Mandela Presente

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Our Comrade and Brother Nelson Mandela has passed. We are calling on the friends of Cuba and especially the Cuba solidarity movement to come together on Thursday, December 12th to plan a celebration of his life and his outstanding example as a revolutionary fighter and, in particular, his unwavering support and solidarity with the Cuban people and the Cuban revolution. We hope to be able to organize a major event before the end of this year.

Although it comes as no surprise, it is certainly stunning that US Democratic and Republican politicians and the corporate media are painting a Nelson Mandela that dilutes and distorts his actual political and human essence. They attempt to obscure and hide the revolutionary trajectory of a fighter and people’s hero and reduce and only focus on his efforts at “reconciliation,” his role as a peacemaker, and his preference for securing amazing political advances over revenge. There is of course a conscious conspiracy of silence of his outspoken support for Cuba and Cuba’s central and key role and contributions in the smashing of apartheid and advances of African Liberation Movements.

It is our responsibility to tell the truth and honor the real Nelson Mandela, the Nelson Mandela of the oppressed and exploited peoples of the world.

We appeal to you to endorse this call for the first organizing meeting and share it with others. We will be meeting at
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center/119-SEIU
this Thursday, December 12, 2013 @6:30pm.
We are looking at Saturday, December 21, 2013 for this event.

Mandela ¡Presente!

Frank Velgara
Ike Nahem
Radhames Morales
Cesar Sanchez

IFCO/Pastors for Peace excerpted the following from Jane Franklin’s review of Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976.

Nelson Mandela
July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013

After being released from prison, Nelson Mandela visited Havana, Cuba in 1991 to express his admiration and respect for Fidel Castro. While there Mandela declared his peoples’ “great sense of debt that is owed the people of Cuba. What other country,” he challenged, “can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa?”