He described it as the most valuable revolutionary experience for the younger generation of Cubans who were not old enough to participate in the guerilla wars led by Commandante Fidel Castro Ruz during the 1950s. It also cemented Cuba’s long historical relations with Africa because that experience features prominently in modern Cuban music and art, the minister said. The minister is in Nigeria on a four-day visit.
Parilla, who spoke exclusively to Daily Trust, said: “The struggle against apartheid united us even more closely to Africa. To my generation of Cubans who were not old enough to be guerrillas in the revolutionary war, the African struggle was our cultural and revolutionary experience. 300,000 Cubans went to Africa voluntarily in a population under 10 million at the time. South Africa built a mausoleum in memory of those killed under the apartheid regime and they added more than 2,000 Cuban casualties in Angola. There is not one family in Cuba that did not live through that experience which is a source of great national pride.” Parilla himself served as a lieutenant in southern Angola during those wars, as did the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Hugo René Ramos Milanés.
The Cuban minister described relations between Nigeria and his country as “small due to geographical distances and also some economic problems that we face” but said there is a lot of room for their expansion.
He said: “Both countries have comparative advantages and we must make use of them. We have experience in terms of medical health, schools of medicine, manufacture of pharmaceutical products, including scientific research. We have been working on production of a vaccine against malaria. We faced financial restrictions in our attempts to make clinical trials in some African countries but we persist in our effort to make a vaccine against malaria. We do not have malaria in our region but this will be a major contribution to the African and Asian nations.”
He also said Cuba is working on the production of a cholera vaccine as well as therapeutic vaccines against cancer.
Parilla regretted that despite the handshake between Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro during Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the US still maintains a blockade and other hostile actions against his country. He said: “Obama’s becoming president of the US led to a rise in expectations not only In Cuba and the Caribbean but also in Latin America and Africa. There has been no change with respect to Cuba. The political embargo and blockade is vigorously enforced. The tightening of the blockade in the last five years is the main feature of the period. Fines worth millions have been applied against Asian and European banks.”
He said the handshake took place between Nelson Mandela was such a great symbol that his funeral brought to the two leaders together. He however said: “There has been an attempt [by the West] to portray Mandela as if he was not a revolutionary, as if Mandela had never been on the list of international terrorists issued by the US State Department. Do you know that Mandela was on that list until 2008? It is with the same lack of rationale that Cuba has been included in the list of states that sponsor terrorism. The main pretext for including Cuba in that list is the alleged relationship between Cuba and Colombia’s FARC guerrillas. To see how paradoxical that is, it is President Santos of Columbia that introduced Cuba’s issue to the Cartagena Summit of the Americas. The entire regional leaders urged the US to stop excluding Cuba from that regional forum and they also called for the lifting of the blockade. Cuba is one of the permanent venues and also one of the guarantors in the peace talks between the Colombian government and FARC”.
