Castro, Cuba, and Pan-African Commitments
by D. Musa Springer in Hood Communist
The first section of this essay looks at the military aid Castro’s Cuba provided to several African movements on the continent, in the Caribbean, and in Latin America. The second section focuses on the broader Cuban commitments to equipping the Global South with tools of development that often go overlooked, specifically medical diplomacy and mass education and literacy initiatives.
While this specific article does not go into it, an entire additional section could be written focusing specifically on the asylum Cuba gave to dozens of Black revolutionaries — from Assata Shakur and Robert F. Williams, to Walter Rodney and Puerto Rican revolutionary William Morales. Comrade Ahjamu Umi does a great job covering this in his article. Another section could highlight the multitude of ways that Castro specifically supported Africans in Cuba, from affirmative action reforms in healthcare, housing, labor, education, and political representation.
Military Aid As Material Commitment To Solidarity
Fidel Castro was a man ahead of his time, not only leading the Cuban Revolution and bringing about sweeping revolutionary changes across his island, but also playing a significant role in several African liberation movements. His contributions to these movements were multifaceted and demonstrated his commitment to improving the lives of Afrodescendent people and helping us achieve self-determination, a commitment which would evolve into a core principle of the Cuban Revolution itself.
Possibly most important is the military aid which Castro’s administration provided to various African countries during their struggles for independence. In 1975, he famously sent at least 35,000 Cuban troops to Angola to help the MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) in their fight against South African colonial forces attempting to maintain control over the country. The Cuban intervention was pivotal in preventing the Apartheid-backed and armed FNLA and UNITA foces from defeating the MPLA and seizing power, the prevention of South African annexation.
Castro also provided support to a number of other African countries, including Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, helping them fend off invasions or rebellions backed by Western colonial powers. In this regard Castro’s fiery words about African solidarity, Cuba being an ‘African island’, and an internationalist politic were not just rhetoric: they were mandates, commitments of the highest order. This includes the complicated, perhaps controversial, intervention in Ethiopia as well.
In Ethiopia, Castro provided military advisors and at least 11,000 Cuban troops to support the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam in repelling a US-backed Somali invasion of the Ogaden region in 1977. By the time of the conflict, Haile Selassie had already been deposed in a 1974 military coup, and it was the new Ethiopian government that received Cuban and Soviet backing. This intervention was a significant factor in Ethiopia’s ability to resist the invasion and maintain territorial integrity, while at the same time it divided many among the Pan-African left. The conflict emerged from longstanding border disputes over the Ogaden region. But the involvement of outside powers, with the Soviet Union and Cuba supporting Ethiopia while the U.S. backed Somalia, gave it broader implications for the shifting alignments of the Cold War and the emerging struggle for a multipolar world. Other socialist nations, including the DPRK and South Yemen, also contributed military and technical support to Ethiopia during the conflict.
In Guinea-Bissau, following the legendary 1966 Tricontinental Conference, Castro provided military support to the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) as they fought against Portuguese colonial forces in the 1960s and 1970s. This support included the deployment of Cuban military advisors and the provision of weapons and other military assistance. This also crucially included providing training from Cuban guerilla fighters to PAIGC combatants, which proved decisive in battle. The PAIGC ultimately gained independence from Portuguese colonizers in September 1974, and Castro’s support was a significant factor in their success.
In addition to his support for African liberation struggles on the continent, Fidel Castro also provided support to Africans in the Caribbean during their struggles for independence and liberation. One notable example of this support was in Grenada, where Castro provided military and logistical support to the socialist government of Maurice Bishop in the 1980s. This support was a key factor in the government’s ability to develop socialist social service institutions, including a robust healthcare system that alleviated longstanding class and gender-differences on the island, which is documented greatly in Dr. Patricia Rodney’s “The Carribean State: Healthcare and Women.”
