{"id":56486,"date":"2014-11-16T11:01:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T16:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56486"},"modified":"2014-11-16T11:05:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T16:05:15","slug":"cubans-vs-cubans-in-the-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56486","title":{"rendered":"Cubans Vs. Cubans in the Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tamayojeep\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Someone dropped off a link to the Miami Herald<\/a> on our Facebook page about a story that I’ve never heard – it’s about a battle between CIA-sanctioned Cuban ex-patriots and Castro’s Cubans who battled it out in the Congo in the early 60s;<\/p>\n

The CIA sent about 120 Cuban exiles to fight communist-backed guerrillas during the political violence that wracked the country now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1962-67, says Frank R. Villafa\u00f1a, author of Cold War in the Congo, virtually the only history of the role of Cubans in the conflict. Fidel Castro supplied about 200 soldiers to the other side.<\/p>\n

The rival Cuban forces discovered one another\u2019s presence during a CIA bombing raid on guerrilla positions when ground troops and pilots began cursing one another in Spanish. Later they would fight face to face, when CIA-backed Cubans in patrol boats attacked Castro\u2019s troops along Lake Tanganyika\u2019s shores.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the story that got me interested,\u201d said Villafa\u00f1a. \u201cWhen I heard it, I thought it was just typical Cuban exaggeration, but it\u2019s all true. I don\u2019t know why the CIA has kept it so secret. All the documents were supposed to be declassified after 30 years, and here we are 50 years and it\u2019s still all secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

The secrecy extends beyond official documents to cloud even the eyewitness accounts of some of the Cuban CIA operatives, now all in their late 70s and beyond. Tamayo, the burly man with the machine gun, is amiable as he shares his recollections of the rescue operation . But, asked about his employer, he turns adamant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know nothing about the CIA,\u201d Tamayo insists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s pretty long story that you should read at the Herald along with the photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone dropped off a link to the Miami Herald on our Facebook page about a story … Cubans Vs. Cubans in the Congo<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}