time) of recieving poison toothpaste from the US with which to murder Congo's first President, Lumumba (which he chose not to use).

This documentary is instrumental in understanding some of the unknown influences Castro, Guevara and the Cuban Revolution had on the world especially on the Nationalists and Leftists in the developing world.
It also illustrates the nature of the Soviet-Cuban relationship and how Castro utilized the massive amounts of Soviet military and logistical aid he received during the Cold War.
Whether you respect or despise Castro there is no doubt that he has made an indelible mark on history.

I was not going to write a review of this interesting documentary because another reviewer "Mark" had already done an excellent review, but seeing that two persons have been so critical of his review, I have decided to enter the fray. I should know something of this topic, not only as an area of my own historic expertise, but also as one my favorite uncles was conscripted in the Cuban army and was a participant in this Cuban adventure, serving honorably in Angola.

This documentary should have been entitled Cuba- African adventurism and combat by proxy in the superpower conflict during the cold war.

This is a well-done but terribly biased documentary that glorifies communist Cuba and her heroes in the repressive pantheon of the workers' paradise. Part 1 of this documentary relates to the Congo and the war for independence from Belgium. Then it proceeds with the struggle for power between communist Patrice Lumumba, who is idolized, and his successor, Laurent Kabila, against (Joseph) Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-1997), who eventually won and ruled with an iron hand as a socialist dictator.

Then Che Guevara enters the picture in this Congolese civil war and despite a hero-worship tribute treatment of this communist icon, the producers are forced to admit that Che's misadventure was a disastrous and colossal failure. We are not told that, if there was a real communist hero, it was General Arnaldo Ochoa, who rescued Che from the claws of his enemies in 1965, when, while in full retreat the Argentinean got lost and nearly perished trying to reach Lake Tanganyika, his desperate escape route. General Ochoa, who later became a potential political opponent of Fidel Castro, was accused of drug smuggling and shot in Cuba as a scapegoat after a kangaroo trial in 1989.

Token Americans are used to give the documentary a semblance of balances- namely CIA operatives, such as Larry Devlin, who must admit to his cloak and dagger operations, etc. But the glorification of the war against neocolonialism and the exaltation of communist heroes, both Cuban and African-- not just the big fish like Lumumba and Che Guevara, but also smaller, life-size heroes, such as Victor Dreke and Harry Villegas, assistants to Che Guevara who actually do some of the narration. This communist glorification is all pervasive in the documentary.

It is highly ironic (although the producers failed to see the irony) that when the Cuban revolutionaries entered the Congo, Victor Dreke, a black Cuban was given the nom de guerre "Moya," and the Congolese were told that he was the supreme "Commander of the Congo Mission." They were astounded and in awe because "Moya" was black and ranked higher than the two white Cubans (of course it was a lie, one of the two whites was Che, nom de guerre, "Tatu"!) After Che's identity was ascertained, the astonishment pass unnoticed. Che was then worshiped as a demigod and they were afraid for his safety and that "something" might happened to him. Nothing was said of the brutality of his African comrades, tribal warfare, to the point that Che himself was revolted by their African confreres' barbarism.

Part 2 deals Cuba's major involvement in the collapse of the Portuguese African colonies in Angola and Mozambique. Nothing is said of the major role played by the left-wing Portuguese military junta which actually was the biggest player in that collapse. Withdrawal of colonial troops from the Portuguese colonies by the sympathetic, left-wing junta facilitated the work of the African national liberation movements in Cabo Verde, Mozambique, and Angola in 1975. Selective omissions like this favoring the leftist revisionism, unfortunately haunt this documentary.

I also agree with "Mark" that in the Angola war, the communist MPLA were treated as heroes, while the U.S.-supported UNITA fighters were insufficiently covered, intimating only that they were U.S. puppets! You would never know that Dr Jonas Savimbi was the greatest guerrilla and military leader in both that war, as well as the war for independence of Angola, nor that he was assassinated in 2002 still fighting!

