Cuba - Unfairly caricatured and castigated by the west, but a truer friend of Africa

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Depending on whether you read history through a communist/ socialist or democratic lens from either side the cold war curtains, Cuba and its revolutionary leaders are either incorrigible villains or welcome pawns in diplomatic and non diplomatic offensives against sworn enemies of the other side of the curtain. The danger is that either extremist views of this latin American nation can suck out objectivity and blind reason during the historical writing of the Cuban story, caricaturing or deifying the imperfect country. Which country is perfect? None, even those who think they have earned a right to judge every other.

The fact that Cuba was the first non - African country which Nelson Mandela visited after his release from prison piqued my curiosity. As I searched and learned about Cuba it became clear to me that Cuba is the only country I know who had any interference or influence in the African continent and its liberation and liberation movements whether proactively or invited, which was unselfish in their mission to the countries on the continent, driven by only one thing, a compulsive desire to help. I am yet to find any evidence any where that Cuba helped in return for any of the treasures which virtually every country beyond the continent came for, oil, rubber,  cobalt, diamonds and countless treasures buried in the womb of mama Africa. When Mandela visited Cuba in 1991 he said: “We come here with a sense of the great debt that is owed the people of Cuba ... What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations to Africa?”. Many cold war battles were removed far from the land of those who fought them to battlefields on African soil, driven by greed and fought with total disregard for the owners of the land. Cuba was a breath of fresh air and a welcome exception.

Around the 60's shortly after the successful Cuban revolution under the leadership of the Castros and Che Guevara, revolutionary drums and bells echoed across the globe, with Cuba in many ways  helping nurse  the independence revolutionary calls and actions which swept across the continent of Africa. Given the way America views Cuba today and the way it has viewed it for years, it is interesting to come across this account of the journalist Jean Daniel Bensaid who hints that President JF Kennedy was supportive of the Fidel Castro led revolution: "In an article in the New Republic, Daniel claims that Kennedy asked him to pass on a message to Castro: "I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.”"

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdanielJ.htm . This is however would not be the first case where a supported ally became and vilified villain - Go figure.

Cuba was invaluably instrumental in the wars of independence and African revolutions of the sixties. Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Agosthino Neto, iconic African revolutionaries caught between capitalism and communism, sought or received the help of Cuban comrades with Che Guevara on the ground in the Congo fighting alongside Pro-Lumumbists in the jungles of the Congo. To secure the independence of Guinea Bissau Amilcar Cabral secured and leveraged technical and tactical strategic support of Cuba to topple the Portuguese colonial war machine.Cuba also played a critical role in securing the independence of Angola and eventually Namibia’s,  paving the way for the end of the obnoxious practice of Apartheid in South Africa. This is just to name a few. You can watch both parts 1 and 2 of  "Cuba - An African Odyssey" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE8EBb4CW8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZUptYb_BSE

Castro and over half a million Cubans took part in Africa's revolutionary wars which ended colonialism with no sight on or plundering of  African's wealth. Recently Cuba has sent hundreds of medical personnel including doctors and nurses to the battle against Ebola, fighting daily on the front lines to defeat this monster, again with no motive or hidden agenda related to Africa's wealth. Regardless of what anybody may say, Cuba has historically demonstrated time after time to be a truer and selfless friend of the continent of Africa. Even historians can only be entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.

Oslo © November 2014 afesehngwaHilary