Today, Cuba honors the pivotal victories at Quinfangondo and Cabinda—key moments in its internationalist support for Angola during Operation Carlota, a mission launched to defend Angolan sovereignty.
On November 10, 1975, joint Cuban-Angolan forces achieved decisive wins in Quinfangondo, just north of Luanda, and in Cabinda, a geographically isolated Angolan province bordered by the Congo River and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
The first clash occurred on October 23, pitting the National Front for the Liberation of Angola and its allies against Cuban troops and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). In Cabinda, Cuban internationalist forces and the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola confronted the Zairian military.
These victories paved the way for Angola’s independence, officially declared on November 11, 1975, with MPLA leader António Agostinho Neto becoming the nation’s first president.
Responding to an MPLA request, Cuba dispatched a battalion of special forces from the Ministry of the Interior on November 5, initiating Operation Carlota. This intervention not only safeguarded Angola’s independence but also contributed to Namibia’s liberation in 1990 and the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.
Between 1975 and 1991, nearly 300,000 Cubans took part in this historic effort, with over 2,000 sacrificing their lives.
Fidel Castro, the architect of the mission, described it as “an extraordinary feat by our people, especially the youth,” and “a rare chapter in the history of altruism and international solidarity.”
The operation was named after Carlota, an enslaved woman who led a machete-wielding uprising at the Triunvirato sugar plantation in Matanzas on November 5, 1843, during Spanish colonial rule.
