For Bolshevism - February 2014 No2 (131)

NEW YEARS MESSAGE OF CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE AUCPB

Dear Comrades, friends, supporters and helpers in our common struggle against imperialism in our country and abroad!
The AUCPB Central Committee wishes all of you a happy New Year in 2014!
We wish all of you, dear friends, good health, happiness, implementation of our plans, as well as success in our hard intense struggle for socialism, for happy future generations to come, for a world without war, for the revival of our great socialist fatherland, for the revival of the USSR – a single multinational state,
where each other is brother and friend, where every citizen is the master of their fate, a worthy representative of the nation, its culture, their great united country where "no one is deprived at the table and everyone is deservedly awarded."
Let the New Year 2014 be a year of great positive change in the way to achieve the great goal of humanity - the abolition of slavery and the liberation of the individual from the power of money, on the road to freedom, happiness and friendship between the peoples of the whole earth!

CC AUCPB

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New Year Address Made by Kim Jong Un

Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) -- The dear respected Kim Jong Un made a New Year address on January 1, 2013. The following is its full text:
Dear comrades,
Officers and men of the heroic People's Army and all the beloved fellow countrymen,
Dear compatriots,
Having seen out the year 2013 characterized by the events that will go down in the history of the nation, we are seeing in the new year 2014 full of high hope and confidence in final victory.
Reflecting the unanimous reverence of all the service personnel and people for President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, the fathers of the nation and eternal Sun of Juche, I would like first to pay the highest tribute and New Year greetings to them.
I extend my warm greetings to the service personnel and people who are devotedly striving for the prosperity of the country, firmly united around the Workers' Party of Korea, and sincerely wish all the families across the country harmony and greater happiness.
My New Year greetings also go to our compatriots in the south and abroad who are ringing in the new year with yearning and expectations for the reunification and prosperity of the nation and the world's progressive peoples and our foreign friends who love justice and peace.
Last year was a historic year in which the great Generalissimos were upheld as the eternal leaders of our revolution and a firm guarantee was provided for brilliantly carrying forward the revolutionary cause of Juche to completion under the leadership of the Party.
The President and the General were great leaders whom our people acclaimed for the first time in their history spanning thousands of years; they are the eternal images of the great Paektusan nation and banners of all victories and glory. Last year we celebrated the centenary of the birth of the President as the greatest national holiday, reviewed the 100-year history of Juche Korea with pride and held up the General as the eternal leader of our Party and people, realizing the cause of immortalizing the leader. By doing so, we have been able to glorify the new century of the Juche era as the annals of victory and glory for the accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche under the unfurled banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
Although they saw in 2012 in tears of blood after the sudden demise of the General whom they had believed in as in heaven, our service personnel and people determinedly rose up following the Party with firm faith that the great General would always be with them and fully supported the leadership of the Party. With loyalty as pure as white gem, noble sense of moral obligation and all sincerity, they refurbished the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in the most sublime way as befits the supreme sanctuary of Juche and erected the statues of the Generalissimos on Mansu Hill and in several other places.
Placing deep trust in and faithfully supporting the Party, they established the ties of blood with it, their hearts pulsating in the same beats with it, and always shared sweets and bitters with it. Major political celebrations held amid the deep interest of the whole nation and the days of last year bore testimony to the single-hearted unity between the Party, the army and the people which was further consolidated to be unbreakable ties of blood.
Last year our service personnel and people achieved historic victories which would brilliantly shine in the history of the country by waging a general offensive to put the intentions and instructions of the General into practice.
Our reliable scientists and technicians successfully launched the artificial earth satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2, carrying out the instruction of the General with credit and fully demonstrating the high level of space science and technology and overall national power of Juche Korea. That we successfully manufactured and launched the scientific and technological satellite by entirely relying on our own efforts, technology and wisdom was an event of national jubilation that raised the dignity and honor of the Sun's nation onto the highest level and a great event which inspired all the service personnel and people with confidence in sure victory and courage and clearly showed that Korea does what it is determined to do.
Through the parade held in celebration of the centenary of the birth of the President, our revolutionary armed forces demonstrated the inexhaustible might of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu steadfast in ideology and faith and equipped with Korean-style modern military hardware capable of defeating any formidable enemy. And they reliably safeguarded the security of the country by resolutely smashing every war provocation and anti-DPRK smear campaign of the enemy. The officers and men of the People's Army and the People's Internal Security Forces made breakthroughs on all major fronts of building a thriving country with the mettle of "At a go" and did many good things for the happiness of the people, thereby living up to the expectations and trust of the Party and people.
Although the situation was acute and complicated and severe natural calamities hit the country in succession last year, our army and people made great strides in their efforts to build a thriving socialist country and improve the people's living standards by displaying an indomitable will and waging an unyielding struggle.
