CUBA AND AFRICAN LIBERATION- A Symposium Commemorating 50 Years of Operación Carlota

Saturday, November 22  

9:30am – 6:00pm  

William Doo Auditorium  

University of Toronto  

45 Willcocks Street, Toronto

For more information email: cubaafricanliberation@gmail.com

"The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice unparalleled for its principled and selfless character.” - Nelson Mandela –

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Operación Carlota , Cuba's internationalist mission in southern Africa, which was pivotal in securing Angola and Namibia’s independence and hastening the fall of apartheid South Africa. The 50th anniversary of Operación Carlota marks a milestone in the global struggle against colonialism, apartheid, and imperialism. The successful military defense of Angola by Cuban and Angolan forces hastened the independence of Namibia in 1990 and dealt a severe blow to the apartheid regime in South Africa, hastening its demise.

CUBA AND AFRICAN LIBERATION- A Symposium Commemorating 50 Years of Operación Carlota brings together scholars, veterans, activists, artists, and students to reflect on the historic significance and enduring relevance of Cuba’s solidarity with the African liberation struggle—particularly through Operación Carlota. The event explores themes of principled internationalism, anti-imperialist solidarity, and collective liberation. As contemporary forms of neocolonialism and imperialism continue to threaten African sovereignty, the legacy of Operación Carlota offers urgent lessons for today’s global struggles. 

The symposium is organized & sponsored by: Black & African Diaspora Studies-Dalhousie University; Centre for Caribbean Studies-University of Toronto; Canadian Network On Cuba; Global African Congress; National Network On Cuba (U.S).

Scheduled Panels include: 

*Southern Africa in the Crosshairs: Apartheid, Imperialism, and Liberation

*Cuban Medical Internationalism in Practice: The Battle for Humanity

*Africa, Cuba, and the Radical Imagination: Lessons for Today

*What Does Solidarity and Liberation Mean Today

On November 5, 1975, in response to a direct and urgent appeal from the newly independent government of Angola, Cuba launched Operación Carlota. This bold act of internationalist solidarity was in direct response to a military invasion by apartheid South Africa, which, backed by the United States and other Western powers, sought to crush Angola’s fledgling Black-led government and halt the broader tide of African liberation.Angola had only just emerged from a protracted and brutal anti-colonial war against Portuguese colonialism. Its independence, won through great sacrifice, was immediately threatened by a foreign-backed effort to impose a client regime and derail genuine sovereignty. 

In this context, Operación Carlota—named after Carlota Lucumí, an enslaved African woman who led a revolt in Cuba on November 5, 1843—was a decisive intervention. Cuban forces, in coordination with Angolan troops, halted the South African advance toward Luanda and drove the invading forces out of Angola. This victory marked a turning point in the African anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles. The defeat of the apartheid army on the battlefield shattered the myth of white invincibility and emboldened liberation movements across the continent.The significance of Cuba’s action was not lost on the African continent. The World, a Black South African newspaper, captured the moment:“Black Africa is riding the crest of a wave generated by the Cuban success in Angola. Black Africa is tasting the heady wine of the possibility of realizing the dream of ‘total liberation."

Operación Carlota would last more than 15 years. More than 400,000 Cuban soldiers, teachers, doctors, engineers, and workers served in Angola in various capacities during the mission. More than 2,000 Cubans lost their lives defending Angola’s sovereignty and supporting the right of the peoples of southern Africa to self-determination and freedom. This long struggle culminated in 1987–88 at Cuito Cuanavale, where combined Cuban and Angolan forces dealt a decisive defeat to the apartheid South African military. Yet Cuba’s extensive and crucial role in the struggle against apartheid, and the broader regional war of terror waged by the apartheid regime that set the context for Cuba’s intervention, remain virtually unknown in the West. This extraordinary example of anti-imperialist solidarity remains largely erased from mainstream historical memory. 

