CUBAN DEFECTOR AIDS INSURGENTS IN ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201080046-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: June 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201080046-4
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MIAMI HERALD
7 June 1985
Cuban defector aids
insurgents in Angola
By ALFONSO CHARDY
Herald Staff Writer
JAMBA, Angola - Eight years
a o, as an 18-year-old In the town
of Lu Mercedes in Cuba's eastern-
nest province of Oriente, Miguel
Garcia Enamorado was dating
girls, going to selrool and getting
ready to go into the army.
Then the call came from his
regional Committee for the De-
fense of the Revolution: Would he
volunteer for Internationalist
work in Angola?
Enamorado said yes - chiefly,
he says now, because he was
excited about going abroad and
helping in the reconstruction of a
sister Marxist nation ravaged by
civil war.
Today Enamorado is in Angola,
all right. He is no longer with his
Cuban buddies rebuilding the
country, however. He defected and
is now working for Jonas Savim-
bi's rebel army, the National
Union for the Total Independence
of Angola.
Now 27. Enamorado is one of at
least two Cubans known to have
defected to Savimbi's UNITA since
Cuban forces landed in Angola in
1975. UNITA says it is holding
"dozens" of other Cubans as
prisoners at several sites and that
most of them are disillusioned
with their role in Angola and
would like to defect or go home.
Enamorado works as an electri-
cian in Jamba. UNITA's so-called
provisional capital and main mili-
tary base about 50 miles from the
border of South African-controlled
Namibia. The other Cuban. Angel
Pablo Chacon Mojenjo, also of
Oriente, works in another rebel-
controlled area about six hours by
truck from Jamba. UNITA offi-
cials say neither Cuban has been in
combat against his former allies.
A spokesman in the Cuban
Interests Section in Washington
said confirmation of the two
Cubans' identities and the circum-
stances under which they left the
Cuban army would take several
days. The spokesman also said he
could not confirm or deny that
"dozens" of Cuban soldiers have
fallen captive to UNITA forces:
Enamorado, . who was inter-
viewed in Jamba in the presence
of a UNITA officer, said he went
to Angola in 1978 thinking he was
going as an internationalist to help
in the reconstruction of the nation.
Instead. he said, he was placed
in a military unit whose task was
to find and destroy "armed merce-
naries" or rebels opposed to the
Cuban presence and_ the Marxist
government in the Angolan capital
of Luanda.
I started to see that Cubans
were going back dead to Cuba and
I concluded that there was a civil
war in Angola," said Enamorado.
"Then (Cuban President) Fidel
Castro no longer said that we
were rebuilding Angola but that
we were here to fight South
African racists who were trying to.
take over the country."
He never encountered any South
Africans, Enamorado said. Instead,
he said, his unit's orders were to
search for UNITA guerrillas and
"kill whomever we could kill."
"I did that for 26 months," he
recalled, two months longer than
the required 24-month duty tour.
The reason for the extended stay.
he said, was that his replacement
did not arrive in time.
The delay and disillusionment
with his mission led Enamorado to
defect along with Chacon Mojenjo,
the other Cuban, on Sept. 20, 1980.
while serving with a Cuban regi-
ment in Lubango Province north
of Jamba.
"In the end." said Enamorado,
"we were only massacring the
Angolan people and saw that in
the end Fidel's internationalism
was meant to exploit other peo-
ples. He is an instrument in the
hands of the Russians to dominate
other nations, but he uses the,
mask of proletarian international-
ism to deceive the world."
Enamorado said it was relatively
easy to defect, since UNITA units
always were in the vicinity of his
Cuban regiment headquarter$ at
Lubango.
"It was just a matter of leaving
the perimeter fence of the Cuban
site and walking down the road a
little and we found UNITA bases,"
he recalled.
"We were rectived well and we
explained our situation and that
we wanted to join UNITA to fight
the Cubans- with them and' they
agreed," he added.
A UNITA officer later said that
at first the rebels who met the,
Cubans distrusted them, but that
later they showed their loyalty
and are now accepted u virtual
Angolans.
In fact, Enamorado, who rarely
speaks Spanish now, is beginning
to lose his distinct Cuban accent,
and his vocabulary includes many
Portuguese words.
At the time he defected, he had
the rank of- sergeant in the Cuban'
army and commanded an armored
car.
Although Enamorado longs to
see his father and mother in Cuba,.
he doubts he will ever return
home - at least as tong as Castro
is in power in Havana.
"I feel fine here."-he said. "141
like a brother to UNITA people.; I
feel Angolan. I've already givO
my life to them."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201080046-4