Cuban support also helped Grenada resist a bloody US-led invasion of the tiny island nation in 1983, though the U.S. forces would ultimately succeed. Dozens of Cubans were viciously murdered by the U.S. during the invasion, including many Grenadans who the U.S. “suspected were Cuban.” In her essay “Grenada Revisited”, Grenadian-American writer Audre Lorde illustrates the immediate impact of this violent invasion of the island, stating:
“Unemployment in Grenada dropped 26 percent in four years. On October 25, 1983 American Corsair missiles and naval shells and mortars pounded into the hills behind Grenville, St. Georges, Gouyave. American marines tore through homes and hotels searching for “Cubans.” Now the Ministries are silent. The state farms are at a standstill. The cooperatives are suspended. The cannery plant in True Blue is a shambles, shelled to silence. On the day after the invasion, unemployment was back up to 35 percent. A cheap, acquiescent labor pool is the delight of supply side economics. One month later, the U.S. Agency for International Development visits Grenada. They report upon the role of the private sector in Grenada’s future, recommending the revision of tax codes to favor private enterprise (usually foreign), the development of a labor code that will ensure a compliant labor movement, and the selling off of public sector enterprises to private interests. How soon will it be Grenadian women who are going blind from assembling microcomputer chips at $.80 an hour for international industrial corporations? “I used to work at the radio station,” says a young woman on the beach, shrugging. “But that ended in the war.””
Castro’s support for Grenada was part of a wider effort to promote socialist revolution in the Caribbean and Latin America, especially among the masses of working class African and Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. He saw the struggles for independence and liberation in these regions as part of the global struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, and made a commitment to support the right of self-determination against the whims of imperialist capital.
In addition to his support for Grenada, Castro also provided military and logistical support to other Caribbean and Latin American countries during various liberation struggles. This included Nicaragua and Venezuela, where he supported socialist governments and movements that were staunchly opposed by the U.S. and other Western powers. Cuba supported the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in 1979, which resulted in the overthrow of the brutal U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship and the establishment of a socialist people’s-government led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez, took place in the 1990s through the early 2000s and also received support from Castro. This resulted in the establishment of Bolivarian socialism and the adoption of a number of progressive social and economic reforms, with Cuba specifically providing funding and technical assistance to help the Chávez government establish a network of community clinics and other healthcare facilities, similar to Cuba’s own successful neighborhood polyclinic system, as well as to support the development of the country’s education system.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1979, Castro stated:
“It was indispensable to stress that the colonialist and imperialist powers were continuing their aggressive policies for the purpose of perpetuating, recovering or expanding their domination and exploitation of African nations. The dramatic situation in Africa is none other than that. The non-aligned countries could not avoid condemning the attacks on Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, the threats against Lesotho, the attempts at permanent destabilization in that region, and the role of the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. […] To condemn South Africa without mentioning those who make its criminal policy possible would have been incomprehensible. From the sixth summit there emerged with more strength and urgency the need to end a situation which involves the rights of the people of Zimbabwe and Namibia to their independence and the unpostponable need for the black men and women of South Africa to achieve a status in which they are considered equal and respected human beings, as well as that the conditions of respect and peace for all countries of the region be insured.”
This quote is one of many that demonstrates Castro’s belief in the importance of fighting against colonialism, racism, and imperialism; immersed in supporting liberation struggles across the continent, he shook the UN with unshakeable ideological clarity and material solidarity. His support for the global African liberation movement was a crucial factor, during an extremely complex and contentious historical period, in the eventual independence of these countries and a testament to his commitment to the well-being of people of African descent around the world.
Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionary state’s military support for African liberation struggles on the continent, in the Caribbean, and across Latin America demonstrate his material commitment to the global anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism struggles, and that commitment in itself presented the contradictions of the West — with all their development, so-called power, and money — and the difference between their rhetoric and actions.
Beyond Military Aid: The Fundamental Tools for Development
Castro’s support for African liberation movements extended far beyond just military aid, leaving a lasting and expansive imprint on the cuban state to this day. He also recognized the importance of access to education and healthcare in the development of independent, self-determined African states. Cuba’s revolutionary support for African and Caribbean nations in the areas of education and healthcare are key parts of Cuba’s commitments, and to that end, Castro sent thousands of Cuban doctors, medical professionals, educators, education professionals, and social scientists to African countries to provide support in a multitude of ways.
