Fidel Castro Congratulates Nelson Mandela

Fidel Castro Congratulates Nelson Mandela Havana, Jul 19. – The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, congratulated Nelson Mandela on his 92nd birthday, thus joining the world acknowledgement to the tireless fighter against apartheid.

In a congratulatory message, posted on Cubadebate website, Fidel tells his "old and prestigious friend" that he's very pleased to "see him acknowledged by all the world political institutions as a symbol of freedom, justice and human dignity."

The Cuban icon refers that although he only served political prison for nearly two years, it was enough time to understand what it meant for Mandela to be 27 away from relatives and friends.

He adds that in the last years of the African hero's jail torment under the tyranny of apartheid, South Africa was turned, after the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola, into an instrument of war against the Angolan and Cuban international fighters who were advancing towards the occupied Namibia.

However, no one was unable to hide the feelings of solidarity that the people, under the guidance of Mandela, arouse among all honest persons.

Then as today, Fidel Catro underlines, the enemy was close to strike a nuclear blow against the troops that were advancing against the hateful system of apartheid.

"Today humanity is threatened by the highest risk ever in all the history of our species", the Cuban leader warns and calls on Mandela to exert all his huge moral force to keep South Africa away from the military bases of the United States and NATO.

Those supporters of apartheid cynically compete today to pose as friends, adding that the nations of Africa that survive the nuclear catastrophe will need more than ever the scientific knowledge and advances of the South African technology.

Fidel Castro concludes that humanity can still save itself from the demolishing blows of nuclear tragedy that is hovering over it and from the environmental impact that it is already feeling.(PL)