The World Keeps Cuba in its Heart

For South African Mocketzi Sekhokoane, who became a mining engineering in Cuba (Holguin, 1990-1996), coming to the island is quite significant and not only because he feels grateful for having studied a profitable career here or having married a woman from Santiago de Cuba, with whom he had two daughters. His conviction has deeper roots.

During the welcoming ceremony offered to the members of the 14th May Day Brigade of Voluntary Work and Solidarity with Cuba in the Martyrs’ Monument of Sancti Spíritus, Mockhetzi said that “it was very impressive to come as part of this brigade where there are people from different countries, and we can see the spirit of the people, the solidarity of the group towards Cubans.

“I believe, he added, that it is because it is understood that the Cuban people deserve it for the help that Cuba has offered to the peoples of the world. When we studied here, we were many students from different parts of the world and we knew the role of this country in nations from different continents and the important role that Cuba played in the struggle for the sovereignty of Angola, the independence of Namibia, and the defeat of the racists of South Africa, those are very important facts that we will never forget.

“Our President Nelson Mandela once said in a ceremony held in 1991, in Matanzas, when I was a student, that we thank the Cuban people, and that, if there is a country in the world that went to Africa to play a significant role and to help the African peoples, without bringing any wealth, only the remains of their sons killed there, that was Cuba.  So, we appreciate that as much as we remember Commander in Chief Fidel Castro”.

When asked his opinion about the intensified US economic war against Cuba, Mocketzi said right away: “About the blockade against the Cuban people, I can say that not only me, but the whole world has said that it is inhuman and unjust, and since they are now worsening it with the implementation of Chapter III of the Helms-Burton Act, it is clear that they want to prevent other countries’ companies from investing in Cuba freely.

“That is nothing more than expanding the laws of the United States to other nations with the purpose of frightening their companies and citizens so that they do not invest capital in Cuba. That blockade has done great damage to the Cuban economy, to the children, to the elderly, and the worst thing is that in the United States they know it, but they insist on that economic war against Cuba, they persist in that crime.

“Every year, the international public opinion sees that when the Cuban project against the blockade is voted at the UN, only the United States and Israel insist in keeping it against the will of the whole world, because their retrograde mentality pursues precisely that: governing the planet, but they won’t be able to do that because the world keeps its heart in this country and supports Cuba”.