Nov 28, 2016 - President Fidel Castro made a huge positive contribution to social justice in the modern world by Damon Corrie

The focus of my article today is on Fidel Castro, a man whom EVERY BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN (and every human being who opposed the racist Apartheid tyranny in South Africa) HAVE TO THANK for ending the white racist rule of Apartheid .

No – Apartheid did NOT end because you and your friends prayed nightly, or marched in the streets of your own countries worldwide with placards aloft chanting outside of South Africa, nor did it end because of all your letter writing campaigns calling on your governments to impose economic boycotts on the Apartheid Regime …let us NOT deceive ourselves, whatever pacifist resistance you did to show your moral outrage at the Apartheid system was spiritually commendable….but physically INSIGNIFICANT….the USA and UK (and Israel and others) were happy to keep ignoring citizens like you – and keep supporting the Apartheid government and continue doing business with them (the USA and UK governments considered Nelson Mandela to be ”just another black terrorist” in South Africa – and don’t you forget it!)…ONLY Fidel Castro and Muamar Khadaffi (as Heads of State) supported Mandela AND the ANC ALL THROUGH THE BITTER YEARS OF REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE….and it was Fidel Castro HIMSELF who decided (without any Russian support or even knowledge or even approval) to declare war on South Africa and send tens of thousands of Cuba’s best battle-trained troops – 2 of my Cuban cousins among them – across the Atlantic (via a re-fuelling stop in Barbados that was permitted by our then Prime Barrow) to FIGHT the racist South Africa Army that had invaded the neighboring countries of Angola (and others) – using weapons supplied by the USA and UK to ”çrush black resistance and infiltration on their borders’….and it was brown and black CUBAN TROOPS who inflicted the worst military defeat on the white South African Army in Angola THAT CAUSED THE COLLAPSE OF THE APARTHEID REGIME!

So whether you or your family gained or lost under Castro’s rule of Cuba, or whether you ideologically support or oppose him..BE HONEST ENOUGH TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE – and praise this man for having the courage and dedication to actually DO what no-one else did – and history shall FOREVER consider him to be one of the great leaders of humanity for what he did to free black people in Southern Africa from racist oppression.

Fidel Castro ALSO supported MANY Amerindian Liberation groups in Latin America – sending them weapons and trainers, so they could DEFEND THEMSELVES in their own lands, and though he is dead now, a few old rebels remain in his government who are sympathetic to indigenous liberation movements, and for this reason also I consider Castro to have been a true friend to native peoples of the Americas – so he will always be a hero in my opinion for the GOOD THINGS he has done.

by Damon Gerard Corrie