EFE (via 14ymedio), Harare, 12 January 2025 — Cuba will donate historic armored vehicles and a pistol belonging to former Cuban president and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro (1926-2016) to the African Liberation Museum that is being built in Zimbabwe, former Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi confirmed to EFE on Sunday.
Mumbengegwi, special envoy of Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, will travel to Havana to receive the donation for the museum from President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Among the articles donated are armored vehicles used in the historic Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (1987-1988), in which Cuban soldiers participated, in the context of the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002).
There is also a pistol that belonged to Fidel Castro and other artifacts and paraphernalia related to Cuba’s contributions to the African liberation struggles.
“The Republic of Cuba played a fundamental role in the liberation and postcolonial development of Africa”
“The Republic of Cuba played a fundamental role in the liberation and postcolonial development of Africa, and the delivery of artifacts for exhibition at the African Liberation Museum is a truly historic milestone in the long-standing and deep links between Cuba and Africa,” Mumbengegwi told EFE.
The former minister stressed that Cuba has continued to support Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, in the areas of health, education and diplomacy in international forums.
In July 2022, Mnangagwa sent a delegation to Cuba to initiate discussions on cooperation in the African Liberation Museum project, which is based in Harare and is part of a multi-service complex known as Liberation City.
Cuba has a long friendship with Zimbabwe that dates back to the war of independence in the seventies of the last century, when troops of the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU) received military training in Cuba.
In the 1980s, Zimbabwean students were sent to Cuba to train as school teachers specializing in scientific subjects.
In the 21st century, the Cuban government has deployed doctors to work in hospitals in Zimbabwe.
The late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe (1924-2019), overthrown in a military coup in 2017, was a good friend of Castro, with whom he shared communist ideology. In 2023, the Government of Zimbabwe designated one of the streets of Harare to be given the name of Fidel Castro.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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