Equally forgotten is the apartheid state’s regional war of terror—waged in Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and beyond—which made Cuba’s intervention not only necessary, but historic. The struggle for and against apartheid unfolded both inside and beyond South Africa’s borders. Determined to secure and entrench its regional dominance, the apartheid regime waged war across southern Africa. Indeed, far more people—tens, if not hundreds, of thousands—lost their lives outside South Africa than within it. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission observed, “the number of people killed inside the borders of the country in the course of the liberation struggle was considerably lower than those who died outside.” The human toll was staggering: between 1981 and 1988 alone, an estimated 1.5 million people were killed directly or indirectly, among them 825,000 children.

Today, thousands of Cuban medical personnel provide essential services across dozens of African countries. In 2014, Cuba made a decisive contribution to the fight against the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, sending the largest medical mission of any country. ”More than 450 Cuban doctors and nurses—selected from over 15,000 volunteers—traveled to West Africa to stand alongside its peoples in the struggle against Ebola. As Cuba’s ambassador to Liberia, Jorge Lefebre Nicolas, affirmed: “We cannot see our brothers from Africa in difficult times and remain there with our arms folded.” At the September 16, 2014, United Nations Security Council meeting, Cuban representative Abelardo Moreno underscored: “Humanity has a debt to African people. We cannot let them down.” Even the Wall Street Journal acknowledged: “Few have heeded the call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba.”  Nevertheless, as Cuba specialist John Kirk notes, Cuba’s medical internationalism remains one of “the world’s best-kept secrets.

Commemorating the anniversary of Operación Carlota is not simply an act of historical recovery. Fifty years on, Operación Carlota reminds us that the fight for African independence remains as urgent as ever. In a time when the struggle for authentic African independence and sovereignty is again under threat—from neocolonial economic domination, foreign military interventions, and resource plunder—it serves as a reminder of the possibilities of principled internationalism, solidarity, and collective liberation.

Blockade: Effects of the blockade on children with disabilities.

Escuela "Solidaridad con Panama"

Lancet study shows: Economic sanctions can kill like bombs and bullets

By Sue Harris, August 7, 2025

Two documents together explain the lethal effect of economic sanctions applied by powerful imperialist countries on about one-third of the world’s population, mostly the poorest and most vulnerable residents of much poorer countries. According to these documents, sanctions were responsible for killing about a half-million people each year for the last 10 years. 

One document is a technical paper published in the prestigious and internationally respected medical journal The Lancet. It requires technical knowledge to read with understanding. We link it here: “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data.”

The other document is a commentary by one of the authors of The Lancet paper, Mark Weisbrot, published first by the Center for Economic Policy Research and then in many other newspapers and magazines: “Rethink sanctions. They’re killing as many people as war does.”

Weisbrot’s commentary has been widely published, including by the Los Angeles Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, East Bay Times, The San Jose Mercury News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and many other media.

What are sanctions?

Sanctions are the negative economic effects created by outside interference with a country’s trade or the refusal to allow that country to trade. Sanctions can block access to essential imports such as medicine and food and the necessary infrastructure and spare parts to maintain drinkable water, including electrical systems. They can also be imposed to block exports, interfering with essential commercial transactions. Historically, such interference in the economic life of a country has been considered an act of war.

What the powerful imperialist countries imposing sanctions are doing is cutting off a country from the international financial system and exports, freezing billions of dollars of assets and imposing “secondary sanctions” on other countries that might do business with that country. These steps make the conditions for the population of the sanctioned country even more dire. 

As Weisbrot points out — and this is the most chilling statistic — the populations most often killed by sanctions are children under five years of age, not soldiers. 

Sara Flounders, contributing editor of Workers World Newspaper, organizer with the International Action Center (IAC) and co-editor of the book “Sanctions: a Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy” (2022), has called sanctions the most brutal form of war. The IAC has been fighting sanctions since its founding in 1992, while the U.S. working through the United Nations was imposing sanctions on Iraq following the 1991 war. 

Flounders said at the time: “Countries lacked basic antibiotics and essential medicines, so that diarrhea or a broken bone was often a death sentence. There was no way to process clean water or pay teachers or medical staff.” (“Sanctions kill: a book, a webinar, a movement”)

Cuba has been heavily sanctioned by the imperialists for 60 years in what has amounted to an economic blockade, yet Cuba has supplied more doctors and medical staff to Africa than the World Health Organization. 

