The founding father of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, talked today with Cuban Vicepresident, Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a meeting charged with emotion.
Nujoma, agile and vital at his 85 years, received Diaz-Canel with open arms in the foundation bearing his name in this capital.
Books, flags and photographs are the elements that abound in his ample and clear office. It was there where he welcomed the visitor.
Some seconds after the embrace and handshake, Nujoma asked in perfect Spanish "And the Commander in Chief (Fidel Castro)?" He spoke about the leader of the Cuban Revolution as a true friend and even one of his pictujres has a preferential place in that space where he is still active.
Diaz-Canel expressed the emotion that surged in him being in front of an icon of Africa struggle for liberty and, specially, of Namibia.
"We grew up knowing about your feats, your work as head of the Swapo (South West Africa Peoples Organization) and in the fight for independence and we also lived intensely when liberation was achieved," said the First Vicepresident.
Diaz-Canel transmitted on behalf of Fidel Castro and Cuban President Raul Castro, the congratulation for the 25th anniversary of the independence to be marked tomorrow, for you as undisputed leader of that independentist epic and historical leader of SWAPO.
On his part, Nujoma remembered the liberty of Namibia was forged with Cuban blood and talked about the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, when the enemy was completely destroyed.
Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 forced the then South African regime of apartheid to sit at the negotiating table and supported the emancipation of Angola, of the own South Africa and Namibia.
Diaz-Canel extended Nujoma and Swapo the appreciation for all the support given to Cuba in its struggle against the blockade maintained by the United States on the island and in the battle for the return of their homeland of the five Cuban heroes imprisoned in the United States
Besides inviting him to visit the island, Diaz-Canel ratified to Nujoma that the Cuban Revolution will unswervingly keep supporting the Namibian people.
Before the meeting, Díaz-Canel rendered tribute to those fallen in action for a new Namibia in the Acre of the Heroes, monumental site in downtown Windhoek and visited the Memorial Museum of the Independence, guardian of the country history until today.