Fidel Castro: An Act of Solidarity in Angola
Exactly 65 years ago, 4 February 1961, was the beginning of the Angolan War of Independence, called the “Dia do Início da Luta Armada de Libertação Nacional” (Day of the Beginning of the National Liberation Armed Struggle), which is a National Day of Celebration in Angola.
It was a guerrilla war in which the Portuguese security forces waged a counter-insurgency campaign against armed guerrilla groups mostly dispersed across sparsely populated areas of a sizable Angolan countryside. The conflict was usually approached as a branch or a theatre of the wider Portuguese colonial war, which also included the national liberation wars for the independence of Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Below we publish extracts from a speech by Fidel Castro at the closing session of the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in Havana, Cuba, from 17 – 22 December 1975, regarding the support that the Cuban armed were providing to the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the People’s Liberation Armed Forces of Angola (FAPLA).
“While this Congress was being held, the President of the United States declared that, as a result of our aid to the sister people of Angola, any prospects or hopes or possibilities of improving relations between the United States and Cuba were – more or less – cancelled. It is odd that the President of the United States, Mr. Ford, should threaten us with tha
