Cuban Ambassador to Angola, Oscar Leon; Lieutenant General Manuel Paiva, representing General Jose Maria Marquez, chief of the Deputy General Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) for Patriotic Education; and Lieutenant General Mario Gustavo Da Silva, Deputy Commander for Patriotic Education, presided over the ceremony.

Colonel Enrique Kindelan, Cuba’s military attache to Angola, highlighted the links between the two countries and recalled the founding of the FAR on December 2, 1956, when a group of 82 revolutionaries arrived in the island nation that day to fight against the Fulgencio Batista tyranny (1952-1958), from which the Rebel Army led by Fidel Castro was forged.

“The FAR and the people had to face, in these 68 years, hard battles to defend citizens’ sovereignty and tranquility in the face of all kinds of aggressions by those who are not content to observe how Cuba has been and will continue to be a paradigm of struggle and resistance for the peoples and the poor of the world,” Kindelan underscored.

The Cuban military official added that for this reason, they have never hesitated to extend their hands to those who have asked for them, which has resulted in several examples of solidarity and internationalism, “with glorious pages such as those written in Angola.”

Kindelan highlighted the fact that the Cuanza Sur Hospital was named after Cuban internationalist Comandante Raul Diaz Argüelles, as a worthy tribute to more than 2,000 fighters from the Caribbean nation who died in Africa fighting colonialism, foreign domination, and Apartheid, especially those who died in Angola.

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