The Great Legacy of Cuban Revolutionary Harry "Pombo" Villegas

It was with great sadness that we learned about the physical transition this past weekend of Cuban revolutionary Harry "Pombo" Villegas.  Pombo was 79 years old and although he was certainly virtually unknown outside of anti-colonial, revolutionary socialist communities, his life has provided strong inspiration to millions of us for the last 60+ years.  

My own introduction to Pombo, which translates to "leaf" in Swahili, was after reading Ernesto "Che" Guevara's three diaries of his military activities during the Cuban revolution, the Congo, Central Africa, and in Bolivia.  Of course, Guevara was killed in Bolivia and was unable to complete that diary, but the Cuban government was fortunately able to exert enough pressure on the reactionary Bolivian government to get the contents of that diary (as well as eventually, Guevara's physical remains).

In each of those three diaries, Guevara talked about the hardships of organizing guerrilla fighter campaigns in each country.  The first diary on the Cuban revolutionary war was first published in 1963.  It was in Cuba in circa 1958, that 17 year old Pombo joined the Cuban revolutionary war effort in the Sierra Maestra mountains above the city of Santiago de Cuba.  In his Cuban revolutionary struggle diary, although admitting he was tough on the young Pombo at times, Guevara reaped significant praise on Pombo's courage, discipline, and dedication during the victorious battles that led to the Cuban revolutionary forces vanquishing the puppet Batista regime in 1959.  

Based on the international success of Guevara's Cuban Revolutionary War diary and especially "The Bolivian Diary," Guevara's diary of the military effort in the Congo was also published.  It was clear to me from Guevara's honest, yet exemplary assessment of Pombo's capabilities why Guevara made Pombo one of his first recruits for the mission in the Congo.  The Cubans knew that U.S. imperialism was steering the reactionary forces in the Congo.  They knew that imperialism was dropping anyone African from anywhere in the world into the Congo with instructions to pose as Congolese in order to portray opposition to the Lumumbist forces there.  In their decision to support the Congolese people, as the Cuban revolution's first internationalist effort of solidarity to Africa, Che assembled a team of 100 Cubans to travel with him to the Congo.  Obviously, in order to blend in, this team needed to consist of African Cubans.  Since it wasn't going to be possible for Guevara to be visible during this mission,  Pombo ended up playing a critical role.

Finally, the ill fated mission in Bolivia, which has been written about extensively in this blog, included Guevara's death.  Pombo obviously survived that mission being one of only three guerrillas to make it out of Bolivia and this was only able to happen with the support of then Chilean President Salvador Allende who personally escorted the three combatants from Bolivia to Chile to Cuba.  To further illustrate the dignity and morality of Pombo, after participating in military operations to advance humanity in three different countries, not one person could have blamed him had he decided then to retire from active military life.  Yet, to the character of this courageous man, he enthusiastically volunteered to participate in Cuba's humanitarian effort to support the people of Angola and Southern Africa who were in the fight of their life in the 1980s to stop racists and mercenaries from turning all of the Southern continent into a racist apartheid state.  Cuba contributed over 500,000 troops to Southern Africa in the 80s and 90s and their efforts ensured that Azania (South Africa) would eventually become independent, Namibia would become independent, the Portuguese would leave Angola, and Nelson Mandela would be released from prison.   Pombo carried out two tours of military duty in Southern Africa with the same pride, dignity, and courage that he displayed in the Cuban revolutionary war, the Congo, and Bolivia.  

