This day. 45th anniversary of the Soweto uprising

Signal contribution of the courageous South African students | ISAAC SANEY

The famous Soweto uprising of youth and students which began on June 16, 1976, led to a renewed wave of resistance amongst black South Africans.

Originally published on June 16, 2016

On June 16th, 1976 in the African township of Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, apartheid South African police massacred 176 Black students, wounding more than 700. The Soweto uprising remains to this day the signal contribution of the infinitely courageous South African students’ movement for justice and social transformation everywhere.

This Day. A reflection on Amílcar Cabral, Portugal and NATO

Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973)

By TONY SEED

Originally published on January 20, 2019 on this blog and Stop Foreign Intervention in Africa , a website organized by activists opposed to foreign intervention in Africa on a military, economic, political and cultural level. 

On January 20, 1973, Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral, leader of the national liberation movement in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa, was assassinated, just months before Guinea Bissau won its long independence struggle against Portuguese colonialism.

Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, part of the ancient Mali Empire; parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century. Other parts of the territory in the current country were considered by the Portuguese as part of their empire. Portuguese Guinea was known as the Slave Coast, as it was a major area for the exportation of African slaves by Europeans to the western hemisphere.

Paying the debt to Africa: On the 45th anniversary of Cuba’s Operación Carlota

Cuban and Angolan soldiers at the front

By ISAAC SANEY*

First published November 5, 2015

“The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the peoples of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character…Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid.” –Nelson Mandela

Event. Africa’s Children Return! Fidel, Cuba and Africa

Tuesday, February 28 — 7:00 pm
BMO Community Room, Halifax Central Library
5440 Spring Garden Road
Facebook

When Africa called, Fidel and Cuba answered

Fidel and Cuba provided an example of the possibility of building relations based on genuine solidarity and social love. ISAAC SANEY*

“The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the peoples of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character … Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid.” – Nelson Mandela

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro instilled in the Cuban people the internationalist spirit Mandela spoke about. The country’s dedication to the liberation of Africa is unique in its scope and success.

Cuba treasures its history of solidarity with the African people

Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations

Marcus Garvey – ”None but ourselves can free our minds“

Cuba joins today the celebration of the 53rd anniversary of Africa Day, a date when we celebrate together the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which later became the African Union, and the 130th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Cuba.

The Cuban people are very proud of its African roots, which are present in our idiosyncrasy and our cultural manifestations. Cuban culture and nationality arose full of African heritage. Cuba has also contributed the sweat and blood of hundreds of thousands of its people to the emancipation of Africa, a continent all humanity will always be indebted to.

Cuba-Africa collaboration: A bridge between sister nations

Cuba’s legacy of collaboration in Africa is one of the finest examples of the island’s solidarity efforts | LAURA PRADA, Granma 

Cuban collaboration in Africa | Granma

Cuba is renowned for its worldwide collaboration efforts, due among other reasons, to the readiness of Cuban doctors to go wherever they are needed, including remote areas or in response to natural disasters or epidemics.

Cuba: There is a lot of gold stained with the blood of slaves

Source:  Cuba Ministry of Foreign Affairs
March 30 2016

Cuba highlights the importance of strengthening the activities of international organizations on issues related to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade

Legacies: Lives lived / past progressive – Cuba’s Jorge Risquet: the brother I never had

By PIERO GLEIJESES*

Jorge Risquet with Nelson Mandela.

Jorge Risquet was like the brother I never had . We had been working together since 1994. He had been selected by Fidel and Raúl Castro to oversee my access to the closed Cuban archives, and he headed the declassification commission that was created for my research on Cuban policy in Africa. 

This day. Carlota’s revolt in Matanzas, Cuba

Collage by Tony Seed, 2007

Carlota, a heroic woman captive of Lukumi African origin, took up the machete on November 5, 1843 to lead a slave rebellion against the Spanish colonists at the Triunvirato sugar mill in Matanzas Province, Cuba, in which she lost her life. In her honour, on 5 November 1975, Cuba named its campaign in Angola against apartheid South Africa “Operación Carlota,” which culminated in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the defeat of the South African army in pitch battle.

Africa’s Children Return! Cuba and African Liberation

Nelson Mandela makes his historic visit to Cuba in 1991, to pay his respects to President Fidel Castro and the Cuban people for taking up the fight to end the racist apartheid regime as their own and at great sacrifice.

November 13 & 14, 2015

United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto

Come and hear acclaimed AfroCuban scholar Nicolás Hernández Guillén discuss Cuba-Africa connections. As we journey through the United Nation International Decade for People of African Descent, the subject of the Africa’s Children Return! Cuba and African Liberation assumes great poignancy and relevance.

Cuba – ‘For Algeria any assistance it may need’

In the early hours of October 22, 1963, the Aracelio Iglesias merchant ship arrived in Oran, Algeria’s second city, in the northwest of the country, where a column disembarked before being transported by rail in 42 open cars and 12 carriages some 80km to the fort built by the French Foreign Legion in Bedeau, near the town of Ras el Ma.

