Congo Crisis Research Paper

The Congo Crisis was a conflicting time when Congo became independent from Belgium that led to a series of civil wars as well as a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the United States. In addition to these two powerful countries, China and Cuba’s role in the Congo Crisis are not only strategic, but are often forgotten. Furthermore, these two communist countries perceived the Congo Crisis as a way to not only help African’s struggle against foreign domination, but as a way to distance themselves from the Soviet Union and achieve power and success throughout the world.

The Congo Crisis faced not only political upheaval in the newly, independent state, but rather a worldwide struggle against the common enemy. Not only did many African countries

Cuba is one of these countries that saw Africa’s struggle against foreign domination as a worldwide conflict that they hoped to fix. For example, in Che Guevara’s “Pasajes de la…,” he discusses his meeting in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania with African liberation movement leaders. During this meeting, he is unable to convince them to fight for a greater cause rather than fighting for the individual republics freedom. Che Guevara had hoped to meet with each of the leaders separately and have friendly conversations. However, as a result of mistake at the embassy, he was forced to have a meeting with at about fifty people representing about ten countries, with each being divided into two to three factions. At this meeting he addressed to them the importance of military training in nearby Congo, rather than in Cuba. He tells them that the money they would invest in training would be a waste of money and time. Furthermore, he went on to discuss the importance of a victory not only for one independent state, but a victory of a common war against a common master. Additionally, in Cable from Fernández Padilla, who is the head of the Cuban intelligence station in

During this time, the United States and Soviet Union proved to be strong nations that many other countries could not compete with. China, although a communist country, began to distance itself from the Soviet Union in order to become a powerful nation in the world. Due to the crisis in Congo, China planned to bring aid to the African people and fight against the takeover of the Soviet Union or the United States and had several courses of action to prevent this. For example, the Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai discusses with Tanzania’s President, Julius Nyerere, about the effects of the current United States involvement in Congo on a worldwide scale. He speaks about how America’s in the Congo will last for a long time, and will set back the movement for national independence and liberation. Zhou Enali stated that China is willing to provide support for Vietnam in hopes to keep America’s strength in Vietnam in order to the U.S. out of the Congo Crisis. Additionally, Mao Zedong has a conversation with the delegation of the People’s Republic of Congo, advising them that “You should not go down the same winding path that we took.” Throughout the meeting, the People’s Republic of the Congo fear that the imperialist’s have too much economic and military control that worldwide independence and liberation would be too