Brothers in arms: For over 20 years, Cuba helped Africa’s freedom struggle

Fidel Castro says Cuba's contribution to the independence struggle in Africa has never been properly acknowledged.

Soon, Cuba will open its archives to researchers and historians working on the history of Africa.

Cuba sent over 350,000 soldiers, civilians and doctors in the 1970s and 1980s to support liberation struggles in Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, Guinea Bissau, Congo, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe.

With Cuban help, apartheid in South Africa was dismantled. In total, 2,077 Cubans died fighting for Africa.

And the story of valour spreads to Latin America and Asia.

In his memoirs, Castro recalls in detail the momentous events of his half a century rule.

In 1961, a Cuban ship took weapons to Algerians fighting for independence from France.

On its return to Cuba, it took back about 100 orphans and wounded civilians.

“No one knows the hundreds of thousands of Algerian lives lost. And, to date, the French have still not sent to Algeria the maps of the fields where millions of landmines were laid.”

In 1963, Cuban troops fought alongside Algerians against the invasion from Morocco, whose armed forces received logistical aid from the United States.

Cuba’s collaboration with the independence struggle in Angola and Guinea-Bissau began in 1965.

It prepared the fighting units and sent in instructors and material aid.

Guinea-Bissau was a Portuguese colony, and a fierce struggle for independence had been going on since 1956.

It was led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, under Amilcar Cabral. Finally, in September 1974, Guinea-Bissau gained independence.

About 600 Cubans, among them 70 doctors, had been with the guerrillas for 10 years.