I am also in accord with this reviewer about the venial situation of the Angolan communist regime and Western oil companies propping up the corrupt regime and accepting protection from the Cuban army in the oil fields. This is not discussed, I suppose, because it would taint the revolutionary image of Agostinho Neto, head of the MPLA and later communist dictator of Angola.

In short, this documentary was well-researched, had good footage, but it was tremendously one-sided, exalting the heroes of the communist pantheon, at times even omitting inconvenient facts that would oppose the leftist perspective of the producers. Finally the documentary failed to tell the viewers the corruption (Angola), depredation (Mozambique) and even genocidal perversity (Ethiopia, the Derg, and Mengistu Haile Marian) that the Cuban communist troops, the Soviets, and African socialism- left in their wake. You will not see the atrocities of African communists in this documentary only exaltation of Cuba's adventurism in Africa during the cold war. By all means watch it but only after the viewer has done some reading on this topic, so that he or she is prepare to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Dr. Miguel A. Faria is the author of Cuba in Revolution-Escape From a Lost Paradise (2002). He has written extensively on Cuba and Soviet Communism.

This is an intresting documentary. It was written by people with obvious biases and ideological blind-spots, but in spite of that it often stays close to the truth even if the truth is not directly stated. Its of most use to those already very familiar with the subject matter and history.

The first part of the documentary covers Cuba's involvement in the Congo around the time of the latters independence. The film makes mistakes by omission with regard to Lumumba and his rule. It almost brings itself to say the truth that Lumumba was a bad leader but in the end, it can't do that. The facts of the army mutiny are not presented and there is too much Belgian conspiracy nonsense.

The next part is better. It covers Cuba's attempts to undermine African governments including Congo and the quite frankly bizzare misadventures of Che in Africa. Everyone freely admits to their strategy in Africa of using Congo as a base to destablize the surrounding countries. They also (between the lines) make it clear what a joke their African allies in places like Congo were. Rather than revolutionaries, Cuba's proxies in Congo were basically warlords happy to run tiny feudal empires in the Bush with outside money, supplies and arms proping the whole thing up. And the sad unsaid truth in the end is that all Cuban money bought in the Congo was Chaos.

The second part of the documentary covers the wars in the Portugese African colonies. Its faults are that it overstates Cuba's role in events before 1974 and is sloppy with chronologies. Its at its best covering events in Angola. One of its greatest omissions was in not explaining the role of the Portugese in creating the free-for-all in Angola. The portugese army officers who overthrew the dictatorship are presented as socialist men of marble. Their irresonsible actions in terms of what happened in Angola are an off-limits subject.

The film is very good covering the three-way war for Angola. It has very good interviews with the American, Cuban and South African major players in events. What its not so good at is covering the Angolan side of things. For example, UNITA is badly covered and made into puppets while the MPLA is made into heroes. The absurdist situation of the MPLA being funded by western oil companies who were guarded by Cuban conscripts is an off-limits subject. In all truth, the MPLA were a bunch of leaches who were more interested in extracting wealth from Angola than in revolutions or socialism.

The film gives the Cubans what they want in that it presents the war in angola as being a conflict between South Africa and Cuba. It rarely questions the Cuban viewpoint. Worse yet, it tries to present Cuba as somehow being responsible for later events in South Africa. It glosses over the collapse of the Soviet Union and how that (and lack of money) changed things in Africa.

It also allows the Cuban commanders who failed in their wars in Southern Africa to blame the Soviets. While Cubans are supposedly responsible all on their own for deploying their army to Africa, they are at the same time presented as helpless and following a military strategy dictated from Moscow. We are supposed to believe that Cuba on its own could decide to send a signficant field army to Africa, but was not allowed to tactically control its own army in Africa.

The documentary ends by trying to give the Cubans credit for everything good that happened in Africa since 1957. But thats more than a little dishonest. The biggest blind spot of the documentary is that it never asks questions about what kinds of regimes Cuba was supporting. Angola was run by a gang whose main interest was in expoiting the country's oil wealth. Ethopia (mentioned in a minor way) was a government good only at killing its own people.