We put the Huichon Power Station and Tanchon Port into commission, built many Juche-oriented and modern factories and enterprises and reconstructed major production bases in key industrial sectors on the basis of advanced science and technology, thus further consolidating the material and technological foundations of our economy.
Thanks to the exalted patriotic zeal of the service personnel and people, monumental edifices including Changjon Street and Rungna People's Pleasure Park sprang up in Pyongyang and many cultural facilities for the promotion of the wellbeing of the people were built in different parts of the country, changing its looks.
Last year, the superior socialist education system was further consolidated through the adoption of the law on enforcing universal 12-year compulsory education; our sports people achieved laudable successes in international games, adding glory to the country; and our revolutionary artistes conducted artistic activities in a fresh and enterprising manner, imbuing society with an animating spirit and greatly encouraging the people in their struggle.
The brilliant successes we achieved in the revolutionary struggle and construction work last year were ascribable to the fact that the General had unfolded an ambitious blueprint and laid firm foundations for the building of a thriving country. Last year's significant successes were a valuable fruit born of the unshakeable determination and correct leadership of our Party to glorify Kim Il Sung's and Kim Jong Il's Korea all over the world by translating the far-reaching plan and instructions of the General into reality and the lofty sense of loyalty and patriotic devotion of our service personnel and people unfailingly faithful to the Party.
I extend my warm thanks to all the service personnel and people who adorned the first year of the new century of the Juche era with great victories in hearty response to the Party's militant call.
Comrades,
The new year 2013 is a year of great creations and changes in which a radical turnabout will be effected in the building of a thriving socialist country on the road of the onward march in the new century of Kim Il Sung's and Kim Jong Il's Korea.
All the people and service personnel should dynamically turn out in the grand onward march for building a thriving country full of pride of victors and confidence in a rosy future.
The road of Juche is the only path for our Party and people to invariably follow and great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the ever-victorious banner of our revolution. We should march forward along the road of independence, the road of Songun and the road of socialism to the end upholding the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. Our Party will triumphantly build a thriving socialist nation, the most powerful country, on this land in our own way, the way the General did, by relying on our people who are the best in the world.
This year we will be greeting the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, our glorious motherland, and the 60th anniversary of the victory in the great Fatherland Liberation War.
The dignified and glorious present of our people and the bright prosperous future of our country are ensured by the immortal nation-building exploits the Generalissimos performed while founding a genuine state of the people for the first time in the 5 000-year-long history of our nation and developing it into a powerful socialist country that is independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in national defence and by the great achievements the President made while leading the Fatherland Liberation War to brilliant victory on the strength of his outstanding strategy and tactics and wise leadership.
In this significant year we should add brilliance to the immortal achievements of the great Generalissimos and make persevering efforts to build a thriving socialist country and carry out the cause of reunifying the country.
The building of an economic giant is the most important task that comes to the fore in the present stage of building a thriving socialist country.
We should further consolidate the successes achieved so far in economic construction to raise the status of our country to that of an economic giant in the new century, thus realizing the wish of the great General who devoted all his life to making our people well off with nothing to envy in the world.
In the same manner as we demonstrated the dignity and might of Songun Korea through the manufacture and launch of the Juche-based application satellite, the entire Party, the whole country and all the people should wage an all-out struggle this year to effect a turnaround in building an economic giant and improving the people’s standard of living.
"Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space!" -- this is the fighting slogan our Party and people should uphold this year.
All sectors and all units of the national economy should launch a vigorous general offensive to boost production in hearty response to the Party's militant slogan.
All economic undertakings for this year should be geared to effecting a radical increase in production and stabilizing and improving the people's living standards by solidifying and making effective use of the already-built foundations of the independent national economy.
By adopting decisive steps to shore up the vanguard sectors of the national economy and the sectors of basic industries, we should develop coal-mining, electric-power and metallurgical industries and rail transport on a preferential basis and provide a firm springboard for the building of an economic giant. We should make innovations in coal-mining and metallurgical industries in particular so as to revitalize the overall economy of the country.
The success in economic construction should be manifested in the people's standard of living. We should direct great efforts to bolstering up the sectors and units that have a direct bearing on the people's livelihoods and increasing production there, so as to give them more benefits in living.
Agriculture and light industry remain the major fronts for economic construction this year, too. We should fulfil this year's plan for grain production without fail by concentrating nationwide efforts on farming and raising the efficiency of agricultural production by dint of scientific and intensive methods. We should take concrete measures for the supply of raw and other materials to light-industry factories and thus increase the output of quality consumer goods.