Event. Cuba and African Liberation

Toronto, November 13 – 14
United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil St.
Friday, November 13 — 7:00 pm
Commemoration (with special Cuban guests) of Cuba’s decisive contribution
to the struggle against apartheid South Africa
Saturday, November 14 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Cuba’s role in southern African liberation and current solidarity with Africa
For information: isaney@hotmail.com or call Isaac Saney: 902-494-8810 or
adifferentbooklist@rogers.com or call Miguel San Vincente: 416-538-0889
Sponsors include Canadian Network On Cuba & A Different Booklist
On November 13 and 14, 2015, we will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Cuba’s crucial role in the southern African national and anti-colonial liberation struggles, as well as discuss and examine Cuba’s ongoing solidarity with Africa and Africans, and other peoples of the world.

Africa Called, Cuba Answered: Ebola, the Cuban Revolution and African Liberation

12 February at 7pm in UTC-04

Room 1016, Kenneth Rowe Building, Dalhousie University, 6100 University Avenue, Halifax

Public Lecture by Dr. Isaac Saney, Cuba specialist

Africa would be very different without the sacrifice of Cubans

Battle of Cuito Cuanavale: Angolan and Cuban soldiers at the front in the mid-1980 waging the anti-colonial war

By LINET PERERA NEGRIN

(Sept. 30) – For the President of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU– PF), Simon Khaya Moyo, his country and Cuba share a common history and experience in regards to their struggles for independence.

Kissinger and Ford considered attack on Cuba to defend apartheid South Africa

Cuba’s direct, critical and extensive role in the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa is little known in the West. November 5th marks the 39th anniversary of Cuba’s decision to deploy combat-troops, at the request of the Angolan government, to repulse a major South African invasion of October 1975. Now a new book confirms previously secret plans to defend racist and fascist South Africa by “clobbering” the island Republic of Cuba itself. “I think we are going to have to smash Castro,” Kissinger told President Ford. 

The first page of the memorandum of conversation of the historic July 9, 1975, U.S.-Cuba meeting at the Pierre Hotel (see Document 9). (Click to enlarge)

(Oct. 1) – U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered a series of secret contingency plans that included airstrikes and mining of Cuban harbors in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s decision to send Cuban forces into Angola in late 1975, according to declassified documents made public today for the first time. “If we decide to use military power it must succeed. There should be no halfway measures,” Kissinger instructed General George Brown of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a high-level meeting of national security officials on March 24, 1976, that included then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “I think we are going to have to smash Castro,” Kissinger told President Ford. “We probably can’t do it before the [1976 presidential] elections.”

“I agree,” the president responded.

Mandela is dead: Why hide the truth about apartheid?

A refelection by FIDEL CASTRO

Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro

(December 12, 2013) – Maybe the empire thought that we would not honor our word when, during days of uncertainty in the past century, we affirmed that even if the USSR were to disappear Cuba would continue struggling. World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 when Nazi-fascist troops invaded Poland and struck like a lightning over the heroic people of the USSR, who contributed 27 million lives to preserve mankind from that brutal massacre that ended the lives of 50 million persons.

Mandela: We admire the achievements of the Cuban Revolution

Speech by Nelson Mandela, Moncada Day Rally, Matanzas, Cuba, July 26, 1991

After 27 years of imprisonment by the racist/fascist apartheid system, Nelson Mandela chose Cuba as one of the first countries outside of Africa and the first Latin American country to visit. During that visit he delivered the following speech outlining Cuba’s decisive contribution to the South African liberation struggle.

Mandela is an unsurpassable example for Latin America and the Caribbean

• Speech given by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, at the funeral honours for the historic leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in Johannesburg, December 10, 2013, Year 55 of the Revolution

Mandela: Madiba is gone – The struggle continues

Nelson Mandela addresses a jubilant mass rally of 100,000 people in Soweto, February 13, 1990, two days after his release from 27 years of political imprisonment by the racist apartheid regime of South Africa, his freedom the result of sustained political action and armed struggle in South Africa.

By ISAAC SANEY

Historic march by 20,000 women in Pretoria against the racist pass laws, August 9, 1956, today commemorated as Women’s Day in South Africa. The women chanted the phrase “wathinth’ abafazi, wathinth’ imbokodo” which translates as “you strike a woman, you strike a rock.”

TML (Dec. 7) – ON THURSDAY EVENING DECEMBER 5, Nelson Mandela died at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. The life of the man known to the anti-apartheid movement as Madiba spanned almost the entire existence of the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC was founded under British colonial rule in January 1912 and it was within it that Madiba would play many leadership roles. The ANC provided the umbrella under which all those opposed to white minority rule, from revolutionary communists to trade union activists to dispossessed township youth, came together and worked out a program of struggle aimed at achieving black majority rule.

Symposium: Africa’s Unknown War – Apartheid Terror, Cuba and Southern African Liberation

This two-day event commemorates the 25^th anniversary of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a decisive moment in the struggle against apartheid. Featuring visiting scholars and activists from Cuba and elsewhere who participated in Cuba’s anti-apartheid action.

William Doo Auditorium, University of Toronto, 45 Wilcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario

Symposium Announcement – Africa’s Unknown War: Apartheid Terror, Cuba & Southern Africa Liberation

September 27 & 28, 2013,

University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada