Pretoria, April 18, 2024.- Diplomatic personnel from several nations celebrated the Victory of Bay of Pigs in 1961, when the people of Cuba defeated a US-organised mercenary invasion. In attendance were, among others, civilian and military representatives from South Africa, Russia, Vietnam, Nigeria, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
On the occasion, the First Colonel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and Cuban military attaché to Pretoria, Josué Ortega, recalled how from the beginning of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States began its aggression against the people of the island. To do so, he recalled, they used terrorist gangs, sabotage, acts of subversion against the economy and the population, actions that led to the invasion.
This was defeated by the armed people under the leadership of Fidel Castro, Ortega stressed, because at that time Cuba still lacked a regular army. In those circumstances, victory was achieved by the fighters of the Rebel Army and the newly created National Revolutionary Militias, fighting in many cases with weapons they did not yet know how to handle well.
The victory at Playa Girón demonstrated Fidel Castro's idea that when a people is determined to fight and is aware of its strengths, it is invincible. This teaching, repeated many times in contemporary history, the Cuban military attaché stressed, is what accompanies the peoples of the entire planet today in their battle for a better world.
It was also, he concluded, the idea raised by the South African people to defeat the apartheid regime, which led to this year's celebration of 30 years of freedom in South Africa.
(Cuban Embassy in South Africa-Prensa Latina)