We should decisively bolster up livestock, fish and fruit farming to provide the people with a better, more bountiful diet. The soldiers of the People’s Army and the shock-brigade members who volunteered to work at the reclamation site of Sepho tableland in response to the Party's call should achieve miraculous successes and perform heroic feats in this year's campaign to open a bright prospect for carrying the Party's grand nature-remaking plan to completion at an earlier date.
We should wage a dynamic struggle to boost production at the modern factories and production bases that were built under the leadership of the General who, going on with his super-intense forced march, made painstaking efforts to improve the people's living standards. By doing so, we should ensure that his ennobling affection reaches the people as it is.
All sectors and all units of the national economy should push ahead with a socialist emulation drive to reenergize production and fulfil their quotas as fixed in the national economic plan for this year.
We should bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant on the strength of science and technology by fanning the flames of the industrial revolution in the new century.
The industrial revolution in the new century is, in essence, a scientific and technological revolution, and breaking through the cutting edge is a shortcut to the building of an economic giant. Like the satellite scientists who conquered outer space we should wage a dynamic campaign to push back the frontiers of science and technology so as to develop the country's overall science and technology to the world standards as soon as possible. All sectors of the national economy should direct primary efforts to the development of science and technology, bring science and technology into close combination with production in order to boost production by relying on domestic resources and technology, and introduce CNC technology in equipment and production lines and achieve their full automation in the long run.
We should improve economic guidance and management as demanded by the developing reality.
All sectors of the national economy should make scrupulous arrangements for economic planning and guidance to boost production by tapping every possible reserve and potentiality, and work out in a scientific way the immediate plans and long-term strategies for stage-by-stage development and push ahead with them in a persistent manner. We should hold fast to the socialist economic system of our own style, steadily improve and perfect the methods of economic management on the principle of encouraging the working masses to fulfil their responsibility and role befitting the masters of production, and generalize on an extensive scale the good experiences gained at several units.
We should continue to channel great efforts into consolidating our political and military might in every way.
The single-hearted unity of the army and people around the Party is our strongest weapon and a powerful propellant for the building of a thriving socialist country.
We should invariably carry forward the proud tradition of single-hearted unity, the tradition of adorning the red flag of the revolution only with victories on the strength of the harmonious whole wherein the Party believes in the people and the latter absolutely trust and follow the former.
All officials, Party members and other working people should become genuine comrades united with a single heart, who share ideology and purpose, weal and woe with our Party on the road of the Songun revolution, and make devoted efforts for the sake of their country and people. They should orient all undertakings towards defending and cementing the single-hearted unity, and strengthen the political and ideological position of our revolution as solid as a rock by grasping the people's sentiments and rallying broad sections of the people firmly behind the Party.
The military might of a country represents its national strength; only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country and defend the security and happiness of its people. We should put continued stress on increasing our military might under the great banner of Songun, reliably safeguard the security and sovereignty of the country and render services to assuring regional stability and global peace.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the advancing of the slogan "a-match-for-a-hundred" by the great Generalissimo Kim Il Sung. It is important to bring about a fundamental change in strengthening our revolutionary armed forces and perfecting their combat preparedness.
The People’s Army should set up a revolutionary command system and military climate, establish steel-strong military discipline and perfect its regularized features as befits an elite revolutionary force. It should make its training more intensive, as the anti-Japanese guerrillas did on Mt. Paektu, so as to prepare all its officers and men to be a-match-for-a-hundred combatants who have acquired capabilities for actual warfare, and maintain full combat readiness. If the aggressors dare launch a preemptive attack against our sacred country, the People's Army should mercilessly annihilate them and win victory in the war for the country's reunification.
Officers and men of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards should intensify combat and political training and maintain full combat readiness with a determination to safeguard their Party and leader, country and people, and defend their hometowns.
The sector of defence industry should develop in larger numbers sophisticated military hardware of our own style that can contribute to implementing the Party's military strategy, thereby fulfilling its mission as the arsenal of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu.
We should spur the building of a civilized socialist nation to usher in a new era of cultural efflorescence in the 21st century.
The thriving socialist country we are building is a civilized socialist one where all its people are possessed of profound cultural knowledge, sturdy physique and noble moral virtues, enjoying a socialist life to their heart's content under the most cultured conditions and environment, and a beautiful and sound lifestyle pervades the whole society.
All sectors in cultural construction should implement to the letter the ideas, lines and policies set forth by the General, and develop education, public health, literature and the arts, physical culture, public morals and all other branches as appropriate to an advanced civilized nation.
We should develop Pyongyang into a more majestic and picturesque city as befits the capital of Juche Korea, the centre of Songun culture, and turn all streets and villages, mountains and rivers in provinces, cities and counties into a socialist paradise. At the same time we should set up modern cultural and welfare facilities, parks and pleasure grounds in larger numbers, thus making our people enjoy a cultured life of a new era to their heart's content.
