Relevant events in recent days related to Cuba and Africa demonstrate the friendship and eternal solidarity that the leader of the Revolution of the Caribbean nation, Fidel Castro, founded with this region of the world, first colonized, then neo-colonized, and still today plundered by countries rich from the north.
A newly created blog defines very well with its title “An Island on a Continent”, the meaning that the largest of the Antilles has for all African peoples, always grateful and reciprocal for the selfless help they have received from Cubans, from its struggles for independence to the present with collaboration in different spheres such as health, education, sports and culture, among others.
Recent events confirm that everlasting friendship and solidarity that brings together the distant geographically, but very close to the Caribbean archipelago with this vast region, with which it also has blood ties of brotherhood that date back to the times of slavery.
Two African tours by senior Cuban leaders, the First Vice President, Salvador Valdés Mesa, and the Vice President, Inés María Chapman, illustrated again how unites the Caribbean nation with this continent.
Valdés Mesa visited Angola and Namibia to, among other activities, celebrate on March 23 another anniversary of Cuito Cuanavale’s victory in 1988, considered the mother race that opened the way to the true liberation of Southern Africa.
For his part, the course of Chapman included South Africa, Lesotho and Kenya, in which, as happened in Angola and Namibia to the First Vice President, was received by the highest authorities and historical leaders of those countries.
Likewise in South Africa, the Cuban dignitary participated in the Conference of Solidarity with Western Sahara organized by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was attended by presidents, chancellors and other regional leaders.
Precisely, last year the SADC declared on March 23 Independence Day of Southern Africa, in recognition of the triumph in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which put an end to the Apartheid regime in South Africa and led to the independence of Namibia, in addition to the Angolan peace process and in the subregion.
In their respective journeys, Valdés Mesa and Chapman received innumerable samples of thanks from their hosts for the constant support of Cuba and its collaborators, while listening to condemnations of the cruel blockade that the United States has imposed on the largest of the Antilles for six decades. , and that now Washington intends to intensify it.
Similar gestures of recognition were also heard these days in Gambia, the smallest country on this continent, where the National Assembly (parliament) adopted a motion that established the creation of a Friendship Group with its Cuban equivalent of Popular Power, which will contribute to the increase of bilateral relations, that the coming May 19 will fulfill 40 years of established.
While all this happened on this side of the Atlantic, on the other, in Havana, the 45th anniversary of the links between Cuba and Gabon was commemorated, and a group of expert doctors from the prestigious Henry Reeves Medical Brigade, with a field hospital included. , enlisted to provide assistance in Mozambique to populations damaged by the devastating cyclone Idai.
Surely I have left to mention other events staged in recent weeks that show that Cuba has been, is and will always be present with its unconditional solidarity in Africa, and of course it will be eternally an “Island on this Continent”.
(*) Ambassador of Cuba in the Gambia
Author: Rubén G. Abelenda
"An Island on a Continent" 