fostered by the policies, institutions, and priorities that had begun to be systematically implemented in Cuba in the early 1970s, largely copied from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. When the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1986 launched what is known as the rectification process, aimed at combating the social and political roots of this decade-long depoliticisation, a major impetus to this effort was the determination to bring the political spirit and confidence generated by the internationalist missions in Angola into the daily battle to advance the revolution at home.
In the final portion of the Matanzas speech, Castro takes up the arguments of those who say that socialism was the loser in the Cold War and that capitalism has emerged the victor. He explains the realities of intensifying interimperialist competition today and catalogues the economic and social devastation capitalism is wreaking on the peoples of Latin America. Capitalism, he notes, is something the Cuban people know well, inside and out, from their own painful history. This historical experience underlies Cuba’s refusal to return to the slave barracks of capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination. Cuban revolutionists, Castro emphasises, are more convinced than ever that the future for humanity is not backward to “private enterprise and the free market”, but forward to a world freed of the poverty, racism, and exploitation generated by capitalism.
In closing his remarks to the Matanzas rally, Nelson Mandela told the thousands gathered there what it meant to him to be awarded the José Marti medal by Cuba’s Council of State. “It is a source of strength and hope”, he said, because “this award is given for the recognition that the people of South Africa stand on their feet and are fighting for their freedom”.
This, above all, is the thread that runs through these speeches: the determination of the peoples of South Africa and Cuba to fight for a new and better world. “No matter what the odds, no matter under what difficulties”, Mandela said at Matanzas, you have to struggle. “There can be no surrender! It is a case of freedom or death!”
12 September 1991
Key dates
1 January 1959 – The Cuban revolution triumphs over the US-backed dictatorship.
21 March 1960 – South African police open fire on a crowd of Black protesters at Sharpeville, killing sixty-nine. The apartheid regime subsequently proclaims a state of emergency and bans the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations.
5 August 1962 – Mandela is captured by South African police. He is convicted and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for incitement to strike and leaving the country without a passport.
11 June 1964 – Mandela, already serving a prison term, and seven ANC leaders are found guilty of sabotage in the Rivonia trial and are sentenced to life imprisonment.
1965 – Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara aids liberation forces in the Congo.
5 November 1975 – Cuba decides to send troops to Angola to combat a South African invasion endangering Angola’s upcoming independence. By late March 1976 the South African forces are driven back across Angola’s border with Namibia.
16 June 1976 – Police open fire on protesting South African schoolchildren in Soweto, sparking the first sustained nationwide protests since 1960.
November 1987 – South African troops encircle Angolan forces at Cuito Cuanavale, creating a critical situation for the Angolan government. Cuba decides to send thousands of reinforcements and sufficient military equipment to prevent a South African victory.
January-March 1988 – Cuban troops, together with Angolan and SWAPO troops, repulse five South African assaults and break the siege of Cuito Cuanavale. Immediately afterward, Cuban, Angolan, and SWAPO forces begin to drive the South African troops back towards Angola’s southern border.
13 July 1988 – Representatives of the United States, South Africa, Angola, and Cuba sign a fourteen-point statement setting a framework for South African withdrawal from Angola and Namibia’s independence from South African colonial rule. A final agreement is signed 22 December.
2 February 1990 – The South African government announces the unbanning of the ANC and other organisations.
11 February 1990 – Mandela is released from prison after twenty-seven and a half years.
21 March 1990 – Namibia celebrates its independence from South African rule.
25 May 1991 – The last Cuban troops leave Angola under an agreement between the Cuban and Angolan governments.
25-27 July 1991 – Mandela visits Cuba.
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