In order to effect a radical change in this year's campaign to build a thriving socialist country, officials should make a fundamental turnabout in their ideological viewpoint, work style and attitude.
Those who acquire the President's and the General's outlook on the people, make tireless efforts for their good, rid themselves of the old way of thinking and attitude and make ceaseless innovations in all work, and rouse the masses to make breakthroughs for the advance, can be rightly claimed to be genuine officials required by our Party at present. Officials should strive with devotion, upholding the slogan "Everything for the people and everything by relying on them!" They should work to the best of their abilities with a high sense of responsibility, eagerness and an enterprising approach to work, so that their loyalty and performance can be judged by the Party and the people.
Party organizations should further enhance their militant function and role.
As the political staff of the units concerned, they should firmly establish policy-oriented principles in implementing the Party's policies and conduct political and organizational work with scrupulous care. By doing so, they should ensure that a great upsurge is brought about in their respective sectors and units. Party organizations, out of maternal feeling, should embrace all the people, take warm care of them and lead them forward to ensure that they share the same destiny with the Party to the end and fulfil their tasks at their posts in a responsible manner.
We should conduct Party work in the same way as it was done on the battleline in the 1970s, and put a focus of the work on thoroughly applying Kim Jong Il's patriotism in all activities.
Kim Jong Il's patriotism is the eternal soul and breath of Kim Il Sung's nation, and a driving force for the building of a thriving country. Party organizations should ensure that all officials, Party members and other working people cherish Kim Jong Il's patriotism deep in their hearts and give full play to their patriotic enthusiasm and spirit of devoted service in the ongoing sacred struggle to achieve prosperity of their socialist country.
Working people's organizations should conduct effective education among their members to suit their specific features, thus inspiring them to an all-out offensive for this year. Youth league organizations should educate young people to dynamically advance straight forward along the road indicated by the Party and become youth heroes who glorify the present era of great upsurge with their creative activities and feats.
The reunification of the country is the greatest national task that brooks no further delay and was the lifelong desire and instructions of the great Generalissimos.
Deeply grieving over the national division, President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, the fathers of the nation and lodestars of national reunification, worked heart and soul throughout their life to hand down a reunified country to their fellow countrymen, laying firm foundations for the independent reunification, peace and prosperity of the nation.
We should staunchly safeguard and add brilliance to the undying exploits the great Generalissimos performed for the sacred cause of national reunification, and accomplish the historic cause of the country's reunification, a long-cherished desire of our nation, true to the lofty intention of the peerlessly great persons.
This year the entire Korean nation should turn out in a nationwide patriotic struggle for reunification in unity so as to usher in a new phase in the reunification movement.
An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south.
The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war. Anti-reunification forces of south Korea should abandon their hostile policy against their fellow countrymen, but take the road of national reconciliation, unity and reunification.
Respecting and thoroughly implementing the north-south joint declarations is a basic prerequisite to promoting the inter-Korean relations and hastening the country’s reunification.
All the compatriots in the north, south and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, great reunification programmes common to the nation in the new century and milestones for peace and prosperity.
The reunification issue should be solved by the concerted efforts of our nation in an independent manner.
The driving force of the reunification movement is the entire Korean nation, and nothing is impossible if it achieves firm unity. All the members of the Korean nation in the north, south and abroad should subordinate and orientate everything to the great national cause of reunifying the country from the standpoint of giving priority and attaching importance to the nation and achieving its unity. The entire nation should vehemently reject any moves for domination, intervention, aggression and war by outside forces, and never tolerate any acts hindering the country's reunification.
Whatever trials and difficulties lie in the way of national reunification, we will build a reunified thriving country without fail on this three-thousand-ri land by the concerted efforts of the whole nation.
In the present international arena, the moves of the imperialists to interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states and their acts of military aggression pose a serious threat to peace and security of mankind. The Asia-Pacific region, the Korean Peninsula in particular, has become the hottest spot in the world in which constant tension persists.
The aspiration and desire of mankind to lead an independent life free from all sorts of domination and subjugation is growing stronger, and no force can stem the trend of history towards independence and justice.
The present international situation demands that our Republic continue to advance along the road of independence under the unfurled banner of Songun.
By holding fast to the ideals of independence, peace and friendship, we will, in the future, too, strive to develop relations of friendship and cooperation with the countries that are friendly to our country out of their respect for its sovereignty, and safeguard regional peace and stability and make the whole world independent.
A brighter and broader vista is open for us in the new year, and only victory and glory are in store for our people on their onward march.
Let us vigorously strive to achieve the prosperity of our country, our motherland, firmly rallied behind the Party under the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.


