‘Locking horns with the Northern Empire’: anti-American imperialism at the Tricontinental Conference of 1966 in Havana

Abstract

In January 1966 Havana hosted a ‘tricontinental’ conference that aimed to address the role of US imperialism in the Cold War world as well as the invasions of Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. This article examines some of the themes discussed in 1966 and the immediate impact of the conference on liberation movements around the world, most notably in Portuguese Africa, Vietnam and the Middle East. The conference also had a long-lasting impact on the democratic future of many Third World countries.

Keywords:

• anti-imperialism
• Cuba
• Tricontinental Conference
• Tricontinental Movement

Notes

1. The kidnapping and execution of Mehdi Ben Barka has been the subject of several books, articles and at least two films, Simone Bitton's Ben Barka: The Moroccan Equation (2003), and Serge Le Peron's J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka (2005).

2. The Tricontinental Conference of African, Asian, and Latin American Peoples: A Staff Study, ‘Prepared for the subcommittee to investigate the administration of the Internal Security Act and other security laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate. Printed for the use of the Committee of the Judiciary’ (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1966), available at http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/tricontinental.htm, accessed 5 February 2007, Chapter 3, ‘Conference Preparations’ (hereafter referred to as A Staff Study). See also Ulises Estrada and Luis Suárez, eds, Rebelión tricontinental: las voces de los condenados de la tierra de África, Asia y América Latina (Melbourne/Havana/New York: Ocean Press, in association with Ediciones Tricontinental, 2006).

3. H. F. T. Smith to Mr. Glenhill. Confidential memo. Havana, 31 January 1966. The National Archives, London (TNA): Foreign Office (FO). 1110/2115.

4. See Abderrahim Ouardighi, Le Maroc de l'état d'exception à l'abandon de la Mauritanie, 1965–1969 (Michigan: Premier Edition, 1991), 85 and 103; and Stephen O. Hughes, Morocco under King Hassan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 144.

5. Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, with the consent of the CIA, in 1961, after a coup d’état staged by Joseph Mobutu. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, who had been one of the main leaders of the Cuban Revolution, was captured in combat and then assassinated by the Bolivian army under the supervision of CIA agents in 1967. The democratically-elected Chilean president Salvador Allende was murdered by the troops led by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. The coup d’état that eventually led to more than a decade of dictatorship was fully supported by the US government of Richard Nixon.

6. A Staff Study, Chapter 3.

7. Fidel Castro Ruz, comandante, speech given during the 5th Anniversary Celebrations of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, Havana, 28 September 1965, available at: http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1965/esp/f280965e.html, accessed 5 February 2007. (All translations from Spanish are my own unless otherwise specified.)

8. See Fidel Castro Ruz, comandante, speech given at the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference, Chaplin Theater, Havana, 15 January 1966, available at: http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1966/esp/f150166e.html, accessed 5 February 2007.

9. ‘Tricontinental Meet in Havana’, People's Democracy, 29, no. 52 (26 December 1965), available at: http://pd.cpim.org/2005/1225/12252005_40%20years%20ago.htm, accessed 5 February 2007.

10. Amilcar Cabral, ‘The Weapon of Theory’, address delivered to the Tricontinental Conference, January 1966. Available at: http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1966/weapon-theory.htm, accessed 20 April 2009.

11. For the historical significance of these conferences see Robert J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (London: Blackwell, 2001), 182–193.

12. At this juncture the sponsorship of the Chinese was being heavily undermined by the USSR, which was giving financial support to the various bodies that were appearing and strengthening as a consequence of the meetings.

13. Of course such a change affected the balance of external power and influence that China and the USSR were trying to maintain over the delegates of the nations involved in this movement. The meeting in Havana became a battleground between China and the USSR, both of whom wanted to extend boundaries and spheres of influence to encompass the Third World. No-one was able to spot this struggle better than the agents of the ‘Empire’ who were reporting from Havana at the time. They all coincided on a Chinese victory in ideological terms, and on a Soviet triumph at the organisational level. (For more information see: A Staff Study, Chapters 10 and 11; and ‘The Tricontinental Conference’, TNA: FO. 1110/2115).

14. A Staff Study, Chapter 9: ‘Why Havana?’.

15. A Staff Study, Chapter 9: ‘Why Havana?’, Chapter 5, ‘Resolutions Adopted by the Conference’.

16. A Staff Study, Chapter 9: ‘Why Havana?’, Chapter 7, ‘The Basic Goal – More Vietnams on a Tricontinental Scale’.

17. Idem.

18. Idem.

19. Idem.

20. Osvaldo Dorticós served as president of the Republic of Cuba between 1959 and 1976.

21. A Staff Study, Chapter 7.

22. Ernesto Guevara, ‘Mensaje a la Tricontinental: crear dos, tres … muchos Viet-Nam, es la consigna’, first published in Tricontinental, special supplement, 16 April 1967, text reproduced by the Proyecto Filosofía en Español, available at: http://www.filosofia.org/hem/dep/cri/ri12094.htm, accessed 5 February 2007.

23. A Staff Study, Chapter 3.

24. ‘The Tricontinental Conference’, TNA: FO. 1110/2115, 7.

25. Guevara, ‘Mensaje a la Tricontinental’.

26. A Staff Study, Chapter 4, ‘The Agenda of the Conference’.

27. ‘The Tricontinental Conference’, TNA: FO. 1110/2115, 1–2.

28. Internal problems and the Arab-Israeli conflict that led to the six-day war in June 1967 prevented Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser from hosting the event. To a certain extent the cancellation of the Cairo conference brought to an end the idea of yearly meetings among the OSPAAAL countries.

29. A Staff Study, Chapter 3.

30. ‘The Tricontinental Conference’, TNA: FO. 1110/2115, 11.

31. Anon. to R. H. G. Edmonds, Esq., Havana, 2 February 1967. TNA: FO. 7/97.

32. Idem.

33. Idem.

34. Idem.

35. The USA, and the CIA in particular, had been practicing this type of contingency-plan since the deposition of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Two notorious casualties of this policy were Jacobo Goulart in Brazil in 1965 and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

36. Mobutu Seseseco (né Joseph Désiré Mobutu) was behind the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. In 1965 he came to power after staging another coup ousting the government of Moise Tchombe and Joseph Kasavuvu. He went on to rule the former Belgian Congo until 1997.

37. In October 2008, barely a few months before leaving office, the Bush administration ordered an air strike inside Syrian territory that resulted in the death of eight civilians in the town of Abu Kamal. See ‘Syria Complains to UN about US Strike’, CNN, 28 October 2008, available at http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/28/syria.us.strike/index.html, accessed 15 November 2008; and ‘Syrian Witness Reacts to US Raid’, BBC, 27 October 2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7693053.stm, accessed 15 November 2008.

38. Castro Ruz, speech given at the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference.

39. Idem.