Printed below is an excerpt from How Far We Slaves Have Come! by Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro. The Spanish edition of the book titled Qué legos hemos llegado los esclavos! is one of Pathfinder's Books of the Month for May. The book contains speeches presented by Nelson Mandela and Castro at a July 26, 1991, rally of tens of thousands in Matanzas, Cuba, marking the 38th anniversary of the opening of the Cuban Revolution. Copyright © 1991 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission.

BY FIDEL CASTRO  
In what way is apartheid different from the practice in effect for centuries of dragging tens of millions of Africans from their land and bringing them to this hemisphere to enslave them, to exploit them to the last drop of their sweat and blood? Who would know this better than the people of Matanzas, since here in this part of western Cuba there were perhaps more than 100,000 slaves. In the first half of the last century there were as many as 300,000 slaves in Cuba, and one of the provinces that had the most slaves was this one, which was also the scene of great uprisings. For this reason there is nothing so just nor so legitimate as the monument to the rebellious slave that has just been erected in this province. [Applause]

Apartheid is capitalism and imperialism in its fascist form and involves the idea of superior and inferior races.

But the Black people of South Africa not only have had to confront apartheid, they have also had to confront the most brutal inequality and political repression, and they have had to confront the cruelest economic exploitation. They have had to confront these three great tragedies. Because of this I believe there can be no greater cause in our era than the one headed by the ANC, Comrade Mandela, and the many other capable and brilliant leaders of that organization, several of whom we have had the privilege of meeting here in our country.

Today those in the West are trying to ingratiate themselves with Africa, trying to ingratiate themselves with those who hate apartheid. But the fact is that apartheid was created by the West, by the capitalist and imperialist West.

The real truth is that the West supported apartheid; they supplied it with technology, countless billions in investments, and vast quantities of arms; and they also gave it political support. No, imperialism did not break ties with apartheid, it did not blockade apartheid; imperialism maintained and continues to maintain excellent relations with apartheid. It was Cuba that had to be blockaded,1 Cuba, where the vestiges of apartheid--that is, racial discrimination--disappeared a long time ago. Cuba had to be blockaded as punishment for its revolution, as punishment for its social justice--but never apartheid. They took some half-hearted economic measures against apartheid, which did not have the least significance.

And now, as Mandela himself told me, they are asking why the ANC is a friend of Cuba, why it has relations with Cuba and--as Mandela told me here--why it has relations with the South African Communist Party, as if the specter of communism were still haunting the world. [Applause] They are asking why it has relations with this small country that was always so loyal to the cause of the South African people in their struggle against apartheid? This shows the logic of the reactionaries and the imperialists.

It would not be right for us to emphasize Cuba's modest contribution to the cause of those peoples, but on hearing Mandela's speech, comrades, I believe that he paid the greatest and most profound tribute that has ever been paid to our internationalist fighters. [Applause] I believe that his words will remain, as if they were written in gold letters, as an homage to our combatants. He was generous, very generous; he recalled the epic feat our people performed in Africa, where all the spirit of this revolution was manifested, all its heroism and steadfastness.

Fifteen years we spent in Angola! Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Cubans went there and thousands more went to other countries. That was the epoch in which imperialism would have given anything to see Cuba withdraw from Angola and end its solidarity with the peoples of Africa. But our firmness was greater than all the pressures and was greater than any benefit our country might have gained had we given in to imperialist demands--as if there could ever be any benefit in abandoning principles and betrayal.

We are proud of what we have done, and our troops came back from Angola victorious. But who has said this the way he has? Who has expressed it with such honesty, such eloquence? What we have not said, because basic modesty prevented us, he has expressed here with infinite generosity, recalling that our combatants made it possible for the sister Republic of Angola to maintain its integrity and achieve peace; that our combatants contributed to the existence of an independent Namibia. He added that our combatants contributed to the struggle of the South African people and of the ANC. He said that the battle of Cuito Cuanavale changed the balance of forces and opened up new possibilities.

We were not unaware of the importance of the effort we made there from 1975 up to the last great feat, which was accepting the challenge of Cuito Cuanavale. This was at a distance greater than that between Havana and Moscow, which one can travel in a thirteen-hour nonstop flight. To get from Havana to Luanda is about a fourteen- or fifteen-hour flight, and Cuito Cuanavale was over in the southeastern corner of Angola, more than 1,000 kilometers [620 miles] from Luanda. That was where our country had to accept the challenge.  
 
Revolution put everything at stake
As Mandela was telling you, in this action the revolution put everything at stake, it put its own existence at stake, it risked a huge battle against one of the strongest powers located in the area of the Third World, against one of the richest powers, with significant industrial and technological development, armed to the teeth, at such a great distance from our small country and with our own resources, our own arms. We even ran the risk of weakening our defenses, and we did so. We used our ships and ours alone, and we used our equipment to change the relationship of forces, which made success possible in that battle. I'm not aware of any other time when a war broke out at such a distance between so small a country and such a great power as that possessed by the South African racists.

We put everything at stake in that action, and it was not the first time. I believe we also put an awful lot at stake in 1975 when we sent our troops to fight the South African invasion of Angola.

I repeat: we were there for fifteen years. Perhaps it should not have taken so long, because the way we saw it, that problem had to be solved; simply put, South Africa had to be prevented from invading Angola. That was our strategic conception: if we wanted peace in Angola, if we wanted security in Angola, we had to prevent South Africa from invading Angola. And if we wanted to prevent the South Africans from invading, we had to assemble the forces and the weapons necessary to prevent them from doing so. We did not have all the equipment to do this, but that was our conception.

The truly critical situation occurred in Cuito Cuanavale, where there were no Cubans at the time because the closest Cuban unit was about two hundred kilometers to the west. This brought us to the decision to employ the troops and the weapons necessary--on our own initiative and at our own risk--and to send whatever was necessary, even if it meant taking it from here.

Cuito Cuanavale is the site that became historic, but the operations extended along a line hundreds of kilometers long, and out of these operations a movement of great strategic importance toward southwest Angola developed. All of this is symbolized by the name Cuito Cuanavale, which is where the crisis began; but about 40,000 Cuban and Angolan soldiers with more than 500 tanks, hundreds of artillery pieces, and about 1,000 antiaircraft weapons--the great majority of these antiaircraft weapons of ours were transferred from here--advanced toward Namibia, supported by our air force and an airstrip constructed in a matter of weeks.  
 
 
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