During their stay in South Africa, ICAP Vice President Victor Gaute and Africa Department Director Yahimi Rodriguez, met with representatives of the country’s major social stockholders, as well as leaders from youth organizations.

At those meetings, Gaute received explicit and emphatic expressions of solidarity for the Cuban people, a sign of the historic ties that unite the two countries, and strong support for a planned international Africa-Cuba solidarity conference to be held here.

During what could be described as a summit meeting of the visit, the ICAP representatives received support from the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the country’s leading trade union group (COSATU), which comprise South Africa’s ruling alliance.

At all those meetings, the ICAP vice president update participants about Cuba’s situation, marked by the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the tightening of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States, and the damage caused by hurricanes.

Particular damage is caused by Washington’s inclusion of Cuba in the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which hinders Cuba’s normal banking transactions with the rest of the world, Gaute noted.

Overcoming those challenges, he said, would only be achieved by working together as a people.

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