Mandela and Fidel: What is
not being said
ATILIO BORÓN
THE death of Nelson Mandela has precipitated a torrent of interpretations on his life and work, all of which present him as a disciple of pacifism and a kind of Mother Teresa of South Africa. This is an essentially incorrect, and premeditated, image, promoted to obscure the fact that after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the African National Congress (ANC) adopted a strategy of armed struggle and sabotage of enterprises and important economic projects, but without endangering human life.
Mandela toured diverse African countries in search of economic and military aid to sustain this new tactic of struggle. He was detained in 1962 and, shortly afterward, sentenced to life imprisonment, 25 years of which he spent relegated to a maximum security prison, in a cell measuring 2x2 meters. Only as a result of formidable international pressure to attain his release, these conditions improved in the last two years of his detention.
Thus, Mandela was not a "worshipper of bourgeois legality," but an exceptional political leader whose strategy and tactics of struggle varied as the conditions under which his battles were waged changed. It is said that he was the man who ended the odious South African apartheid regime, which is a half truth.
The other half of the merit goes to Fidel and the Cuban Revolution, which by intervening in the civil war in Angola, sealed the fate of the racists, defeating the troops of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the South African army and two Angolan mercenary armies, organized and financed by the United States through the CIA. Thanks to Cuba’s heroic cooperation, which once again demonstrated the noble internationalism of the Cuban Revolution, Angolan independence was maintained, laying the bases for the subsequent emancipation of Namibia and delivering a coup de grace to South African apartheid.
For that reason, after learning about the crucial battle of Cuito Cuanavale, on March 23, 1988, Mandela wrote from prison that the outcome of what he called the African Stalingrad "was the turning point for the liberation of our continent—and of my people—from the scourge of apartheid." The defeat of the racists and their U.S. mentors was a mortal blow to the South African occupation of Namibia and precipitated the beginning of negotiations with the ANC which, shortly thereafter, would demolish the racist South African regime, the joint work of those two giant statesmen and revolutionaries.
Years later, in the 1995 Cuban-South Africa Solidarity Conference, Mandela affirmed, "The Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid…We vow never to forget this unparalleled example of selfless internationalism." This is a good reminder for those who yesterday and today talk of the Cuban "invasion" of Angola.
Cuba paid an enormous price for this noble act of international solidarity which, as Mandela noted, was the turning point of the struggle against racism in Africa. From 1975 to 1991, close to 450,000 Cuban men and women served in Angola, risking their lives. Over 2,600 died fighting to defeat the racist regime of Pretoria and its allies. The death of the extraordinary leader who was Nelson Mandela provides an excellent opportunity to honor their battle and, additionally, the internationalist heroism of Fidel and the Cuban Revolution.