For all its flaws, the film can be interesting for those who know the history already. Though the overall presentation is bad, many of the interviews are very interesting. But in the end, Che Guevara ends up looking like a total fool. And Castro ends up looking like the prototypical fascist adventurer in the mold of Mussolini rather than any kind of liberator. Its to the credit of those who made the film that however warped their views are, the truth ended up coming through in the film despite their efforts.

This gives another view of History not being told and taught completely. History can't and should never be told one sided. It shows how people and some parts of the world are being used and have always being used as PUPPETS by West (all countries from the Northern or western hemisphere that have nothing to do, surely not selling arms and death tools to Africans. It's also a lesson to Africans to learn and search more about their History, to stop looking for personal interests and start building real Nations from main street people to the top. Stop being Puppets.

great film with historical footage that elucidates Cuba's assistance to Africa in the struggle against colonialism. gained information on how Africa's reistance against the colonial powers would never have been obtained were it not for the Cuban people.

This video should be required viewing for every American. Cubans and Africans know this story. Americans do not. It is truly remarkable that the tiny island of Cuba is more responsible for African independence and the end of apartheid than any other nation on Earth. As the film begins; the first nation that Nelson Mandela visited following his release after 27 years in a South African prison was Cuba. It was Cuba and Fidel that created the conditions for his release and for the eventual dismantling of apartheid throughout the continent. In particular, nearly half-a-million Cubans volunteered to fight for African independence, not because they were forced to, not because they sought Africa's natural resources, not because they sought to occupy and exploit the continent and its people or use it as a pawn in some grand geopolitical strategy, but solely because they believed Africans deserved to be free of colonialism and they, the Cubans, could help them achieve it. It is also shameful that the United States consistently supported the forces of oppression and apartheid. We should not forget that Ronald Reagan called Mandela a "terrorist" and vetoed any and all legislation condemning apartheid and calling for US divestment from South Africa. This documentary also gives the lie to the notion that Cuba was little more than a pawn manipulated by the USSR. We Americans are force-fed lies, distortions and misinformation about Cuba more than any other nation, and have been for a half-century. This DVD is a chance to get the truth. You will be awed and inspired by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and, most importantly, by the Cuban people themselves.

The documentary starts by saying sub-Saharan leaders and people love Castro and Cuba. Then it explains why that is. This was a fascinating exploration of history, politics, race, language, and (post-)colonialism.

For those who promote and encourage person-of-color unity in the United States, this may be very exciting to see and witness: Africans loving Cubans; blacks and browns working together. Still, it must be emphasized that race still did matter. When Cuba wanted to secretly send troops to Africa, it encouraged the least miscegenated, African-descended Cubans to take up the cause. This work may really put people in that 1960s/1970s mode of Afros and Huey Newton and Angela Davis and such.

This work features interviews in English, Russian, Spanish, French, and even Portuguese. Sadly, this work that focuses on Central Africa does not have any interviewees speaking in indigenous languages.

Recently, I saw a PBS special on the Spanish-American war in which it is recalled how little Americans in the late 19th century knew about Cuba. Here, you see Cubans in the mid- to late 20th century having little information about Central Africa. Years ago, I saw a documentary in which an African leader from a nation that has done laudable work in fighting HIV said Castro was the cause. He said when Cuban officials learned that 1/3 of the African volunteer soldiers who visited the island were HIV-positive Castro sat him down and encourage him to do something about it. I really think students and scholars who have equal interest in Cuba and Africa, or who are pan-Africanists, would greatly appreciate this work.

Still, this work is THREE HOURS LONG! I am not sure how many of us Americans want to sit through that many subtitles without Chow Yun Fat showing us awesome martial arts moves along the way. The work is heavy on personal recollections and light on narrative, so it may drag to many viewers.

with perhaps not enough action pictures but certainly shedding much light on just what happened over there.