Beirut, April 18, 2020. The historic brotherly relations between the peoples of Cuba and Lebanon are known to all. This time we want to share a passage from our history that proves it.
After Batista's coup d'état on March 10, 1952, Fidel was forced to leave his apartment in Vedado and take refuge with friends and acquaintances. One of the places where he lived was a house in Guanabo, owned by a member of the Cuban People's Party (Orthodox). Fidel was in a difficult economic situation and had loans in various establishments in the area.
Regarding the event in question, Fidel commented: But there in Guanabo something very curious happened to me, something that I do not forget. I had applied for a loan to an Arab owner of a shop that supplied me with some food supplies, and I had no money to pay him before I left there. I did not know what to do, I was ashamed not to be able to comply because he had trusted me. Finally I went to see him and said: “Look, I have to go, I'm going to move from here, I owe you so much and I don't have money to pay you now. I am very sorry". The man replied: “And do you need any money, do you need something else? Tell me what you need?". It was an incredible gesture. That Arab was the most noble merchant I have ever known.
Some time later when I got out of prison in May 1955, I thought: "I have to see someone, I have to say hello to someone and I have to thank someone," and I went there to Guanabo where the Arab merchant was, to greet him. and say: "Look, I still can't pay you, but I've come to thank you again." The gesture of this merchant was never forgotten by Fidel.
The merchant's name was Ángel Chaljup Barquet, they called him the Turk, but he was Lebanese by birth. The Commander-in-Chief visited the family again after the triumph of the Revolution, in February 1959. Ángel offered him Napoleon brandy from a bottle that he kept especially for him.
Ángel entrusted his wife before his death in 1963, to hand over to the State a guest house of his property right there in Guanabo *.
This Lebanese nobleman, who, because of those capricious coincidences in history, had the same name as Fidel's father, did not know that that sincere young man, and extremely sorry for not being able to pay off his debt, would become years later the man who forever changed the world. fate of an entire nation.
* (Taken from the book Fidel Castro Ruz, Guerrillero del Tiempo by the writer and journalist Katiuska Blanco)