Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2014 17:17:34 +0100
The Kissinger-Cuba-Angola-Jamaica connection
David Cupples
2014-11-07
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18784730>
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/701/mm.jpg
cc BBC Jamaica was in serious need of money, but PM Manley resisted
Kissinger's pressure to denounce Fidel Castro for sending troops to Angola,
in exchange for US dollars. It was a principled stand in support of Angola's
liberation, which had wide ramifications for Southern Africa.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's incipient plan to "smash Cuba"
in response to Fidel Castro sending soldiers in 1975 to support Angola's
liberation struggle has recently been documented ('Back Channel to Cuba', a
book by Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande) and drawn comment on
independent news/analysis sites (
<http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/01/kissinger-sought-crack-cubans-n
ew-documents-show> Common Dreams and
<http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/2/secret_history_of_us_cuba_ties>
Democracy Now. Gone largely unremarked upon has been Jamaica's entrapment in
this web of intrigue involving the United States, Cuba and Angola.
Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley's democratic socialist government had
already come under the watchful eye of the United States. Yet another
country in the hemisphere wanting to use its natural resources to better the
lives of its people rather than the bottom line of foreign-based
multinational corporations posed a major threat to US regional economic
hegemony. Manley, more a Fabian social reformer than a leftist radical,
wanted a mixed economy open to foreign investment and had even supported the
expelling of Marxists under his father's administration, but all this was
trumped by the hysteria over his cordial relations with Cuba and his
personal friendship with the Cuban leader.
A CIA destabilization program against the Manley government, dramatized in
my novel 'Stir It Up: The CIA Targets Jamaica, Bob Marley and the
Progressive Manley Government', was almost certainly in effect even prior to
Angola becoming a hot-button issue. When Cuba sent soldiers to Angola to
fight back the South African army and allied guerrilla units, all backed by
the CIA, Manley's "friendly alliance" with Castro took on much greater
importance to US planners.
Kissinger, the self-styled grandmaster on the international chess board, was
at the center of the tableau. He arrived in Jamaica in December 1975 and
ensconced himself in a posh resort on the island's north shore, apparently
in the company of his wife Nancy (as Manley writes in his 'Jamaica: Struggle
in the Periphery'). Manley arranged for Kissinger to come to Jamaica House
for lunch, where Henry brought up what was on the top of his mind: Jamaica's
diplomatic backing of Cuba's intervention in Angola.
Jamaica at the time was struggling mightily in only its fourteenth year of
existence as an autonomous nation, independence having come in 1962. The
1970s oil crisis was hitting the young Caribbean country hard, compounded by
an extreme shortage of foreign exchange. Manley had previously floated the
idea to Kissinger of running a hundred-million-dollar line of credit to help
Jamaica avoid going under completely.
It was thus that Manley and Kissinger, as described in my novel, came to the
breakfast room at Jamaica House in Kingston with heavy agendas. Kissinger's
ploy seemed to be that if Manley ever dreamed of getting that line of credit
he would have to denounce Castro for sending troops to Angola. The dilemma
facing Manley was framed in similar terms to those which Castro had earlier
confronted: the conditioning of improved relations with the US upon falling
in lockstep with American foreign policy.
Both Castro and Manley were forced to wrestle with choosing between doing
what they believed was morally right and what would ingratiate themselves
with the United States. Both chose to stand on principle and champion
Angola's liberation movement, in so doing directly contributing to the
struggle of resistance against the apartheid South African regime. Both
would pay a dear price as the dangling carrot was removed and the big stick
applied, with CIA operations intensifying against their governments,
economies and peoples.
As Piero Gleijeses indicates in his scholarly "Visions of Freedom: Havana,
Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991,"
Castro's support for Angola was a major contribution to the liberation
struggle across the whole of southern Africa, a black Third World army
turning back the supposedly invincible forces of the white supremacist
regime. Michael Manley's actions very much deserve to be seen in the same
light and constitute an important reason he was honored with the South
African Order of Supreme Companion of Oliver Tambo. Nelson Mandela visited
Cuba and Jamaica soon after his release from prison to personally thank
Castro and Manley for their courageous backing.
The work of Gleijeses, Kornbluh and LeoGrande has contributed significantly
to correcting the mainstream interpretation of these events pushed by the
United States government and media. Yet the truth was understood long ago by
people like Manley, as shown in 1982's 'Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery'.
About the mainstream's adamant insistence that Castro was acting as Russia's
puppet, now discredited by the above authors, Manley writes:
"Contrary to popular views assiduously promoted by propaganda, it was a
Cuban decision. There are indications Moscow was taken by surprise. [and]
might not have favored such a decision.. Fidel Castro's brother Raoul was
hastily dispatched to Moscow to explain the Cuban decision."
About the merits of Cuba's action in Angola in the light of the struggle for
equal rights and justice, Manley continues:
"It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the Cuban action. You
have to go back to the days of Alexander the Great to find a parallel where
so small a country by feat of arms has affected so profoundly the balance of
forces on a continent. If South Africa had installed Savimbi as its puppet
ruler [in Angola], it is safe to say that Rhodesia's Ian Smith would be
firmly in control to this day. By now Zambia might have fallen, Namibia
would be a lost cause, Botswana throttled, Tanzania and Mozambique
impossibly isolated. Certainly Tanzania could not have lifted the yoke of
Amin from the necks of the Ugandan people. The whole of Southern Africa
might now be firmly in the grip of the racists operating through puppet
regimes."
Perhaps it would be a good idea for the United States to talk to governments
and peoples around the world and actually listen to what they have to say,
and ponder the differing ways they might have of looking at world events.
Then again, there can be no search for truth if propaganda and
self-interested control are higher virtues.
* David Cupples is the author of 'Stir It Up: The CIA Targets Jamaica, Bob
Marley and the Progressive Manley Government', a novel. He can be reached by
email at <mailto:StiritupBob_at_gmail.com> StiritupBob_at_gmail.com or through
his Facebook page at <http://www.facebook.com/StirItUpCIAJamaica>
http://www.facebook.com/StirItUpCIAJamaica
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)