He pointed out that to achieve a world in which peace and the peaceful solution of conflicts prevail, it is urgent to address the root causes that generate them. Recent announcements of military outlays are alarming. This will push the world to a new arms race in detriment of huge efforts to preserve peace, Diaz-Canel said.
There can be no development without peace and stability, and peace and stability without development, stated the Head of State, who also said that the only worthy tribute to Mandela’s memory is to promote the development of disadvantaged nations.
Actions more than words; cooperation, non-intervention; solidarity, not looting, demanded the Cuban President, who recalled the strong ties that unite his country with Africa.
Collaboration with the peoples of Africa has been maintained for more than 50 years as a priority of the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution, he expressed. We should not only think of Mandela as South Africa’s first black president or as the Nobel Prize winner, the Cuban statesman added.
Diaz-Canel called for thinking on Mandela as the rebel who was forced to fight against injustice when peaceful ways were shattered, on the political prisoner, on the defender of human rights and the rights of his people and on the man who changed history. During the dark years of apartheid, he was condemned for life because of his struggle for justice and equality, added the Cuban leader and acknowledged the struggle of the South African people against this regime of segregation.
We make Mandela’s words ours when he said: ‘We also want to be masters of our own destiny,’ the president added.
Diaz-Canel called to ‘truly, fully honor, the unforgettable Mandela’, whom the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, described as an Apostle of Peace.
The meeting in which the Cuban president had his first participation at the UN is dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Mandela, who had a close relationship with Cuba.
Just one year after his release from prison of the racist apartheid regime, the former South African president visited Cuba in July 1991 and was received by Fidel Castro.
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