by Jerry Curtis

Created on: December 04, 2008

Even those who admire Che Guevara would rather forget about what happened to him during his ill-fated adventure in the Congo. In his own "Congo Diary," Che himself preempts any excuse making by saying, "This is a history of failure." The failure began in April of 1965. Che was in the East African country of Tanzania with his small group of Cuban troops, hoping to bring another Communist government to power.

Humberto Fontoya[1] describes the Cuban expedition:

"Code-named TATU, Che and his force entered the Eastern Congo, which was convulsed at the time by an incomprehensible series of civil (mostly tribal) wars. (He incorrectly judged) this madhouse conflagration as a people's war against capitalist oppressors that demanded ' proletarian brotherhood '. . . (Tatu's mission was to) "help the alternately Soviet- and Chinese-backed 'Simbas' of the Congolese Red leader, Laurent Kabila, those of Pierre Mulele, and several other bands of rapists, cutthroats and cannibals" (168).

The Congo was a recently abandoned Belgian colony where the Simbas were "hacking their way through the Congolese followers of Moise Tshombe, along with many of the defenseless Europeans still (remaining)" [168].) The Simbas' gruesome attack on Stanleyville where American missionaries were hacked to death, and the U.S. Consul, his family and his staff were paraded downtown and rescued literally from the jaws of death by Belgian Foreign Legion paratroopers was a graphic illustration of the mess that the Cubans had waded into.

Che and his Simba clients were at a disadvantage from the start. Not only were the Simbas (in the words of Che) "bad soldiers," but they were also superstitious tribesmen, whose "helmets" consisted of monkey hides adorned with chicken feathers. These bloodthirsty warriors were also convinced that a potion concocted by their witch doctors made them impervious to bullets. The Simbas were, of course, not impervious to the .50 caliber machine bullets rained down on them by mercenary Cuban exile pilots as the Simbas stood on jungle roads and clearings looking up as if watching an air show.

Che's main disadvantage was that, from the beginning of his time in the Congo, the CIA knew his whereabouts and his plans. Because of CIA intelligence and NSA communication monitoring, Che was unable to achieve anything other than a record of ignominious embarrassment as a field guerilla leader. For example, his first military mission on behalf of the Simbas was to attack a hydroelectric plant.

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