Che Guevara
Revolutionary; adviser to the Simba rebels
"The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The leaders are corrupt."
Biography
In 1965, at the height of his fame after the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara secretly slipped into the eastern Congo with a band of Cuban fighters to try to turn the Lumumbist Simba rebellion into a continental revolution. He hoped to train the guerrillas in the tactics that had won Cuba and to open an African front in the global struggle against imperialism. It was a disaster. Che found the rebel leaders absent, corrupt, and unwilling to fight, the fighters reliant on magic charms rather than discipline, and the whole enterprise hopeless. After seven months he withdrew in bitter failure, confiding to his diary that the rebellion had no future. His Congo venture, largely secret at the time, was a formative defeat that preceded his final, fatal campaign in Bolivia two years later.
Did you know?
His candid Congo diary, later published as 'The African Dream,' opens with the blunt line that it is 'the history of a failure.'
Key Battles
The Simba Rebellion
Katanga, Secessionists & Rebels victory1964 · 40,000 total casualties
The Simba rebellion reopened the Congo's wounds and drew in fresh Cold War intervention — American and Belgian support for the government, Cuban and Soviet-bloc sympathy for the rebels — turning the country once more into a Cold War battleground.
Life Journey
Timeline
June 14, 1928
🌅 Birth
Born in Rosario, Argentina
1965
⚔️ Battle
Joins the Simba rebellion in the eastern Congo
October 9, 1967
✝️ Death
Executed in Bolivia