Flounders reported that Cuba had developed its own vaccines to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of the sanctions, it took a worldwide movement to send enough syringes for the Cuban medical system to immunize its own population. 

The countries imposing economic sanctions are the wealthiest, the most powerful and the most industrially developed countries in the world (with the exception of China, which does not employ sanctions). These countries’ rulers aim to choke the economies of developing countries, most of which were formerly colonized. Sanctions on one country impact the economies of the whole region in which they are located.

Sanctions are the imperialist weapon of choice, a silent weapon that kills the most vulnerable in ways that are not immediately visible, unlike bombs or bullets. In a war, many of those killed are soldiers, although in most wars since the 20th century began there have been more civilian than military casualties. Under sanctions, it is the children and the elderly who are the quickest to die. 

Sanctions appear to be less violent than overt war, but the documents referenced here prove definitively that they can be as deadly and violent as bombs and bullets and must be fought by any movements that oppose imperialist war. 

from: Mundo Obrero, Workers World

 Sixteen times the dawn

Forty five years ago the Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez traveled through space: the first Latin American to see our planet at a height of more than 100 kilometers.

Yélidis Remón Vega | internet@granma.cu

Nieves Molina Fleites | internet@granma.cu

September, 2025

«Born in Guantánamo» is just what it says behind his name. It would be added later that he was born in 5 North/5 West «close to the naval base» and that since he was a kid he threw stones at the airplanes as if they were birds with the intent of bringing them down.

Of course: there was always room and time to play, even though I had to work from age ten or eleven. The truth is that “mom Mariana” needed to be helped somehow because she had to deal with three orphan grandkids with just a small pension. Arnaldo worked on anything from shining shoes to delivering pamphlets showing which pharmacies were open. Then, when a little bit older, he became an apprentice carpenter -an expert maker of  “luxury furniture” and with the pieces of leftover wood he was allowed to make mops and hangers to sell. «And, in that way, whatever else that came as needed».

«In those days there was a huge school delay». When the Revolution triumphed, he was in grade eight, but he was 16 years old. After, «Fidel created the Rebel Youth Association (Asociación de Jóvenes Rebeldes (AJR)» and many of those who had no future prior to 1959 got in there (into  AJR)».

A few months later, thanks to AJR, the «Youth Brigades for Revolutionary Work» were formed and he had to climb Turkino Peak five times and «help the campesinos in the building and maintenance of schools, roads and more…».

But, «as Fidel visión for AJR was always that AJR would provide the future cadres for the armed forces and other Security organizations», AJR started to offer courses. Arnaldo, who had lived all his life flying over, raised his hand when they talked about piloting jets.

He had not idea that he carried congenital mild astigmatism, reason why he would not approve the required medical standard for the course, but desirous of remaining in the field he took a course of aviation technician, he would not be able to fly the beasts, but, at least he would tithe them. After two months in the Soviet Union, some of the students who were to be pilots ended up, because of falls, sickness and other reasons he cannot remember, out of the game. They reviewed his application and medical again, and Arnaldo was admitted in the pilot course. The genetic astigmatism was not that serious and he could at least fly for «ten to fifteen years».

Making mistakes and «I was not ashamed of my vocabulary», he learned Russian.  Nevertheless he became «familiar with the terms of defense of our skies» in Cuba.

When the call for a Cosmonaut arrived, he was chief of the air brigade in a base in Santa Clara and lieutenant colonel. Exams and preparations completed, he was selected for training together with José Armando López Falcón: «he was my reserve and I was his».

A year later they completed character analysis and selected a similar partner for him: Yuri Romanenko. José Armando had a similar partner. Both teams were to receive the same training, polish the same skills, nobody knew clearly which of the two teams will fly.

The training was hard. Thankfully his wife and two children were there with him, «to make life a bit easier».

Forty eight hours before the flight, the news came: «Tamayo and Romanenko» will be going. Nothing was said about the reasons for this.

There were few certainties.  At 11:13 p.m. of September 18th, 1980, from the Baikonur, Kazakhstan cosmodrome, then part of the Soviet Union, they departed into space aboard the Soyuz-38.

