Fidel Columbus and His Crew

"Just like Christopher Columbus, I have discovered a continent in struggle."

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro may talk like an explorer, but he acts more like, well, a messianic leftist conquistador. Since he began a major airlift of troops to Angola three years ago, the bearded Communist dictator has expanded his country's military presence in Africa to ominous dimensions. Some 43,000 Cuban troops, roughly one-third of his country's regular armed forces, are now stationed on the continent. In addition to the army-size units in Angola (20,000 troops) and Ethiopia (17,000 troops), there are contingents in Mozambique, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya and Tanzania. A sprinkling of civilian technicians and medical specialists is also scattered in Algeria, Benin, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe.

Soviet military aid to Cuba--at least $9 billion since 1961--makes Castro's African adventurism possible and helps direct its course. Nonetheless, Castro has reasons of his own for the involvement. To achieve his goal of becoming a hero and leader of the Third World, Castro has returned to his unsuccessful romantic gambit of the '60s: exporting revolution. Says Foreign Affairs Expert Helmut Sonnenfeldt of Johns Hopkins University: "Castro has a sense of mission in Africa. Perhaps it's a sublimation of his inability to do anything in the Western Hemisphere."

Another critical factor is Castro's attitude toward the U.S.

He remains convinced that American policy is fundamentally hostile toward his government. In response, he seems to feel that stirring up trouble elsewhere will divert American attention and at the same time gain him political allies wherever Cuban troops achieve military success.

Castro seems to have little difficulty in making Cubans accept his African adventures. Among other things, the African policy provides a vent for the pent-up energies of young Cubans faced with a stagnating economy and limited employment prospects at home. On a recent visit to Havana, TIME Washington Correspondent Jerry Hannifin was told by a Cuban air force reservist: "I will be glad to help in Africa, to help our brothers finish off neocolonialism and racism." Others are less enthusiastic but too prudent to disagree. Said one university student: "I have friends who know that some Cubans have been killed over there. But I would be afraid not to go."

Cuban casualties in Africa are rarely mentioned in the heavily censored news reports published at home. An informed Western estimate, however, sets the number of Cuban dead and wounded hi Angola and Ethiopia at roughly 1,800. A few of the "walking wounded" have returned home, but the severely injured are generally treated and confined in East German and Soviet hospitals. The dead are buried on African soil.

The continuing attrition leads some Washington officials to hope that Castro's venture will eventually bog him down in a Viet Nam-style quagmire, despite his Soviet support. It is frequently pointed out that Cuba's manpower commitment in Africa is greater, in proportion to the country's 10 million population, than American involvement at the height of the Viet Nam War.

But the greatest hazard for Castro probably lies in Ethiopia, where Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam insists that the Cubans help him crush the secessionist Eritrean Liberation Front, which Castro formerly backed. Havana's reluctance to do so has already led to friction. In addition, Mengistu two weeks ago expelled Castro's ambassador from Addis Ababa after the Cubans tried to inject one of their own Ethiopian leftist favorites into the government.

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