América Latina: ¿clase media de las naciones?

CaD Cuba's austere sodalism survive a new invasion of American bu.. sin'es'smen and tourists? These are stiU unanswered questions. To that extent we are still vncertain as to whether' the Cuban paradigm might, turn 'out to be ali effective organizational contribution from Latín America to the Afti~ can continent. Jf that were to happen, once again a form of imitiative micto.dependency of Afríca upon Latín Amcrica might re-emerge. The impact of Cuba on the whole concept of the Third World has probably been crudal. Until the Cuban revolution Afro.Asian radicals found it hard to identify themselves with Latin America ex– cept withín 'the restrkted boundariesof literary nationalism and 'oc. cmpathy for the Blacks and Indians of the American hemisphere. But the ;Cuban assertion of independence from the hegemony oí theUni– too' States dramaticaHy widened the arca of Afro-Asian identifieation with Latin Ameríca. At first Castro was regarded as the first symboI' of militant non.alígnment in the W.estern hemisphere. He even atten– dOO the Belgrade Conference of the Non-Aligned in 1961, along with a leSs militant Brazil. Castro's drift into mi.litary entanglement 'with the Soviet Union later disillusionOO sorne of his non-aligned friénds,' But the impad ()f Oistro's· defiance of the United States, and oI the social tr.ansformation he implementOO at horne, gaveCuha the youth. fui status of a "new state" and continued to give Castro himself the rank of a crucial revolutionary of the new age. In short' Castro was patt oí the credentials of Latin Arnerica for its :admission into Third World solidarity. CASTRO'S WARRIORS IN AFRICAN WARS On february 16, 1965, fol,lowing the bombing of two Uganda viHages by Congolese planes of American manufacture, thrce ministers of the Uganda government puhlically suhmitted a protest to the American Bmhassy in Kampala. The fírst two demands made in the protest note were that the United States should stop giving miHtary aid tothe Congo, and should ."withdraw the Cubanrebels from the Congo". 10 Castro's adversaries in exÍ'le seemed to be easing ,their .frustration ' by offering themselves as mercenaries to· Tshombe:sregime. , But this was on1y one aspect of these initial Cuban intrusions 'into Afrkan- ,affairs. An earlier aspect was Cuba'sparticipationin the evcmts which JOO up to the Zanzibar revolutions. In historical terms it is perha.ps too eatly to be sure - but it seems very lik<:ly that the exam– pIe' pf the Cuban. revolution helped to influeoce the shape of the Zan– zIbar revolution of january 1964. John Okellp might indeed háve~ri 10 See New York Times, november' 1; 1964; Uganda Argus, februá· l'y 17, 1965; Uganda Argus, february 19, 1965. 79