General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy the media hides Cuba’s role in the end of apartheid
While Britain was supplying arms and military equipment to the apartheid regime, Cuba was sending its men to fight it, securing key military victories and crippling its room for manoeuvre.
For decades, Cuba supported the armed struggle liberation movements in South Africa, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique. In 1961, when Che Guevara attended a summit in Geneva as industry minister, he attacked "the inhuman and fascist policy of apartheid" and demanded the expulsion of South Africa from the UN, all decades before Britain could bring itself to challenge the racist government.
The climax of the decades-long campaign came when Cuba supported liberation forces in Angola against South African interference. In the 1988 battle of Cuito Cuanvale, a victory celebrated across southern Africa, South African soldiers were defeated a volunteer Cuban army , dragging PW Botha and FW de Klerk to the negotiating table.
Mandela described Cuba as "our friend", a country which "helped us train our people, who gave us resources that helped us so much in our struggle". He added: "The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today. What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa? For the Cuban people internationalism is not merely a word but something that we have seen practiced to the benefit of large sections of humankind."
When challenged on his friendship with Castro by Clinton, Mandela replied: "We should not abandon those who helped us in the darkest hour in the history of this country."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/comment/talking-politics/censored-why-media-hides-cuba-role-end-apartheid-102945153.html#3GZXU52
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)German SouthWest Africa or now modern Namibia.
After the Germans left the country was ruled by South Africa which continued German apartheid
.The Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_Genocide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_South-West_Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Namibia#The_struggle_for_independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cuito_Cuanavale
I don't think many americans know the history of africa.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)What we do know is the name of the German official in charge of Namibian government during this time. It was Heinrich Goering - the father of Hitler's most loyal Reichsmarshall.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138299/The-Holocaust-Horrifying-secrets-Germanys-earliest-genocide-inside-Africas-Forbidden-Zone.html#ixzz2n69ZKMTK
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook