 Fidel Castro's military forays in Africa Havana (AFP) Nov 26, 2016 - Back in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War, the small Caribbean nation of Cuba went to war thousands of miles away in the battlefields of Angola and Ethiopia, leaving thousands dead. Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who died late Friday, was convinced that the global stage for the "world revolution" was happening in Africa -- and thus Cuba became the first Latin American nation to go to war outside its own continent. Angola and Ethiopia soon became symbols of the "regional conflicts" of the Cold War, in which Washington and Moscow battled for ideological supremacy and power through proxy wars. But Havana's involvement in the fighting fields far from home was to cost it dear. Some 4,300 Cubans died in African conflicts, half of them in Angola -- although experts say that number has been sharply underestimated. Cuban veterans have often complained of lack of care and benefits on returning home. In Angola, Castro responded to calls for help from the Marxist guerrilla leader Agostinho Neto, who had seized Luanda during a bloody war from its Portuguese colonial masters. Neto had no intention of sharing Angola's independence, with rival guerrilla leaders Holden Roberto, supported by Zaire -- now the Democratic Republic of Congo -- or Jonas Savimbi, backed by South Africa. Initially thousands of Cuban troops were deployed along 14,000 kilometers (8,600 miles) of coastline in Operation Carlota, named in honor of a black slave revolt in Cuba. Moscow also poured logistics and funding into Angola in a war that turned into a hard slog for Cubans, as the heroes of the island's guerrilla-led revolution had to quickly adapt and learn counter-insurgency tactics. In March 1988, the South African army retreated in the face of the Cubans at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, a setback that sounded the death knell for the apartheid regime and led to the independence of Namibia. The Angola campaign lasted until 1991, when the last of some 400,000 Cuban soldiers sent to fight "imperialism" in an "international mission" finally returned home. In February 1977, General Arnaldo Ochoa was also sent to Ethiopia to support the leader of the Communist military junta, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, against the Ethiopians' former Somali allies, who were forced to surrender the Ogaden plateau to 17,000 Cuban soldiers. Cuban troops were also stationed in Mozambique after its independence. Since the 1960s Cuban troops have served in Algeria, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone and Libya.
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Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, which preceded the bearded rebels Fidel Castro led to power in 1959, have become economic and political pillars that will remain crucial for the government following the ex-leader's death.
During the golden age of Soviet support, the Cuban military was one of the world's most capable: with nearly 300,000 men, it projected Cuban power into Africa, notably Angola where it contended successfully with the formidable South African army.
The implosion of the Soviet bloc at the end of the 1980s and the 1989 execution of Cuba's most celebrated military commander, Arnaldo Ochoa, allegedly for drug trafficking, saw the army prove its resilience.
Led from 1959 to 2008 by Fidel Castro's brother Raul, the FAR retreated from the battlefield and assumed a purely defensive posture, while quietly moving first into the island's political and then economic spheres.
With active duty troops in the tens of thousands, the FAR can also count on a million-member "territorial militia" and 3.5 million members enrolled in the country's "production and defense brigades."
All are organized under a defensive doctrine of "total popular war," which would involve mobilizing the entire country in the event of a US invasion.
- Repairing weapons -
Equipped by the Soviet Union until 1989, the army, navy and air force today make do with weapons considered obsolete but kept going through an extraordinary domestic training, repair and modernization effort.
Even as the military arm has weakened, the armed forces have gained political influence.
As the FAR's boss for nearly half a century, President Raul Castro relied on associates from the military to run the country since he replaced Fidel in July 2006 after the latter fell ill. Raul Castro officially assumed the presidency in February 2008.
Succeeding his brother in April 2011 at the head of the all-powerful Cuban Communist Party, Raul later named six generals to the 15-member Politburo, which also includes retired military officers and veterans of the guerrilla war.
But today, the army's weight is felt most heavily in the economic realm.
After becoming president, Raul named General Julio Casas Regueiro minister of defense, putting him in charge of all the army's commercial enterprises. He died in 2011.
- Economic force -
The army's arrival as a force in the Cuban economy dates to the early 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet bloc plunged Cuba into an unprecedented crisis and the army was used to bring discipline and effectiveness to the economy.
The military is active in many sectors: communications, transportation, industry, mines. Tens of thousands of young military recruits are employed in agriculture.
The sensitive tourism sector -- with its contacts with foreigners and direct access to foreign currency -- is one of the army's favorite domains.
Today the military manages the Cubanacan and Gaviota tourism conglomerates, which include an airline, hotels, restaurants, marinas, stores and car rental agencies.
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