He also funded scholarships for African students globally to study in Cuba free of charge, giving them the opportunity to receive a world-class education. By providing access to education and healthcare, he sought to give these countries the tools they needed to build strong, self-sufficient societies which could eventually break away from Western-dependence for self-development. A seemingly impossible, but not unimaginable, task.
One of the most significant ways in which Castro supported African and Caribbean nations in the area of education was through the provision of scholarships for students to study in Cuba for free, particularly in fields most relevant to development: medicine, engineering, and agriculture. Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine (Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina) has trained over 20,000 doctors from 120+ countries since 1999, prioritizing students from underdeveloped regions, including many from over 36 African nations.
The scholarship program was highly competitive and attracted top students from across the African and Caribbean diaspora, but was also designed to be inclusive, with a particular emphasis on providing opportunities to women, indigenous people, and Africans. This was designed to model Cuba’s domestic affirmative action policies, which attempted to reverse centuries of African slavery and colonialism by giving specific focus to specific groups in the education sector, such as Afro-Cubans.
In addition to helping Africans study in Cuba, the Cuban government also established programs to send Cuban educators and educational professionals to various countries to provide training and support to native workers. These programs focused on improving the quality of education in areas such as teacher training, curriculum development, and school infrastructure.
In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Guyanese historian Walter Rodney explains how education itself can act as a tool of colonial domination across Africa and its diaspora, stating that education can either be for the purpose of subjugation and underdevelopment or, conversely, progressive development. Castro’s orientation towards ‘education for development’ internationally is in part inspired by Cuba’s own revolutionary literacy campaigns, launched in 1960 immediately after the Cuban Revolution’s triumph in 1959. A key part of the Cuban Revolution’s efforts to promote education and improve the lives of the Cuban people, Castro sought to eliminate illiteracy in Cuba and provide universal access to education for all Cubans, ideals which had been long denied by former colonial regimes.
[Image: the famous photo by photographer Liborio Noval shows the final march closing out the highly successful Cuban literacy campaign in December 1961; the campaign was famously supported by thousands of teenage girls and women.]
To achieve this goal, the Cuban government mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers, including teachers, students, and medical professionals, to go out into previously excluded rural and majority African neighborhoods to teach literacy to those previously denied the opportunity to go to school. The campaigns were highly successful, and by the end of the 1960s, Cuba had achieved a literacy rate of nearly 100%. This made it the first country in Latin America to eliminate illiteracy and one of the first countries in the world to do so.
Medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, played a significant role in the revolutionary literacy campaigns in Cuba. In addition to teaching literacy, they also provided healthcare services to those living in rural and underserved areas where access to healthcare was very limited. The role of medical professionals in the literacy campaigns was part of a broader trend in the Cuban Revolution, which prioritized the integration of healthcare, social and natural sciences, and education as part of its efforts to improve the lives of the Cuban people. By bringing healthcare and education together, the Cuban government sought to create a more holistic approach to development that would address the needs of the population in a more comprehensive and integrated way. This approach was highly effective, and it helped to make the Cuban Revolution one of the most successful social and economic experiments of the 20th century.
Cuban psychiatrist Norma Guillard was a young nursing student when she volunteered in 1960 to join the literacy campaigns, and she has worked extensively to document the importance of these campaigns in all future public health endeavors on the island; the ideal of medicine being accompanied by social services and education is in fact the bedrock of Cuban public health. As she informs, a large percentage of those who received medicine and literacy training during these campaigns were Afrodescendant Cubans and, conversely, many of those who volunteered in the programs (who themselves received medical training to lead careers in medicine) were also Afrodescendant Cubans, both representing groups that had previously been disallowed from Cuban universities.
The revolutionary literacy campaigns were not just praised by underdeveloped countries around the world, but also inspired similar efforts in many newly liberated states. One country that was particularly inspired by Cuba’s literacy campaigns was Nicaragua, which launched its own literacy campaign in 1979 after the success of the Sandinista Revolution. The Nicaraguan literacy campaign, known as the “Battle of the Alphabet,” was led by a coalition of educators, students, and other volunteers, and was modeled on the Cuban literacy campaign, with the intention of collapsing lines between medicine and social services and social sciences. It was highly successful, and within a year, Nicaragua had achieved a literacy rate of more than 90%.
