Fidel Castro has left us physically, but his humanity, his life’s work on behalf of the wretched of the earth, his example, will live on as long as mankind does. His constant warnings that the greatest endangered species is mankind, as a result of the avaricious and materialistic abuse of nature by man himself, we will ignore at our peril. From the early 1970s, and consistently since then, even during his ten years of illness, he has relentlessly championed the cause of the environment, and sought to prepare his people, through an educational and scientific revolution, to confront the dangers caused to our planet because of our abuse of the environment; in that he stands alone among world statesmen. He was the quintessential champion of human civilization.

No leader in the history of the world has come close to approaching what he did, for more than half a century, to lift up not only his own Cuban people but the peoples of all nations of the world from poverty, ignorance, disease and hopelessness. By his actions, he taught the world the meaning of solidarity, how a tiny nation, forged on the anvil of his revolutionary consciousness, could help so many people in so many ways in so many areas of the world, despite a cruel, criminal and inhumane blockade imposed by the most powerful nation the world has ever known.

But Fidel never thought of any people as his enemy. Many lives would have been saved if the leaders of that nation had accepted his offer to send doctors to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And many US citizens from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, along with thousands of students from the world over, have been and are being trained as medical personnel to serve their people.

Cuba’s programmes in education, culture, sports, and the sciences, have created emergent leaders who understand the value of South-South relations and the power which can be harnessed by collaboration across developing nations.

Fidel’s Cuba, the Cuba built on the revolutionary, socialist and profoundly humanist ideas of Fidel, helped Belize achieve its independence in ways that we may never fully comprehend, and helped Belize to grow as a nation and to provide vital services to its people, especially in the provision of health services and in the higher education of its young people.

To give only one concrete example of Fidel’s visionary concern: he conceived of Operation Milagro as a program that could lift 100,000 Latin Americans out of blindness with free treatment, and together with Hugo Chavez he put the program in action, and today not thousands but millions of people in the region and elsewhere, many of them in Belize, have been able to see again because of his revolutionary idea.

For Fidel, every single human being was important. Recall the campaign he waged intensely to have the young boy Elian returned to his father in Cuba, or the other he led to have five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters released from unjust imprisonment in the USA.

But perhaps the greatest example of Fidel’s solidarity and universal vision is the role Cuba played in the liberation of Southern Africa, in an operation, not only for its success but for its disinterested motivation that has no comparison in history. The small Cuban nation responded to the call of the African state of Angola, about to be overrun by the vastly superior forces of apartheid South Africa, and sent tens of thousands of Cuban troops to fight off the invaders, and won. Because of that action, Angola maintained its independence, Namibia then occupied by South Africa, became an independent country, and the apartheid regime in South Africa was doomed.

As Nelson Mandela acknowledged, “The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice unparalleled for its principled and selfless character. The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling people in South Africa.

Without that our organizations would not have been unbanned. It altered the balance of forces within the region and substantially reduced the capacity of Pretoria [capital of South Africa] to destabilise its neighbours. This, in combination with our people’s struggle within the country, was crucial in bringing Pretoria to realise it would have to talk”. Those talks led to the institution of a non-racial, non-sexist, unified and democratic South Africa based on the principle of one person one vote, and in 1994 Nelson Mandela became the first President of a free South Africa.

All of this was possible because of the Revolution, the Cuban Revolution created by Fidel and the people of Cuba. One of the many legacies he leaves us is his concept of the meaning of revolution, which says in part:

“Revolution is equality and full freedoms; it is to be treated and to treat others like human beings; it is emancipating ourselves through our own efforts; it is to defy powerful dominating forces within and without the social and national ambit; it is to defend the values we believe in at the price of any sacrifice; it is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; it is to struggle with audacity, intelligence and realism; it is never to lie nor violate ethical principles; it is the profound conviction that there is no force in the world capable of overcoming the power of truth and of ideas. Revolution is unity and independence. It is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the basis of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism.”

Fidel Castro is the ultimate internationalist. I can speak for Belize when I say that never, in whatever way he helped, did he seek to impose Cuba’s views on us, and the record is the same for all the countries touched by Cuba’s altruistic generosity and sacrifice. He symbolises the affirmation of human dignity. He is alive in the hearts and minds of people the world over who strive for freedom, justice and equality, who believe as fervently as he did that a better world is possible, and that it is the obligation of all of us to struggle to achieve that better world.

Viva Fidel! Long live the Cuban Revolution! Hasta la Victoria Siempre, Fidel!

Assad Shoman, Havana, 26th November, 2016.