Che, Leader of the First Patricio Lumumba International Brigade
The history of the second column could not be told before the feats of the First Column, which commander Ernest Che Guevara lead in the land of Patrice Lumumba, were made known.
Only after this episode in the singular life of Che and those who made up the International Brigade in Africa were divulged, was it correct to speak about the modest efforts of his followers in the Second Column, made up of an active reserve, his second front in the valley of that great river which crosses the equatorial waist of the continent.
The publication of Views of Passages on the Revolutionary War: Congo, where the heroic guerrilla relates and analyses this feat, made the present volume both possible and necessary and moreover, it allows us to see the actions of the First Column in their true light; as that first, audacious moment of a larger project whose ultimate objective was to contribute to the victory of our African brothers in the sub-Saharan region in their unequal fight to throw off the colonial yoke and racist oppression.
This strategic project, conceived of by Fidel, Che and Raul, necesitated a quarter of a century of incessant struggle and the efforts of an additional thousand internationalist Cuban combatants over and above the 380 that made up the fighters who formed part of the First and Second Columns. That is to say, one thousand three hundred and eighty soldiers and officers.
In order to create the following text a decision was taken by the minister, and General of the Army, Raul Castro, to set up a committee presided over by Jorge Risquet Valdes and it included the following members:
- Brigadier General Roland Kindelan Blez and Rafael Moracen Limonta.
- Colonel Rene Hernandez Gattarno.
- Medical officials: Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, Julian Alvarez Blanco, Manuel Jaca Tornes and Rodolfo Puente Ferro.
- Ambassadors: Manuel Normando Agramonte Sanchez and Dario Urra Torriente
- Colonel (retired) Jose Marti Ballester and Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Fernando Galindo Santos.
Therefore, what we offer here to the reader is the fruit of the collective work of the members of the commission, in addition to the contributions of dozens of comrades who have contributed by providing their testimonies and opinions, documents, notes and photos. Jorge Risquet was responsible for compiling and editing the book.
In reality, writing this book started during the years 1965 to 1967, because two thirds of it consists of official documents that were written during those years and that can be found in the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, the Information Centre for Defence (CID-FAR), the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Institute of the History of Cuba.
The veracity of the account and the events described are supported by evidence from these archives, by articles and information published in the newspapers Revolution and Granma, and by the diaries and notes of the combatants. There is also documentation that in some cases has been declassified – in some case it has not – from the embassies in Brazzaville of the German Federal Republic and Great Britain, as well as a range of declassified documents from the US department of State and the CIA. Likewise, there is a copious amount of information available from foreign organs of the press and books written by foreign authors, all of which makes up a large bibliography.
The reader will not find the usual prologue or preface, they are not necessary. The message Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro addresses to the combatants of the Patricio Lumumba Battalion and the speech of the Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Raul Castro on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the creation of Column one and column Two make that redundant.
Comments