[act-ma] Nelson Mandela and the defeat of apartheid, Fri Nov 20

[Boston Militant Labor Forum]

The Militant Labor Forum
Presents:
Nelson Mandela,the Freedom
Charter, Cuba and the Defeat
of Apartheid in South Africa
 
 Friday, December 20, 7:30 pm 
 
     In 1955 the
African National Congress adopted the Freedom Charter as its program. The
Freedom Charter begins:
  We, the People of South Africa, declare for
all our country and the world to know:
    That South Africa belongs to all who live in
it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless
it is based on the will of all the people…
    Between 1975 and 1991, some 425,000 Cubans
volunteered for duty in Angola in response to requests from that government to
defend it against what stretched into thirteen years of military aggression by
the armed forces of the apartheid regime of South Africa.
   In late 1987, South
African troops began their second major invasion, which ended with the crushing
defeat of Pretoria’s military forces in March 1988 in the battle of Cuito
Cuanavale.
   Following Mandela’s
release from prison in 1991 he went to Cuba (seen above with Fidel Castro) to
thank the Cuban people for their many years of support
to the struggle of the South African people. In a speech on
July 26, 1991 before tens of thousands of Cuban and international guests in
Matanzas, Cuba, Mandela said: 
   The
crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for all of
Africa! The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling
people inside South Africa! Without the defeat of Cuito Cuanavale our
organizations would not have been unbanned! The defeat of the racist army at
Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today!...Cuito Cuanavale
has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country
of the scourge of apartheid!

Militant
Labor Forum 
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617-569-9169 or email: bostonmlf at yahoo.com
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