Granma International

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NELSON MANDELA
Symbol of freedom and human dignity
• The Nobel Peace Prize laureate died December 5 in his Johannesburg residence, in the company of many family members, friends and South African government representatives
CLAUDIA FONSECA SOSA
IT is possible that no other political leader of our times has been so admired for his resistance and tenacity in the struggle for racial equality as South African Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday, December 5, at the age of 95.
His health gradually deteriorated throughout the year, the result of a lung infection contracted in prison.
Born July 18, 1918, his parents Henry Mandela and Nose Keni named him Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela; however, he was known by the English name Nelson, which his British teacher gave him, or as Madiba, as he was affectionately called by his compatriots.
He graduated as a lawyer in 1942 and shortly afterward moved from his native Umtata to Johannesburg, where he joined the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC), an organization promoting peaceful protest against the segregationist regime and the brutal exploitation meted out to Black South Africans in a society in which they were the majority.
In the following years he founded the ANC Youth League, which took on importance within the ANC with its Civil Disobedience Campaign and in the Congress of the People, where the Freedom Charter known as the declaration of principles in the anti-apartheid struggle was adopted.
During this period, Mandela and his friend Oliver Tambo also organized a lawyer’s office which offered low-cost advice to many Blacks who otherwise would have had no legal representation. For his revolutionary activities, following the non-violent methods of resistance inherited from the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Mandela and another 150 comrades were arrested on December 5, 1956, and sentenced to prison. Once released, Mandela opted for a change of strategy and headed the Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), which became the armed wing of the ANC.
In 1962, he was once again arrested with a number of his colleagues on charges of conspiracy to bring down the regime through violence.
In his defense plea before the Pretoria Supreme Court in 1964, known as the Rivonia Trial, Mandela denounced the illegitimate government which sentenced him to life imprisonment. He stated, "The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy (...) Legislation is designed to preserve such supremacy (...) Above all, we want equal political rights (…) I know this sounds revolutionary to whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy…"
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," he affirmed.
After spending 27 years incarcerated in the harshest conditions – 18 in solitary confinement on Robben Island, the damp conditions of which badly affected his health – the then President of South Africa Frederik De Klerk released Mandela. During the period through February 1990 many governments and ant-racist movements had been demanding the liberation of the South African leader, who had become a universal symbol of emancipation and human dignity.
In 1991 he visited Cuba and was presented with the José Martí Order granted by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba by the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro. On that occasion, Fidel emphasized his integrity and affirmed, "Mandela is one the most extraordinary symbols of this era."
Mandela took part in negotiations to establish a multiracial democracy in South Africa, a dream which became reality in 1994 with the first universal suffrage elections in the country, and was elected President of the Republic.
During his 1994-1999 government, he made every effort to achieve reconciliation among South Africans and contributed to the end of various conflicts on the African continent. He was named Father of the Nation and received countless international acknowledgements for his profoundly humanist thinking.
After retiring from politics, Mandela continued promoting social programs which contributed to consolidating racial peace in South Africa, a country which – according to current President Jacob Zuma – will be eternally grateful to him.

