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Yahoo! April
2, 2002.
Cuba followed U.S. into Angola, secret papers reveal
Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service .Tue Apr 2, 9:13 AM ET
WASHINGTON, Apr 1 (IPS) - Secret Cuban and U.S. documents released here
Monday show that the administration of then-president Gerald Ford was planning
covert actions in Angola well before Cuba's intervention in the former
Portuguese colony's civil war in 1975.
The documents, released by the independent National Security Archive (NSA)
also show that the Soviet Union only reluctantly backed Havana's intervention in
Angola and tried to put strict limits on it. The papers were uncovered by
Washington-based Cuban expert, Piero Gleijeses, during research for a new book.
Gleijeses is the first scholar to gain access to closed Cuban archives,
including those of the Communist Party Central Committee, the armed forces, and
the foreign ministry.
Together, the documents and Gleijeses' new book, "Conflicting Missions:
Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976," offer a version of that
turbulent period much at odds with the official history provided by U.S.
policy-makers, most notably then- secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The latter have depicted the war in Angola as a major new challenge to U.S.
power by an expansionist Moscow newly confident following communist military
victories over U.S. clients in Indochina in the spring of 1975.
''My assessment was if the Soviet Union can interfere eight thousand miles
from home in an undisputed way and control Zaire's and Zambia's access to the
sea, then the Southern countries must conclude that the U.S. has abdicated in
Southern Africa,'' Kissinger wrote in his memoirs.
But the new sources paint a much different picture of that time,
establishing conclusively, for example, that:
- Cuban President Fidel Castro , who had sent military advisers to help the
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the summer of 1975,
decided to send troops to Angola on November 4, in response to South Africa's
invasion of that country. Washington claimed at the time that South Africa
invaded in order to prevent a Cuban take-over of the country.
- The United States knew of South Africa's covert invasion plans in advance
and co-operated militarily with its forces, contrary to Kissinger's testimony to
Congress at the time, as well as at odds with the version in his memoirs.
- Castro decided to send troops to Angola without informing the Soviet Union
and deployed them at his own expense from November 1975, to January 1976, when
Moscow agreed to arrange for a maximum of 10 flights.
Publication of the documents marks ''a significant step toward a fuller
understanding of Cuba's place in the history of Africa and the cold War'', said
Peter Kornbluh, director of the NSA's documentation project.
''Cuba has been an important actor on the stage of foreign affairs, and its
documents are a missing link in fostering an understanding of numerous
international episodes of the past.''
Cuba eventually deployed 30,000 troops to Angola and effectively defeated
the ''secret'' invasion by South Africa at the outskirts of the capital, Luanda.
Its intervention was credited with the MPLA's victory in the war, which included
two other U.S. and China- backed Angolan factions, the National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) of Jonas Savimbi and the National Front for
the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) headed by Holden Roberto.
South Africa continued to back UNITA after its defeat at the hands of the
combined Cuban-MPLA forces. Seven years later, the administration of former
president Ronald Reagan also resumed covert aid to Savimbi, which was finally
cut off some 10 years ago.
Savimbi was killed in a MPLA ambush only last month, effectively ending one
of Africa's longest and most ruinous wars. The MPLA government and UNITA signed
a cease-fire agreement last weekend.
The documents and Gliejeses' book show that Cuba, rather than Moscow's
vanguard in fostering revolution in Latin America and Africa, was often a major
headache for the Kremlin, particularly because of its overseas adventures.
A November 21, 1967 memorandum by an office of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA ) begins by asserting that "(Soviet President Leonid) Brezhnev
thinks that Castro is some sort of idiot, and Castro probably isn't too fond of
Brezhnev either".
The paper, "Bolsheviks and Heroes: The USSR and Cuba", argued that
Cuba was fomenting revolution against Latin governments with which Moscow was
trying to improve political and trade relations.
The situation was similar eight years later, albeit on a different
continent. In August, 1975, when Washington had already launched substantial
covert aid programs for UNITA and the FNLA, then MPLA chief, Agustinho Neto is
quoted in a Cuban report complaining about Moscow's lackluster support. He also
expressed hope that the war in Angola would become ''a vital issue in the fight
against imperialism and socialism".
A critical moment for U.S. strategy in Angola was a national security
council meeting on June 27, 1975. Then-secretary of defense James Schlesinger
suggested that Washington ''encourage the disintegration of Angola",
implying that Washington's main interest in the nation was Cabinda, the oil-rich
Angolan enclave surrounded by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was at
that meeting that Kissinger indicated the CIA's oversight committee had
authorized actions both for money and arms.
Also released Monday was the transcript of an interview between Gliejeses
and Robert Hultslander, who was chief of the CIA station in Luanda from July to
November, 1975, when the U.S. evacuated its mission.
The former official disclosed that U.S. officers on the ground believed at
the time that the MPLA was the ''best qualified movement to govern Angola,'' an
assessment Hultslander maintained at the cost of his foreign service career
''when he refused to bend his reporting to Kissinger's policy''.
''Instead of working with the moderate elements in Angola, which I believe
we could have found within the MPLA, we supported the radical, tribal,
'anti-Soviet right','' said Hultslander.
''Kissinger feared that an MPLA victory would have destabilizing effects
throughout southern Africa. Of course, the opposite proved true; it was our
policies which caused the 'destabilization'.''
Cuba-born grand duchess of Luxembourg makes first visit to the island
since 1959 revolution
Mon Apr 1, 1:56 PM ET
HAVANA - Luxembourg's Grand Duchess Maria Teresa toured Havana's historic
center on Monday during her first visit back to her native Cuba since the 1959
revolution.
Maria Teresa arrived here Friday with two of her five children for a private
visit. They were staying at a Havana hotel and planned to stay until next week,
relatives here said.
Born Maria Teresa Mestre in 1956, the little girl who grew up to marry into
European royalty left Cuba with her family in October 1959 — 10 months
after Fidel Castro (news - web sites) took power.
The family first lived in New York, later moving to Spain and then finally
to Geneva. Maria Teresa met then-Crown Prince Henri of Luxembourg at the
University of Geneva, where she obtained her doctorate in political science in
1980. The couple wed the following year.
Henri became Luxembourg's monarch, the Grand Duke, in 2000 when his father,
Grand Duke Jean, abdicated the throne to the small, wealthy country wedged
between Belgium, France and Germany. | 
