The Founding Speaker and Chairman of Pan African Pyramid (PAP) Comrade Andrew Irumba Katusabe on Tuesday paid a courtesy visit to the Cuban Embassy in Kampala where he discussed a couple of Pan African matters with Ambassador Tania Perez Xingues.
H.E Tania is not only the Cuban Ambassador to Uganda but also Burundi and Tanzania.
The duo discussed a couple of matters including the relations of Cuba and Uganda and the great history of the most celebrated leader, the late El-Comandate Fidel Castro Ruz who was this year recognized at PAP Global Awards as the ‘most distinguished Pan Africanist of all times.’
The PAP speaker learnt that Castro and his cohorts, including Ernesto Che Guevara and his brother Raul, gave immense support during the liberation of the continent from the colonial masters.
”Castro and his cohorts were plotting to free Cuba from the right-wing dictator, Fulgencio Batista, the struggle beyond the Americas which was probably not Castro’s plan, but with the rise of the Black Power movements in the 1960s as well as the pan-African movements of the 1970s, Cuba gave quite some noticeable support for the liberation of Africa from the colonial masters and this is why we have never stopped celebrating El-Comandante Pan Africanism spirit.
PAP Speaker from the meeting with the Ambassador told this site that Fidel Castro joined two major battles on the African continent – in Angola and Ethiopia at the height of the Cold War he was convinced that the global stage for the world revolution was happening in Africa.
”Responding to calls for help from the Angolan Marxist guerrilla leader Agostinho Neto, who had seized Luanda during a bloody war from the Portuguese, Castro sent 1000s of troops to Angola to help Agostinho concur Luanda from Portuguese forces,” said Speaker Irumba adding; ”Cuba’s involvement in African battles however came at a heavy cost as more than 4,300 Cuban forces are believed to have been killed on the battlefront in African conflicts, half of them in Angola alone.”
According to Irumba, Castro’s love and support for Africa’s liberation led him to meet with some of the continent’s leaders at the time, including Patrice Lumumba of DR Congo, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Col.Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
He says Cuban soldiers are documented to have fought alongside Namibians and South Africans to prevent the apartheid regime from spreading all over southern Africa. Cuban troops have since the 1960s, served in Algeria, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone and Libya.
”The man behind the command and control of all the above time was none other than El-Comandante Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who believed that Africa needed to be free from the shackles of the bloody colonialists, who by the way are his immediate neighbours. Cuba is a Caribbean Island in North America, but its relations with Africa is that of brotherhood as opposed to that of America who acts like a cowboy all the time,” noted Comrade Irumba.
The Speaker concluded by thanking Ambassador Tania for the good cooperation with the pan-Africanists and pledged to continue working together to strengthen the pan-African agenda not only in Uganda but the entire world.
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