In 1965, for seven months, Che Guevara dreamed of a Marxist revolution in the Belgian Congo. He finally had to make up his mind to leave Africa after this bitter failure.
On the evening of March 14, 1965, Ernesto Guevara landed in Havana. A month earlier, Che, then in Algiers, gave a speech with anti-Soviet overtones. Barely with his foot on Cuban soil, Fidel Castro summons his traveling companion to ask him for explanations. For more than forty hours, the two men will stay face to face. This March 14 will remain in the annals of Cuba: never again will Guevara appear in public on the island.
This year also marks the departure of Che towards other skies. After having resigned from all his governmental functions, Guevara took the road to sub-Saharan Africa, where Che was to personally lead the first Cuban military action on the continent.
The Simba rebellion broke out from within
Ernesto Guevara therefore leaves for the Belgian Congo, incognito. He then joined the men of Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Pierre Mulele, accompanied by 130 Cuban rebels. Guevara knows the Simba rebellion well: the Marxist movement was led by Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in 1961. Che had, at the time, been outraged by this assassination, the conditions of which are still unclear today.
Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, a figure of Independence who turned to the USSR in the midst of the Cold War, was the first victim of a coup led by Joseph Désiré Mobutu, a soldier supported by the CIA.
Che Guevara arrives in Kibamba. Very quickly, he realizes that the Simba rebellion is weakened from within. Che then waits for Kabila, in exile, and prepares to, as he writes in his logbook, "cubanize the Congolese". Full of ideals, Guevara wants to "build a central camp in the Congo", remembers Victor Dreke, then deputy general of the Cuban mission in the Congo. But Che does not take into account the Congolese specificities: a vast country, with a diverse geography ... "He thought that his history would bring the African returnees to come to this camp to prepare and to disperse to fight," said the soldier. .
"This is the story of a failure ..."
For seven months, Guevara will pursue his dream, that of a Cuban revolution on African soil. Lack of motivation and preparation, alcohol, hazardous discipline… Che will realize that the long-awaited revolution will never take. His status as a hero of the Cuban revolution is also not taken into account and Ernesto Guevara will rather play the role of doctor than of leader of men within the rebellion.
In his diary, Che recounts the “organized chaos”. He even introduces his text with these very harsh words: “This is the story of a failure…” On November 21, 1965, Che and his men left the Congo to return to South America. Three days after departure, like a symbol, Mobutu takes power. Kabila, for whom Che wanted to fight, will have to wait three decades before asserting himself at the head of the Congo.