By 1992, I had learned most of what I had studied about Pombo's contributions.  So, while spending a couple of days in Miami, Florida, U.S., preparing to leave for Cuba in July, 1994, myself and the delegates traveling with me, were all asked to write down who we wanted to meet in Cuba.  I assumed the exercise was simply that, but I wrote down four individuals; Fidel Castro, Aleida March Guevara (Che Guevara's widow), Assata Shakur, and Harry "Pombo" Villegas.  I had no pretensions that I would meet any of them, but within being in Cuba two days, I was honored to meet Sister Assata and comrade Pombo.  I've written a lot about my encounters in Cuba with Assata Shakur and there is even a video on youtube demonstrating my conversation with her about living in Cuba and socialist development there.  For now, I'll convey how emotional my meeting with Pombo was.  Here was this man who exhibited courage and commitment to standing toe to toe with imperialism and he lived to tell about it.  Here was someone who had placed their body on the line to defend Africa.  And, such a quiet and humble man he was.  He was much more interested in hearing about our low level activism in the U.S. then he was in talking about his outstanding contributions.  Since I had read as much as I did about him, he did respond to my efforts to learn more about being a guerrilla fighting in so many places.  Years later, when Pombo's own diary was published illustrating his time with Che, I felt privileged to have already heard directly from him the incredible stories about them having to constantly be on the run in Bolivia, drinking their own urine, due to lack of water.  I had already been fortunate enough to hear Pombo detail in person how he had to master as much Lingala and Swahili as he could in a very brief time to try and portray himself as Congolese while in Central Africa.  I remember thinking that these examples in Africa further affirmed the organic Pan-African nature of our existence as African people in this world today.  Colonialism has convinced so many of us that we are somehow not the same people when in reality, all it takes is a few words in the local language and we can fit in anywhere within the African world.  

When I returned to the U.S. from Cuba in August of 1994, I was focused on figuring out how I could educate as many people as possible about Assata Shakur and Pombo Villegas.  I'm humbled and proud to say I have played at least a minor role in literally thousands of people either learning about, or gaining a greater understanding of each of their contributions in the 25+ years since that visit.  I recall starting out that same month of August in 94.  I went on a retreat with 70 young African men from the inner city areas of Sacramento, California, U.S. to the mountain areas above the San Joaquin Valley.  I gave a workshop there in the country to about 45 of our youth.  Since most of them present were involved in street life, gang banging, etc., and I had more than my share of hardheaded behavior in my background, I wanted to develop an effective strategy to get them to listen to me.  I knew that due to sabotage from imperialism, most gang affiliated African youth wrongly believe that African revolutionaries desire them to put down their guns and develop some non-violent lifestyle.  The irony of that has always stayed with me.  Imperialism constantly paints us as violent crazed savages, but when it suits them to portray us as being scared of confrontation, they portray us that way to our youth.  In other words, imperialism never has any interest in depicting revolutionaries as we are; people who stand up against injustice regardless of the consequences.  

In my mind then and now, no one epitomizes those characteristics better than Pombo so I used that workshop occasion to tell those youth that if they needed to feel the need to portray themselves through a "strong" uncompromising image, they were wrong to think that the role models for that were Italian gangsters or even African gangsters.  Instead, I suggested to them that they consider adopting the courageous, thoughtful, humble, and uncompromising revolutionary legacy of someone like Harry "Pombo" Villegas.  I told them that he fought in four different countries for human rights and so he was the soldier that I gave tribute to.  I explained that he deserves respect because he made his selfless contributions without reward to himself and/or his family, but solely based on his revolutionary ideals and commitment to bettering humanity.  I made sure they understood the contradiction between the dignity Pombo represents compared to participants in the U.S. military who participate primarily because of the economic opportunities "serving" provides them while their military activities have absolutely nothing to do with bettering the world, but instead, they serve as shock troops for enforcing imperialism's domination of the entire planet.  Those youth that day ate up that presentation which further confirms the truth that there is nothing wrong with our youth.  They just want truth.  How can these societies tell our youth they are thugs and criminals while they are only at best (in an extremely small way) imitating the behavior of every capitalist/imperialist country on earth.  Those youth recognized that it is the U.S. military, that was then actively attempting to recruit many of them, who are the real criminals.  Many of them I stayed in contact with so I still feel comfort in those of them who informed me that what they heard that day encouraged them to rethink their plans to join the U.S. military.  What I really remember the most is how those youth told me they had never heard of anyone like Pombo before.  Someone who fought fire with fire for justice.  They weren't interested in hearing about us turning the other cheek to brutality and I understood that because I have never been interested in hearing that either.  As I did then, and as I do today, I credited the remarkable contributions of Pombo and I gave thanks to him and others for providing those examples to us.

So, today I'm partly sad at his physical passing, but I'm also relishing in the glory of his spirit and the major love and power his existence has poured into my life and I know, the lives of so many other people dedicated to making things better for future generations.  There is a saying within the African liberation movement.  Its that the only way we can honor those we claim we respect is by carrying on their work.  No one can fill Pombo's shoes, but we certainly commit to do our absolute best to try.