Vol. 81/No. 28 July 31, 2017
Fernando González: "What I owe the people of Namibia and Angola"
The following are remarks by Fernando González, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Windhoek, Namibia, at a State House dinner on June 5 hosted by the country’s president, Hage Geingob. González is one of five Cuban revolutionaries who served some 15 years in U.S. federal prisons, framed up by Washington on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage. In appreciation for the unparalleled contribution of Cuban internationalists to the Namibian peoples’ independence struggle, President Geingob presented González with a painting of Fidel Castro, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, who died last November. It portrays him as the commander of the July 26 Movement and Rebel Army that brought down the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959.
No matter how long he had been in office he was always a guerrilla. And he will always be a guerrilla.
In 1987 I was 24 years old. I had just graduated from college after six years studying international relations and had read many books on colonialism. With that innocence one has just leaving university, I believed I knew it all, that I had all the knowledge I needed to have.
I was a young lieutenant in the Revolutionary Armed Forces and I came to Africa, to Angola. That’s when I realized that I didn’t know anything about colonialism. No matter how many books I had read, this was the real experience — seeing the effects of colonialism in Africa, but seeing also the peoples of the continent fighting the consequences of colonialism and fighting to overcome colonialism itself.
I learned from my comrades in arms. Young as I was, some were even younger than I was. I learned from the FAPLA [People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola] fighters, from their fighting capacity, from their sacrifices, and I learned also from the fighters of the PLAN [People’s Liberation Army of Namibia] — seasoned fighters of the FAPLA and PLAN. I will carry those lessons with me ’til the end of my life.
Later on, when I was in prison in the United States, those lessons helped me get through. They helped me to understand and withstand any difficulty.
I knew that nothing would be more difficult than the sacrifices made by the Cuban people during our struggle for independence and the revolution that triumphed in 1959. Nothing would be more difficult than the sacrifices made by the people of Africa, by the people of Angola and Namibia fighting colonialism.
I mention Angola and Namibia because they are the countries I am more familiar with, but I’m sure those lessons could have been learned many other places in Africa.
Throughout the years I was in prison, never was I a prouder Cuban than when I received a letter from one of our compatriots around the world who was working as a doctor, a teacher, a construction worker. Those letters reminded me of when I was in Angola for two years, and brought me back to the reasons that made it worth withstanding any situation in prison.
People ask us sometimes, any of the five of us, what enabled you to resist? Just to illustrate one example, I tell them about the day I was sitting on my bunk in prison for the four o’clock count. Throughout the prison system the four o’clock count is sacred. It takes place every day no matter what is happening. There could be an earthquake and there’s still going to be a count at four o’clock.
After the count clears, an officer delivers the mail.
One day I was sitting on my bunk with all the mail I had received, sorting it out to decide in what order I would read it. I saw a letter with an envelope that was different. And the stamp was one I had never seen before. So I set it apart and said to myself, “I’m going to start with this one.” I opened it up and it was a letter from a Cuban doctor writing from Nauru.
Here I was, a graduate in international relations, and I had to go look up where Nauru was — a small island in the Pacific, with 10,000 inhabitants. And Cuba had a medical team there!
For me, that is reason enough to resist. To withstand anything. A revolution that is able to do things like that is worth dying for.
The truth is that the history of that kind of solidarity by Cuba starts even before I was born. It began in Algeria in 1961, in the first years of the revolution. As Fidel said, apart from that concept of internationalism and solidarity, the Cuban Revolution cannot be understood. It’s who we are.
Solidarity is not giving what you have in abundance. It means sharing whatever you have, even though it might not be much. That’s the difference between charity and solidarity.
When I go back to the time I was in Angola and the lessons I learned, I realize how much we owe to Africa because as a species we came from this continent and then spread throughout the world.
But we Cubans might owe to Africa even more — we owe to Africa who we are, our own sense of nationality, our own identity. But on top of that, it’s what Africa has done, what Africans have taught us with their fighting spirit, their quest for independence, for sovereignty, all those lessons that I learned while I was in Angola. I owe all that to Africa.
I feel so close to these countries, to the people of Africa. All Cubans have this special feeling.
It’s a duty for us, and it’s a duty for me, now, as president of ICAP, to continue the work of those who came before me and keep strengthening the ties of solidarity between Africa and Cuba and our peoples. To continue supporting each other everywhere and every time it is possible, in all the causes that we face together, through all the challenges in this complex world in which we live.
I don’t want to extend myself. I want to thank Africa and Namibia and I want to thank the president and the authorities of this country for making this event possible.
Thank you very much.
Related articles:
‘Cuba’s role in the fight for African liberation is unforgettable’
5th Continental Conference in Africa organizes solidarity with the Cuban Revolution
Help build Che brigade to Cuba, Sochi Youth Festival
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