Operation Carlota transcended the military to become a commitment of Cuba to human dignity, stated today Division General Víctor Rojo Ramos, head of the political directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), during an act to commemorate the 50 years since the start of the historic internationalist mission of aid to Angola.

At the political act and military ceremony, presided over by Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of the Republic, Rojo Ramos argued that the epic not only ratified the internationalist character of the Revolution, but also the firm purpose of supporting justice and the self-determination of peoples.

From Angola we returned to the homeland victorious, with our heads held high, proud to fulfil an elementary duty and settle a debt with humanity; we returned, moreover, accompanied by the mortal remains of those who fell in the mission, to whom we render the most heartfelt tribute, indicated Reserve Colonel Lázaro Oquendo Ordóñez, a combatant in the African nation.

During the act, floral wreaths were laid on behalf of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, of Díaz-Canel, and of the people of Cuba, before the Monument to the Rebel Slave in the area of the Triunvirato museum, to honour the memory of the heroes and martyrs who participated in the Operation.

Also on the grounds of the former Triunvirato sugar mill, the 182nd anniversary of the historic uprising led in the area by Carlota, a slave of Lucumí origin whose name identifies the operation that became an epic of solidarity in which from 1975 Cubans and Africans became brothers, was remembered.

Among the participants in the ceremony were also Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organisation of the Central Committee of the PCC; Corps General Joaquín Quintas Solá, deputy minister of the FAR; other political and governmental representatives of the people; the ambassadors of Namibia and South Africa, the chargé d’affaires of Angola in Cuba, and relatives of internationalist martyrs.

Operation Carlota began on 5th November 1975 and transcended as a just internationalist military feat in the contemporary history of Cuba; it achieved the definitive independence of Angola, the liberation of Namibia and the elimination of the apartheid regime in South Africa.