Ghana and Angola were also both deeply inspired by Cuba’s revolutionary literacy campaigns and sought to emulate their successes. In the case of Ghana, the government launched mass literacy campaign in the late 1960s, shortly after the success of the Cuban literacy campaigns, and then again in the 1980s. The Ghanaian campaigns were based on the flexible Cuban model developed by Cuban brigadista Leonela Relys, led by a coalitions of educators, students, and other volunteers. They were highly successful, and within a few years, Ghana had achieved a literacy rate of over 80%.
Angola’s post-independence education system was heavily influenced by its allies, particularly Cuba and the Soviet Union. Following independence, Angola re-founded its ‘University of Luanda’ as the Universidade de Angola, and while seeking to decolonize remnants of colonialism in their education system, invited hundreds of Cuban and Soviet teachers to Angola to teach; at the same time, thousands of Angolan students studied in Cuba and the Soviet Union. Ongoing external-backed insurgencies and internal issues disrupted the development of a complete, new education system in Angola and caused school enrollment to decline. In 2009 Angola’s Education Minister called for a ‘Cuban system of education’ in the nation, and formally invited dozens of Cuban educators to work with the African nation to re-develop its education system.
As Mark Abendroth details in his 2009 book ‘Rebel Literacy’, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) awarded a King Sejong Literacy Prize to Cuba’s Latin American and Caribbean Pedagogical Institute (IPLAC) for its innovative work in literacy campaigns of over 15 countries. Despite imperialist lies and distortions emanating from the U.S. and other Western capitalist forces, Cuba’s contributions to global education initiatives, started at the direction of Fidel Castro, represent a vital line of support for formerly colonized nations. Even the West’s own institutions like the United Nations have been forced to recognize this.
Despite prevailing myths and misreadings of history, Fidel Castro’s support for Africa did not end in the 1970s, and in fact continues to this day through Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades. These programs send Cuban doctors and medical professionals to countries across the African diaspora to provide healthcare services and improve public health systems.
Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades have their roots in the country’s support for the African liberation movement in the 1970s, especially its previously mentioned support of Angola against Portuguese and South African forces. In addition to military aid, Castro also recognized the importance of access to healthcare in the development of self-determined African states, and sent medical professionals to Angola, beginning what would eventually be established as programs to send thousands of Cuban doctors and other medical professionals to African countries, providing critical healthcare services and improving public health.
These early efforts to provide healthcare assistance to African countries were just the beginning of Cuba’s commitment to medical diplomacy. In the following decades, Cuba has continued to expand its medical aid programs, and the medical brigades became a key component of the island’s foreign policy and international relations. The early days of the medical brigades were characterized by a strong sense of international solidarity, and an anti-colonial commitment to improving the lives of people in need. Cuban medical professionals were motivated by a desire to make a difference and to help those in need, and they worked tirelessly to provide quality healthcare services to Africans and others. They faced many documented challenges, including limited resources, difficult living conditions, and separation from their families and home country; many locations were grappling with conflict, poverty, and other challenges of development, and Cuban doctors had to adapt to these conditions in order to provide the best care. Despite these challenges, the medical brigades worked tirelessly to help people in need and to improve the health of the communities they served.
Cuba’s medical diplomacy has been particularly effective in addressing health crises and disasters across the African continent in particular, such as the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. One of the most significant examples of Cuba’s medical diplomacy in action, the island’s response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa saw over 250 Cuban medical professionals sent to West Africa at the height of the crisis, effectively making it the largest medical mission in the country’s history. These professionals worked tirelessly to provide quality healthcare services and to help contain the spread of the virus, an act which public health professionals praise for halting what may have become a global health pandemic of similar proportions to 2020’s COVID-19 outbreak.
The Ebola response was just one example of Cuba’s commitment to global health and international solidarity. Over the past few decades, Cuba has also been a leader in sending medical professionals to countries affected by HIV/AIDS. Since the early 2000s, over 50,000 Cuban doctors have served in 66 countries, providing critical healthcare services and improving the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS.
