"In the Cuban Drumbeat your main message is that the Cuban foreign policy under Fidel Castro is unparalleled. Why is it so?
Well, because of its generosity. Because Cuba and Fidel Castro, for instance played a decisive role in changing the course of history in Southern Africa, in the struggle against apartheid. They saved Angola from the attack of apartheid South Africa, they helped the Namibian guerrillas, they helped the South Africans, asking for nothing in return. And when I say for nothing I really mean absolutely nothing. Not only this, but Cuba paid a high price to help the Africans, because that meant increasing the enmity of the United States. There had been secret negotiations to normalize relations between Cuba and the Ford administration. Obviously by sending troops to defend Angola from a South African aggression, that had actually been encouraged by the U.S., destroyed these negotiations. At the same time, Fidel Castro defied the Soviet Union, because USSR secretary-general Brezhnev was opposed to the dispatch of Cuban troops to Angola in 1975. He was obsessed by détente with the US far more than the Ford administration, and didn’t want to do anything that might affect it. On the other hand, the relations of the Soviet Union with the MPLA government in Angola were strained, they were not particularly good. And the same happened in 1987-88, when Fidel Castro sent important reinforcements to Southern Angola to chase the South Africans out of Angola once and for all and force them to agree to the independence of Namibia. But if I may add one thing, one focus is on the military contribution of Cuba, and it’s important, it was really decisive. But there is also another important component, which is the humanitarian assistance, that we can discuss later…" This is when Western governments and apartheid Israel were aligned with apartheid South Africa. (thanks Ricardo)
