Nigeria, May 10th, 2022.- The Cuban Embassy in Nigeria opens a condolences book for the death of the cabal diplomat and revolutionary, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada.
Numerous friends of Cuba have expressed their condolences to the Cuban government and families for such an irreparable loss.
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada was born in Havana on May 21, 1937, and was linked to the revolutionary struggle from an early age. He entered the University of Havana in 1954, joining the revolutionary activities with Fructuoso Rodríguez and the candidacy of the University Student Federation (FEU), headed by José Antonio Echeverría.
During those years, he participated in most of the protest acts carried out by said organization. He was a collaborator of the Revolutionary Directorate Movement and joined the M-26-7 in 1955, where he is an organizer of the student apparatus of the youth brigades of this revolutionary movement.
Among other activities, in the student and youth sphere, he was elected Vice President of the FEU in 1959 and President of this organization from 1961 to 1962.
After graduating in 1962, at the request of Foreign Minister Raúl Roa, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as Director of Latin America.
In 1965, Raúl Roa appointed him as head of the Cuban Mission to the United Nations, first as Acting Ambassador, and then as Permanent Representative, a position he held from 1966 to 1978. At this stage, he formally and conceptually introduced the issue of Puerto Rico's independence at the UN, chaired numerous meetings of the Non-Aligned Movement and was simultaneously Ambassador to several Caribbean countries.
From 1978 to 1988 he was appointed Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was promoted to First Deputy Minister in 1989, and in that position he served, again, between 1990 and 1992, as Ambassador to the UN, presiding over the Security Council twice (1990 and 1991), in the particularly difficult conditions created by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. He was the initiator of many of the ideas that today constitute the basis of the demands in favor of the reform of the UN Security Council.
Throughout this period, he was part of the Cuban delegation in the peace negotiations in southern Africa (1988-1990) and was the architect of the idea of presenting a draft Resolution on the blockade in the UN General Assembly (1991), whose first text he wrote personally.
From 1992 to 1993 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. Throughout his diplomatic life and later, he was the head of the Cuban delegations that participated in several negotiations with the United States, including those that led to the signing of the 1984, 1994 and 1995 migration agreements.
He amassed a brilliant record of service to the Revolution. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Party and a member of its Political Bureau. In 1993 he was elected President of the National Assembly of People's Power, a position he held for 20 years, until 2013.
He played a key role, under the personal guidance of the Commander in Chief, in the battles for the return of the boy Elian González and the release of the Five Heroes.
For his outstanding revolutionary trajectory, he received different decorations.
(Embassy of Cuba in Nigeria)