By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) and its allies, the South African Communist Party (SACP), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), as well as the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples and the Friends of Cuba Society, are hosting the 7th African Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba in Mpumalanga Province, at Ingonyama Sports Resorts in White River, from 15 to 17 January 2024.
South Africa hosted the first African Continental Solidarity Meeting with Cuba in 1995 and the other five meetings took place in Ghana in 1997, Angola in 2010, Ethiopia in 2012, Namibia in 2017 and Nigeria in 2019.
The ANC-led Alliance partners and Cuban solidarity civil society organisations stand united against the unjust United States economic, trade, investment and financial blockade of Cuba by the United States.
Cuba has been sanctioned by the US since 1962 and red-listed on the state’s list of nations supporting terrorism.
This imperialist blockade is inclusive of unilateral sanctions outside of and undermining the United Nations’ legal and multilateral frameworks. It is, altogether with the sanctions, illegal.
Speaking before more than 230 delegates from more than 25 countries, the vice president of the ANC, Paul Mashatile, highlighted how the meeting showed the commitment of African countries to the Cuban Revolution.
Mashatile condemned on behalf of the ANC, the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba, which he described as a true economic war, an obstacle that hinders the economic development of the island, among other consequences.
The US blockade on Cuba has far-reaching extra-territorial impacts, blocking other countries and their companies from building or enhancing trade and investment relations and engaging in financial transactions with Cuba.
The blockade deprived Cuba of acquiring technologies, equipment, components, containing over 10% of US value addition.
Consequently, he demanded its lifting by Washington, as well as the closure of the Guantánamo naval base (U.S. on Cuban soil).
The vice president also called on African countries to strengthen their respective economic ties with Cuba, as well as to invest in the island.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has also called on the US to lift the economic, trade, investment and financial sanctions against Cuba.
This follows days after the South African legal team lodged a genocide case against the Israeli government in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, the Netherlands.
The SA legal team presented its case before the ICJ against Israel, accusing it of committing what it described as genocide against Palestinians who live in Gaza.
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Video Courtesy of MY ANC.