Granma international

CUBA STANDS FOR DIALOGUE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GOOD RELATIONS WITH THE U.S.

CUBA – for dialogue and improving relations with the United States ...

This was announced by the country's leader Raul Castro at the last meeting of the State Council on December 21.
"In recent years we have been able to consult on issues of mutual interest. We believe that it is possible to solve other questions, to establish civilized relations between the two countries, which is what our people want and the vast majority of U.S. citizens, as well as Cuban emigration. (Among Cuban U.S. intelligence services are the most consistent enemies of socialism. Among immigrants are selected members for carrying out terrorist attacks and sabotage against Cuba, while another part of Cuban exiles – are wealthy capitalists, businessmen linked to the Mafia – who finance terrorist activities against Cuba. It is clear who in these circumstances may want Cuban emigration - Ed.) .
We do not demand the United States change its political and social system, and can not agree to discuss changes in our system. If indeed there is an interest in developing bilateral relations, we must learn to respect our differences, and learn to live with them. Only in this way. Otherwise, we are ready to live another 55 years under the same conditions" - quoted the Cuban leader to RIA Novosti.
Attention to the Cuban- American relations was attracted by the handshake between Raul Castro and Barack Obama on December 10 during the farewell ceremony with Nelson Mandela.
Fidel Castro, in turn, commented on the historic handshake: "I congratulate Comrade Raul with a brilliant deed, especially with the firmness and dignity with which he in a kind but firm gesture greeted the head of U.S. government, telling him in English: "Mr. President, I am Castro."
A new article by the leader of the Cuban Revolution titled "Mandela died. Why hide the truth about apartheid?" was posted December 19 by the media on the Island of Freedom. The Russian media quoted only individual fragments.
"No event past or present, that I would remember or have heard about has so influenced the world public opinion as much as the death of Mandela, not because of his wealth, but for his human qualities, noble ideas and feelings" - Fidel Castro says.
Mandela was "... a solid man, a deep revolutionary and convinced socialist, who with great stoicism endured 27 years of solitary confinement. I never ceased to admire his honesty, humility and enormous merit, "- said Castro. The role of the Cuban delegation headed by Chairman of the State Council and the Council of Ministers Raul Castro, who took part in the funeral ceremony for " brother and friend " Nelson Mandela " will be unforgettable ."
"Why try to hide the fact that the apartheid regime which made Africa suffer so much and caused outrage among the vast majority of nations around the world, was the fruit of colonial Europe, and has been converted into a nuclear power by the U.S. and Israel which Cuba openly condemns?" - asks Castro.

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