Cuba’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been particularly notable due to the country’s own history with the disease. In the 1980s, Cuba was hit hard by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the Castro administration was forced to implement a number of innovative measures in order to curb the spread of the disease: widespread testing and counseling, the establishment of a national treatment program, the implementation of sex education programs in schools, and widespread education initiatives to deal with homophobic stigmas surrounding HIV/AIDS. As a result of these efforts, Cuba was able to effectively control the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide care and support to those affected by the disease.
This experience with HIV/AIDS made Cuba uniquely qualified to help other countries facing similar epidemics. In the early 2000s, Cuba began sending medical professionals to countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean to help address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These doctors were able to provide much-needed healthcare services, including testing, counseling, and treatment, and they also worked to build capacity in local healthcare systems. In addition to providing direct care, the Cuban doctors also worked to educate communities about HIV/AIDS prevention, helping to reduce the stigma surrounding the disease and encouraging people to get tested and seek treatment.
In addition to responding to emergencies, Cuba’s medical brigades also work to improve the overall health of African populations; they provide primary care in rural areas, as well as specialized care in fields such as ophthalmology and pediatrics. They also train local healthcare professionals, helping to build capacity in African countries to improve the overall health systems of the populations they serve.
Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades are a testament to the country’s commitment to global health and international solidarity. They have had a significant impact on the health of Afrodescendent people globally, and have helped to build strong relationships between Cuba and the countries it has assisted. Demonstrating the importance of international South-South cooperation, they are a transformative part of Cuba’s history and identity, a key component of Fidel Castro’s legacy, and a source of pride for the country and its people.
Socialist conceptions of material solidarity, in theory, are mutually beneficial where possible, and Cuban medical diplomacy in practice exudes this ideal: Cuba’s international medical diplomacy has brought numerous benefits to the country, both domestically and internationally. Cuba’s medical brigades have helped to improve the country’s reputation and standing on the global stage, directly combatting decades of imperialist propaganda and slander by the most powerful empire in human history, the U.S.. By providing medical assistance to countries in need, Cuba has demonstrated its commitment to global health and international solidarity, maintaining a positive reputation for the island internationally.
Cuba’s medical brigades have also brought economic benefits to the country, as the Cuban government has received payments for the services provided by its medical professionals, who are often sent by request of the needing country, which has helped to generate revenue for the country. In addition, the sale of Cuban-developed pharmaceuticals to other countries has also contributed to the country’s economy. In their socialist system, the majority of funding from medical diplomacy goes directly into the country’s own socialist healthcare system, which in turn is able to provide medicine to its citizens free of cost.
The medical brigades have had an obvious and significant humanitarian impact as well, improving the health and well-being of people in the countries where they have served, helping to improve healthcare systems and address health crises in these countries. Lastly, the medical brigades provide extensive opportunities for professional development for Cuban medical professionals themselves. By working in different countries and exposing themselves to different cultures and healthcare systems, Cuban doctors and other medical professionals have been able to expand their knowledge and skills, incorporate relevant advancements into their domestic practices, and improve the Cuban healthcare system to remain one of the best in the world, even despite a decades-long blockade harshly straining their economy. Therefore, Cuba’s African commitments through medical diplomacy have helped to improve the quality of healthcare in Cuba as well.
Castro’s material solidarity with African and African diaspora liberation movements remains one of the most concrete examples of internationalism in the 20th century. At a time when words of support were plentiful but boots on the ground were rare, Cuba put both resources and lives on the line for the cause of self-determination. And this commitment to self-determination, solidarity, and sovereignty has remained unwavering to this day.
Today as the United States tightens its blockade, imposes destabilizing oil embargoes, and works tirelessly and systematically to strangle the Cuban people into submission, we are called to remember what Cuba gave to Africans when it did not have to give. The same internationalist spirit that sent Cuban troops to Angola and doctors to the Congo, Jamaica, and Venezuela demands that we meet this moment with equal resolve. Solidarity is not a sentiment. It is a practice, and Cuba practiced it for decades at enormous cost. The least we can do is raise our voices, organize our communities, and struggle for an end to the blockade now.
The blockade is not policy. It is punishment for Cubans having the audacity of self-determination. Those who claim the legacy of anti-imperialism cannot be silent. Now is the time to stand with the people of Cuba as fiercely as possible.