Fidel & Nelson

[John Dolva]

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/

Message for Nelson Mandela

OLD and prestigious friend, how much it pleases me to see you transformed into and acknowledged by all the political institutions of the world as a symbol of freedom, justice and human dignity.

They turned you into a forced laborer in the quarry as they did with Martí when he was 17 years old.

I was a political prisoner for just two years but it was enough time to comprehend what 27 years means in the solitude of a prison, separated from family and friends.

clicking on this leads nowhere, so:

http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=au (cached)

Fidel Castro Sends Message to Nelson Mandela

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 19 (acn) Calling him “his old and prestigious friend”, Fidel Castro sent on Sunday a message to South African leader Nelson Mandela saying that he is happy to see him “acknowledged by all the world political institutions as a symbol of freedom, justice and human dignity”.

Cuban News Agency

Mandela, an anti-apartheid legend who spent 27 years in prison, turned 92 on Sunday as Cuba marked the internationally recognized Nelson Mandela Day on his birthday.

“I was a political prisoner myself for less than two years but it was enough to understand the meaning of 27 years in the isolation of a prison cell, away from family and friends,” Fidel wrote.

In his letter, the leader of the Cuban Revolution refers to the last years of Mandela’s imprisonment when the then-ruling Apartheid regime turned South Africa into an instrument of war against Cuban and Angolan internationalist fighters that were advancing toward the then occupied Namibia.

In reference to the danger of an imminent US invasion of Iran that could lead to a nuclear war, Fidel wrote that “today the humankind is threatened by the biggest risk in the history of our species.”

“You should exercise all your immense moral force to keep South Africa away from US and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) military bases,” Fidel wrote and added that “the African peoples that survive the upcoming catastrophe will need, more than ever, the South African scientific knowledge and its technological advances.”

“The humankind can still be preserved from the devastating consequences of the nuclear tragedy that approaches and of the climatic catastrophe that is already hitting us,” he concluded.