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With the diplomatic offensives of the USA, France and the EU, Cuba has progressively returned to the group of nations. This political activism for Cuba raises a number of questions relating to Obama's new foreign policy, the Western counterparts and the economic and strategic opportunities for cooperation with the island.
So, where does Africa stand ? Historically, Africa has always maintained good relations with Cuba and the powers and the elite of the continent have always supported their anti-imperalist and anti-colonialist positionings of the country. Beyond this ideology, there is a real potential for an economic cooperation between Africa and Cuba. This cooperation is most likely to reinvent the cooperation between developping countries.
Africa and Cuba, a pact in the name of Third World solidarity
With the same causes producing the same effects, Sub-saharan African countries fought for independance in the 1960s and found in Cuba a strong ally. Fidel Castro has always supported African revolutionaries such as Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Agostinho Neto and the Anti-Apartheid hero, Nelson Mandela. The support was not just in the spirit of revolution but Cuba actually sent military forces to fight alongside the freedom fighters.
The Cuban guerilleros also called the « Internationalists » have actually fought besides their African brothers in arms. « Cuba, an African odyssey » is an excellent documentary by Jihan El Tahri that explains the story of the independentists united to push the colons out of their borders. Che Guevara had undoubtedly a big hand in the African revolutions, especially in Congo. Laurent Kabila has always « boasted » about fighting besides the Latino-american legend.
Thus, the mythical Che went to the two Congos, Tanzania, Egypt, Mali, Ghana, Sekou Touré's boiling Guinea, in the 1960 in order to deliver a message to the oppressed population to gain their freedom from the colonialists.
The Ambush of France…before the intervention of the USA
During his recent trip to the Carribean, François Hollande met the Lider Maximo, Fidel Castro in May. This meeting is very symbolic of developing closer political relations between the two countries. Cuba still carries an enthusiastic old-fashionned socialist ideology but has opened access to its market since the past few decades.
To this end, the realpolitk of French diplomacy is very clear on the subject : Cuba is economically attractive. France is a regional power in the Carribean and does not want to let America take the lead in the short-term commercial and economic rebound when Cuba will be releaved from the international constraints. That is what is said officially.
In this geoplitical and economic lottery, it is in Africa's best interest to strengthen its relations with Cuba, given that the continent has a historical advantage and has the facility to develop cultural and trading relationships with the island.
Cuba and its Africa ally, an emerging partnership for development
Cuba has one of the best health systems in the world. During the Ebola epidemic, Cuban doctors, equipped with high quality devices, were urgently sent to the outbreak sources in Sub-saharan Africa. It is to be noted that the Cuban State sent 500 doctors and medical staff whereas China, France and the USA sent about half the amount.
It is crucial to encourage cooperation agreements between African countries and Cuba, even in the framework of a multilateral instrument carried out by the African Union to promote training of African doctors and the transfer of medical qualifications with the island.
The cooperation can also be extended to other fields, such as education. The Cuban education system is the most efficient and competitive in Latin America and the Carribean. A World Bank study showed that the investment in the education system and the training of the teachers in Cuba is unequalled. Thus « no teaching force in the region today (except possibly Cuba’s) can be considered of high quality against global comparators ». It is in Africa's best interest to learn from the successful model of education that Cuba has developped.
Africa has to focus on promoting the South-South cooperation in the fields of education, culture, tourism and commerce, whether it is on the national or institutional level. In an extremely divided world between the North and the South, it is all the more necessary to defend an idealistic cooperation between Cuba and other countries in the South or considered as such, for the sake of political realism and emergence of new modes of action.
Translated by Bushra Kadir