America’s reparation to Cuba and Africa

the United States, NATO and President Mobutu of Zaire (now D.R. Congo) to defeat troops of independent Angola, and create another Namibia under the boots of South Africa.  With the naval support of the Soviet Union, Cuba landed her troop in Angola. Castro recalls that Soviet aircraft flown in by Cuban pilots struck panic into […]

the United States, NATO and President Mobutu of Zaire (now D.R. Congo) to defeat troops of independent Angola, and create another Namibia under the boots of South Africa.  With the naval support of the Soviet Union, Cuba landed her troop in Angola. Castro recalls that Soviet aircraft flown in by Cuban pilots struck panic into South Africa’s advance troops as they set out to exterminate Namibian troops and refugees in a SWAPO camp in Southern Angola.
Castro boasts of the historic importance of defeating South Africa’s invading troops by a combination of SWAPO, ANC, Angolan and Cuban troops. It would open a tsunami which swept away European-settler power over Namibia and South Africa. Sam Nujoma would assume presidency before Nelson Mandela. For a small island country is far away bosom of the Caribbean Sea to humiliate a bulldog of NATO and bring sunshine of freedom to peoples oppressed for over three hundred years was a glorious landmark in human history. Haiti’s triumphant revolution of 1801 had not exported the power of its military punch.
Cuba had supported diplomatic and propaganda activities of the African National Congress, the South West African Peoples Organisation, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique and other nationalist wars for freedom. To underline his gratitude Nelson Mandela openly rebuked the American government for demanding that Fidel Castro should not be invited to his installation as president in 1994. The USA as Master Wizard had become the Master of Protocol.  Many did wonder what the ANC government of Jacob Zuma was up to when they trapped President Obama into a handshake with President Raul Castro at Mandela’s funeral. Michelle Obama’s earlier visit to Mandela had probably included seeds of the diplomatic flower President Obama and Castro threw at the world in mid-December, 2014: heralding resumption of diplomatic peace between their two countries.
Cuban’s support for liberation wars in Africa was part of an offensive against American power with the doctrine of promoting ‘’many Vietnams’’ around the globe so that America would be weakened by fighting wars on many fronts. Che Guevara joined a liberation war against American ally Mobutu in Congo; and was killed in Bolivia on another front. Cuba’s troops supported Soviet interests in Somalia and Ethiopia – depending on the swing of political interests – at the Horn of Africa and its strategic proximity to vast oil wells in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq and smaller states.
 American and other NATO diplomatic bullies blocked Cuba’s relations with Africa. Ambassador Alaba Ogunsawo suggests that Zambian leaders were silent but aware that South African troops were invading Angola. President Nyerere hid Che Guevara’s arrival with troops into Tanzania’s capital on the Indian Ocean coast; travelling over a vast landmass and crossing a huge Lake Tanganyika to enter eastern Congo without hostile intelligence operatives spotting him. Guevara arrived from Europe dressed like a capitalist business executive.
American hostility denied Africa many lessons from Cuba. In the education sector, Cuba was experimenting with schools which combined learning with farming for self-sufficiency in food for feeding pupils; selling farm products to the national economy and about power of youths that would not be passive behind school walls. Cuba also started teaching cooperative and selfless attitudes; getting teachers to give grades to written tests in classroom subjects, and also to behaviour of students working as cooperating groups. This combated traditional individualistic competitiveness. This was similar to Japanese emphasis on ‘’groupism’’ among factory workers.
The American embargo did arouse emphasis on creativity and innovation. They produced vaccines for export; race medical drugs from local herbs. They were able to trace the collapse of Mohammed Ali’s nerves to drinking large quantities of carrot juice made from carrots infected with DDT herbicide. Their scientists also diagnosed and cured skin-collapse in victims due to a chemical disorder. Despite official embargo, top American medical schools were allowed to take their students to study courses in Community Medicine, Hospital Administration and Herbal Medicine in Cuba. American governments can be deliciously hypocritical.
African countries also missed Cuba’s strategy of training huge numbers of medical doctors and nurses for export to poor countries. Doctors became vital diplomats. Jamaica received dark skinned medics to combat a racist legacy of blacks doing mainly menial jobs. In most of South America Cuban medics took medical care to slum areas and rural shacks – populations avoided by doctors looking for high incomes.
The American government owes Africa and Cuba reparations for cumulative damages inflicted by her brigandage. Africa must drink from Cuba’s scientific genius.