Maybe, Arnaldo was afraid, he did not say this. He prefers to share that he thought about Guantánamo, of his first years flying, of Cuba the homeland: that homeland that became small at more than a hundred kilometers of height, but there is no distance that in the soul make it less or disappear. That, no, never.

The cosmos received pieces of Cuba: a small sphere with sand from Girón Beach, the book "History will absolve me," of Fidel, and the "Montecristi Manifesto," signed by José Martí and Máximo Gómez– in two small books, also many commemorative medals, a seed of Royal Palm (Palma Real) that today is a more than 40 year old tree in La Demajagua, in Cuba, also «the flag from Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the one from Narciso López», together with a Polimite from Baracoa that ended at the Museum of Decorative Art (Museo de Arte Decorativo) and a poem by Nicolás Guillén and the one from Martí that says:

I want to give myself to the spaces/Where one lives in peace, and with a mantle/Of light, in intoxicating joy swollen,/On the white clouds he walks,/And where Dante and the stars live.

(A los espacios entregarme quiero / Donde se vive en paz, y con un manto / De luz, en gozo embriagador henchido, / Sobre las nubes blancas se pasea, / Y donde Dante y las estrellas viven.)

Also, a caricature of René de la Nuez, a cigar, ten post stamps and ten envelopes posted at «the orbital station as proof of its going to the Cosmos».

They also had 21 experiments on board ,mainly «Medical-Biological and Technical-Scientifical», to be completed at the orbital station Saliut-6–Soyuz-37, together with cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Valeri Riumin. Because «going to the Cosmos is not flying for flying sake; it is expensive and it has to provide some economic value».

Until the coupling, Soyuz-38 was at a height of about «170 kilometers and going at 29 000 km per hour», like a satellite orbiting Earth. Thus, connecting with another space body was very much like "finding a needle in the Ocean". But it happened. 

Arnaldo was smiling then, like he always smiles, this has never changed. In coupling they had completed at least «80 percent of their mission, because if coupling fails you have to return immediately».

His body needed three days to adapt to the change. There was nausea, dizziness, insomnia, lack of appetite…«Here on Earth the heart pumps blood to the end of our feet. When there is no gravity, the body tries to continue pumping blood as if it would be on Earth but there is no need for it». For this reason the veins of his fase were swollen: «the head is closer to the heart».

To sleep he found a piece in the ceiling and there, «with a sleeping bag», was «relaxed». The little time left he used taking pictures of space. He knew he would probably never see it like this again.

He remembers that water makes a ball when outside any recipient; and, that any solid they ate came as puree, inside tubes similar to the ones that carry dental paste. It was during this trip that his vice for tea became consolidated «any herbal tea except marihuana», and generally taken «middle morning and middle afternoon».

He was in space for a bit less than eight days. In that spaceship he made 128 trips around our planet and saw day and night 16 times every 24 Earth hours.

When he returned, his life had changed: he was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, the first Latin American travelling to space. They completed 72 hours of quarantine and many medical analyses, met their families and their Russian neighbours filled their home, the return to Cuba and official Greetings, the trip through Havana with Fidel and Romanenko in a convertible car, «the people in the streets, the shouting, the music, the party»...

There were six months of trips all over the country, visits to schools, ministries, work centers, stories and craziness, «I had to be careful of everything I did, many eyes were on me».

He never again piloted a plane, «we are not going to allow something like what happened to Yuri Gagarin to happen to you. Those jet planes are dangerous and we have to protect you. You can fly, as a passenger». Today he is an adviser for the Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry. I should have been retired but, «what am I going to do at home?».

He wrote the book a Cuban in Cosmos because of the insistence of Commander Almeida, who often said: «What are you waiting for to write Tamayo? Would you do it when you are very old and can no longer remember anything? Are others going to come and write what you felt, write kid!».

That kid who threw stones at the American planes had no idea that he would pilot fighter jets, and much less that he would see our planet from space. If there is anything they could say about him is that «he is a first class joker», who believes that «having a sense of humor helps in life» and that every time he sees a plane: «listen, I drool»…

Translation NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)