Cuba's Foreign Policy in the Middle East by Damian J Fernandez & Damian J. Fernandez

Author:Damian J Fernandez & Damian J. Fernandez [Fernandez, Damian J & Fernandez, Damian J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Political Science, General, Latin America
ISBN: 9780813373799
Google: mWptAAAAMAAJ
Goodreads: 3330864
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1988-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

In addition, Syria and Cuba have coordinated their domestic political and socio-economic positions in the Non-Aligned Movement and other international forums.44

Military cooperation has been an important factor in Cuban-Syrian relations. Syria is the only country in the immediate region where Cuban troops nave been engaged in actual conflict. The troops were involved in rearguard action against the Israelis in the October 1973 War. During the war, Cubans also provided logistical support, training in the use of Soviet equipment and advice to the Syrians.45 Between 500 and 700 Cuban tank troops faced front-line action in 1973-1974.46 The Economist Foreign Report reported that:

The war of attrition began at 5 a.m. on 4 February 1974, when Cuban tank gunners opened up on Israeli positions. .. The hardest bouts of fighting between Israeli and Cubans took place in mid-February, throughout March, in mid-April and mid-May. Throughout the fighting, the Israelis pressed the Americans to make the Russians pull their Cuban legionaires out of Syria.47

The article adds that the Israelis noticed an improvement in the quality of the enemy's fighting. However, the Cubans suffered numerous casualties (180 dead, 250 wounded) and their forces had to be relieved by fresh Syrian units. Finally, the surviving Cuban soldiers were airlifted and withdrawn.

In September, Raul Castro paid a visit to the Cuban units in Syria, accompanied by a team of senior staff officers. The visit lasted a month and involved close supervision of training exercises and the troops' general level of combat-fitness. The end of the tour was celebrated with a festive parade attended by Syria's political and military leaders, during which President Assad and Raul Castroj?inned medal on outstanding officers and men of the Cuban force.48

In March 1975, most of the Cubans were allegedly flown out in secret to South Yemen and from there to Angola. In 1987, Cuba still maintains a military mission in Syria primarily to train Syrian forces.49

The participation of Cuban forces in the Syrian-Israeli war of 1973 reveals salient features of Cuban foreign policy. First, Fidel Castro demonstrated his willingness to commit troops abroad in explosive areas of the world in spite of the risks involved, as long as potential benefits lured him Second, Syria can be seen as testing grounds for Cuban military internationalism in Angola and Ethiopia. In this light, military involvement in Africa was roots in Cuba's prior conduct. Although the magnitude of the African campaigns were unprecedented. Third, and finally, the spectre of Cuban troop involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts is not as unrealistic as it may seem at first glance.

After 1975, the reduction in Cuban military personnel was compensated by a corresponding increase in Cuban-Syrian economic and cultural cooperation. In the early 1970s Cuban health professionals and medical brigades began to arrive in Syria. Since then, several accords in the economic, technical, cultural, health, and educational fields have been signed. Levi Farah, Minister of Construction Abroad, has visited Syria on several occasions as part of the network of state-to-state cooperation. In the cooperative agreements, Havana supplies the personnel for the projects and Damascus pays for the services they provide.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.