FOREIGN INTERVENTION BY CUBA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP77M00144R000400100003-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 6, 2001
• Sequence Number: 3
• Content Type: REPORT

I
Approved For Release 2001/11/01: CIA-RDP77M00144R000400100003-7
"Foreign Intervention by Cuba"
Armed Cuban intervention overseas began on 14 June 1959
with an attempted invasion of the Dominican Republic by a. mixed.
group of Cuban soldiers and Cuban-trained Dominican guerrillas.
It failed, as did similar efforts launched against Haiti, Nicaragua
and Panama during the next three years. By April. 1962, such armed
attacks and the accumulation of evidence that the Cuban govern-
ment sought to infiltrate and manipulate local governments and
political institutions caused 14 Latin American countries to
break diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Between 1961 and 1964 Cuba sent more than US$1,000,000 as
well as arms and military equipment to insurgent groups in Venezuela
alone. Over US$200,000 were sent to Guatemalan insurgents in
1963. In November 1963, a three ton cache of Cuban-supplied
arms, ammunition and materiel was discovered on a beach in northern
Venezuela. Documents subsequently seized by Venezuelan authori-
ties proved that the arms were to have been used in an effort
to disrupt the national elections scheduled for December of
that year. Having continuously supported, trained and. equipped
Venezuelan guerrilla groups during the interim, Cuban army officers
and non-corns landed again in Venezuela on 8 May 1967 with a
fresh group of Venezuelan guerrillas. The principal Venezuelan
groups receiving Cuban support during the decade of the sixties
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were the "Armed Forces of National Liberation" (FALN) and the
"Movement of the Revolutionary Left" (MIR).
In neighboring Colombia, the main group given Cuban arms,
equipment and guerrilla training during that period. was the
National Liberation Army (ELN), a group which still continues
to harass the democratically-elected Colombian government
through kidnappings, armed attacks on farms and. police--stations,
and other forms of terrorism.
Cuban intervention in Africa began in 1964--65 when such
guerrilla leaders as Ernesto'"Che" Guevara were dispatched. to
the Congo (now Zaire) to participate in an armed insurrection
launched in the eastern portion of that country. Guevara next
appeared in Bolivia in 1967 as leader of a. guerrilla group. He
was captured and executed by the Bolivians in October, 1967.
The current phase of Cuban intervention oc.tside Latin America
began with the Tricontinental Conference in Havana in January
1966, attended by more than 500 delegates, which created. the
African-Asian-Latin American People's Solidarity Organization
(AALAPSO) to assist and coordinate the activities of assorted
insurgent and terrorist groups. Increasingly linked. to Soviet
aims and objectives, Cuban armed intervention overseas has,
shifted away from Latin America in recent years toward involve-
ment in the Near East and Africa. Cuban pilots flew combat as
well as training missions in Soviet-supplied. MIGs for the
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People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) during active
phases of that country's conflict with North Yemen in 1973--74.
A Cuban armored brigade using Soviet vehicles,, later turned. over
to the Syrian Army, was on the Golan Heights front in Syria, in
the wake of the Yom Kippur war.
Cuban military cadres have been training Somalian guerrillas,
both in Cuba and in Somalia itself, since 1974 in preparation
for attacks against neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya.. Similar
training as well as combat assistance was given to rebels in the
former Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau prior to its independence;
several Cubans were killed and one was captured in the field by
Portuguese troops. When it became apparent in mid-1975 that
the Soviet-supported Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola (MPLA) was losing its struggle for control of that country
to the combined forces of the National Front for the Liberation
of Angola (FNLA) and National Union for the Total Independence
of Angola (UNITA), Cuba began preparations to send technicians
and combat troops to Angola. They began to arrive there in
late September to use the sophisticated weaponry sent in
simultaneously by the USSR. An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Cuban
military personnel are in Angola today.
Approved For Release 2001/11/01: CIA-RDP77MOO144R000400100003-7