Achieving unity and integration were essential in his strategic vision, and he gave continuity to the proposals of major pro-independence leaders like Simón Bolívar and José Martí, González pointed out.

The former lawmaker and president of the National Assembly (2007-2008) asserted that this Latin American and Caribbean thought had in Fidel a defender of the Panamanian cause for the decolonization of the national territory, its sovereignty over the Canal zone and the return of its areas to its true owners, a fight led by General Omar Torrijos (1929-1981).

When many thought that this unconditional support from Fidel and the people of Cuba to Panama’s cause would be with radical statements, he did the opposite, he called on Panama to take a restrained position and even recommended avoiding the armed struggle with the United States, he noted.

González recalled Fidel’s phrase on the occasion of Torrijos’s visit to Cuba in 1976, when he asserted that it is a kind of fight that is won not only with courage —courage is essential, irreplaceable— but also with intelligence, with talent.

For the politician, who was very close to the Torrijos leadership, Fidel was convinced that Panama needed an international policy to make allies worldwide, to seek support and solidarity from all countries.

In that regard, he noted that this support for the Panamanian cause by the Cuban people developed a special friendly and respectful bond between Fidel and Omar; Fidel’s special admiration for Omar, and a quick understanding of the struggle in which he was engaged.

In 1973, during the United Nations Security Council meeting in Panama, anti-colonialist phrases such as the one stated by Torrijos in allusion to the United States blockade against Cuba, “Every hour of isolation suffered by the brother people of Cuba constitutes sixty minutes of hemispheric shame,” draw a liberating thought and the determination to consolidate those relations, González stressed.

For the lawyer and PRD presidential candidate in the 2024 elections, these ties became stronger with the training of hundreds of Panamanians in higher education institutions in Havana, also in the field of culture and sports.

In the sphere of health care, the Panamanian politician referred to Operation Miracle for patients with visual disorders, and amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with the collaboration of Cuban doctors who are members of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade.

Fidel is the most iconic figure of the 20th century, said the Panamanian politician, who is an engineer by profession and son of Gerardo González, former executive secretary of the New Panama Movement, the predecessor of the PRD, founded by Torrijos in 1979.

In this regard, he said that he was impressed by the concept of Revolution conceived by Fidel, which will last forever when he assures, among other things, …”it is challenging powerful dominant forces in and beyond the social and national arena; (…) Revolution is unity; it is independence, it is struggling for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the foundation of our patriotism, our socialism, and our internationalism.”

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