Press Statement of the Embassy of Cuba in South Africa:
Pretoria, May 21, 2019.- Cuba celebrates this May 25 the Day of Africa with our sisters and brothers of this beautiful continent.
Relations between Africa and Cuba are profound and historic. As a result of the cruel slave trade, almost one million 300 thousand Africans came to our island centuries ago. His presence marked forever the history of our nation.
Africa is part of the very essence of our nation. Cubans are a Latin-African people, and we feel extremely proud of our African roots.
Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, inspired by the maxim of our National Hero José Martí who said “All of Humanity is our Homeland”,our country became an active supporter of the wave of national liberation inAfrica.
The special bonds between Cuba and Africa were cemented in the battlefields on many countries in this continent, where hundreds of thousands of Cubans combatants joined their fate with that of African fightersin the just struggles against colonialism and foreign domination. Thousands of Cubans paid the supreme sacrifice fighting in this continent.
Cuba’s direct contribution to African liberation struggles was a moral duty. We were simply repaying a historical debt owed to our ancestors. We were not looking for gold, diamonds or oil. Commander Fidel Castro said about the Cuban internationalist combatants in Africa:“From the African land in which they worked and fought voluntarily and selflessly, they only took back to Cuba the remains of their fallen comrades and the honor of having fulfilled their duty.”
The Cuban people, who then fulfilled their internationalist duty with arms in hand, today continues and will continue to develop their solidarity vocation, in the battles for health, education and development of the sister nations of Africa.
We deeply appreciate and will be forever thankful for the strong position of all African countries against the unilateral and illegal blockade imposed on our country for 60 years, the longest blockade ever recorded in history.
Despite all the scarcities and difficulties derived from the cruel blockade,
that today is even further strengthened by the current government of the United States, Cuba will continue selflessly sharing the little it has with other nations.
There is an African saying according to which: “The foot prints of the people that walked together can never be erased”. Cuba has been and will always be on the side of the just and noble causes of the African peoples.
Our bonds of friendship and solidarity are indestructible!Happy Africa Day!
Pretoria, May 2019