Speaking before the more than 230 delegates from more than 25 countries attending the Seventh African Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, which is being held here today, the Minister made a historical overview of Cuban collaboration with African nations in different spheres.
By citing Cuban deeds in favor of Africa, she exemplified the aid to Algeria against the Moroccan invasion, the struggle of Ernesto Che Guevara in the Congo, the Cuban presence in Guinea Bissau, in its liberation struggles, as well as in Angola (from 1975 to 1989).
She also recalled how since 1994 South Africa has always supported Cuba, denouncing the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States, which deprives the Cuban people of food and medicines and prevents the country from having access to foreign currency to acquire them, demanding its lifting.
South Africa, he pointed out, has consistently voted in favor of the annual UN resolution calling for the end of the blockade, as we also fight for the release of the Cuban Five (Cubans unjustly imprisoned in the United States for fighting terrorism from that country’s territory).
One of the Cuban Five, the president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples and Hero of the Republic of Cuba, Fernando González, said, ‘is in this room with us, right now’.
The fact of his presence, she stressed, is testimony of the value of international solidarity.
In his speech, Pandor defended the Cuban collaboration with the South African people, highlighting how for South Africa, Cuba remains a strategic partner in Latin America and in international organizations, ‘where we advance together the agenda of the global south’.
The link between our nations is a model of South-South cooperation in health, medical assistance, water resources, basic education, among other areas, she added.
In this context, the Nelson Mandela-Fidel Castro program (whom she described as the greatest revolutionary leader who ever lived), is the most outstanding example of cooperation.
Through him, hundreds of South African students go to Cuba every year to study medicine and then offer their services to the South African people.
In fact, she said, Cuba has more doctors working in the so-called third world than the G7 countries together.
In Cuba, she summarized, we can rely on for everything.
In her speech, the Chancellor highlighted how despite its help to the world, saving lives in numerous nations with its medical aid, for example, the Cuban people suffer the effects of the blockade.
Also during the first day of the event, Father Michael Lapsey, a prominent anti-apartheid fighter and honorary president of the South Africa-Cuba Friendship Society (Focus), recalled the founding of that association in Cape Town in 1992, before the first democratic elections in South Africa.
It was done, he said, to promote people-to-people contacts, as well as to condemn the U.S. blockade against the island.
After recalling passages of Cuban collaboration, he emphasized how no other country in the world represents the true sense of solidarity as Cuba does.
Lapsley also recalled Cuba’s help to the struggle of the South African people against apartheid, reflecting how those who in the past benefited from that regime of racial segregation are those who now oppose Cuban solidarity with South Africa.
The Father also strongly demanded the end of the US blockade against the island, the elimination of the US naval base on Cuban soil, Guantanamo, and at the same time demanded the removal of Cuba from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.
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