of soldiers or armed men in the base camps was significantly less.
During these days, the various fronts were almost completely passive and if people had gunshot wounds to be attended, these were the result of accidents. Since hardly anyone had the faintest idea about firearms, they tended to go off when they were played with or treated carelessly.
On May 8, 18 Cubans led by Aly finally arrived along with Mitoudidi, the head of the General Staff, but he had to return immediately to Kigoma to search for guns and ammunition. We had an amicable conversation, and he left me with an agreeable impression of reliability, seriousness and organization. Kabila sent word that I should be very reserved about my identity and so I remained incognito as I acted in my apparent role as doctor and translator.
We agreed with Mitoudidi that the move to Upper Base would take place the next day. This happened, but we left behind Moja, Nane and Tano, who had come down with fever, and the doctor Kumi to take care of the hospital. I was sent to the base as doctor and translator. There were scarcely 20 Congolese there, looking bored, lonely and uncomfortable. The struggle began to break this inertia; we started with classes in Swahili, given by the political commissar at the base, and in French, assigned to another compañero. We also started building shelters as protection against the freezing temperatures. We were at 1,700 meters above sea level and 1,000 meters above the level of the lake, in an area where trade winds from the Indian Ocean condense causing continuous rainfall. We immediately commenced the task of building shelters, and we soon had blazing fires to ward off the nocturnal cold.
1. Che’s note: According to the latest reports, he has been promoted to general.
2. In an autobiographical short story Doubt, Che offers an extraordinary analysis of this question of dawa, interspersed with philosophical reflection from a human and cultural perspective on this mystical-religious belief among the Congolese combatants. See: Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir, by Ernesto Che Guevara (Ocean Press).
3. Today Kinshasa.
4. The conference of the National Liberation Council (CNL) was held between late May and early April 1965 where the Supreme Council of the Congolese Revolution was constituted.
Near the Upper Base, some four hours on foot (the only possible means of locomotion), a group of hamlets, each numbering no more than 10 huts, lies scattered over a huge area of natural grazing land. The cluster of settlements, known by the generic name of Nganja, is populated by a tribe that originally came from Rwanda, and which, despite living in the Congo for several generations, retains the ineradicable spirit of its homeland. Their life is pastoral, though not nomadic. Cattle are at the center of their economy, providing them with both food and money. We heard frequently of the troubles of a Rwandan soldier, who lacked the number of cows required by the father of the woman of his dreams. Moreover, women too are bought, and to have several is a sign of economic power—quite apart from the fact that it is they who do all the work in agriculture and in the home.
During the course of the war, this proximity enabled us from time to time to enjoy the precious beef that is a cure even for homesickness—almost.
The Rwandans and the different Congolese tribes regard each other as enemies, and the borders between ethnic groups are clearly defined. This makes it very difficult to carry out political work that aims toward regional union—a phenomenon common throughout the length and breadth of the Congo.
In my first few days at the Upper Base, I paid tribute to the climate of the Congo by coming down with a very high, though short-lived, fever. Our doctor, Kumi, came up from the Lake [Base] to visit me, but I sent him back as he was needed in the clinic and I was already feeling better. On the third or fourth day they brought in a man wounded in some skirmish at Front de Force; he had not received medical attention for six days, so his arm that had been fractured by a bullet was now suppurating profusely. I had to get up to attend to him in a cold drizzle, and this may have caused my relapse with a very high fever and delirium, bringing Kumi up to the base for a second time. It was like climbing Mount Everest for him, and according to eyewitnesses—because I was in no state to appreciate the fact—his condition after the long, steep ascent appeared worse than that of the patient he had come to attend.
The relapse didn’t last long either—about five days in all—but the effect left was an extraordinary weakness that overcame me and even took away my appetite. During the first month, no less than a dozen compañeros paid for their novitiate in this hostile land with raging fevers whose aftereffects were equally troublesome.
The first formal order that we received was issued by Mitoudidi, who had returned from Kigoma, was to prepare for an attack on Albertville to be carried out by two columns. It was assumed we would play the main role in the fighting. The order was absurd; there had been no preparation, we were only 30 in number, and 10 of these were sick or convalescing. But I explained the instructions to the men and told them they should be prepared to go into battle, although I would try to change or at least postpone the plans.
On May 22 we heard one of the many crazy reports that worried us greatly: “A Cuban minister is crossing the hills and many more Cubans have arrived.” This was so irrational that no one believed it, but I went a way down the mountain to get some exercise and, to my great surprise, encountered Osmany Cienfuegos.1 Embraces were followed by explanations: He had come to hold talks with the Tanzanian government and, in passing, had asked for permission to visit the compañeros in the Congo. He had been refused as a matter of principle, on the grounds that other Cuban ministers would then want to visit the operations center; but in the end they relented and here he was. I also discovered that the Tanzanian government was not yet aware of my presence.
Along with Osmany came 17 of the 34 men who had arrived in Kigoma. In general, he brought good news, but for me personally it included the saddest news of the whole war. Telephone calls from Buenos Aires reported that my mother was very ill, leading me to expect the worst. Osmany had not been able to get any further information and I had a month of uncertainty, waiting to hear something that I already suspected, but hoping that there had been a mistake, until finally my mother’s death was confirmed.2 She had wanted to see me shortly before my departure, probably because she was already feeling unwell, but the advanced state of the preparations for my trip had made this impossible. Moreover, she never received the farewell letter addressed to her and my father that I had left in Havana; it would only be delivered in October, when my departure was made public.
Mitoudidi came to the Upper Base, and we discussed various aspects of the military situation. He insisted on drawing up a grand strategic plan for the capture of Albertville, but I managed to convince him that at this stage this was too ambitious, and hence too risky, to deal with Albertville, and that it was more important to acquire real knowledge of the whole zone of operations and of the resources at our disposal as the General Staff had no clear picture of what was happening at each of the isolated fronts. Everything depended on reports from the field commanders, but in order to get what they wanted, they inflated their figures and, in order to escape blame, attributed disasters to a lack of weapons or ammunition. We agreed to send delegations to the various fronts, in order to clarify the respective situations of our men and the enemy, as well as the relationship of forces.
Four groups were organized to conduct the appropriate investigations: Aly, with three other compañeros, was to go to the Kabimba area; Nne, with two others, to Front de Force; Moja and Paulu, to the area of Baraka, Fizi and Lulimba; Mitoudidi and I would go to Uvira. The last of these trips did not happen in the end. First, there were the usual delays: a lack of boats, shortage of gasoline and unforeseen circumstances; then Kabila announced
