Cuba, An Africa Odyssey

Cuba, An Africa Odyssey on The Africa Channel (Sky, channel 209)

Cuba, An African Odyssey documents a little-known part of history: the close relationship between Cuba and several African states “ including South Africa, Angola and the Congo “ at the height of the ˜Cold™ War. Using archival footage and a range of intriguing interviews with key figures including Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela, this documentary unravels the way in which Africa was used as a battleground on which tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were played out .

The story begins with Nelson Mandela™s first foreign visit (to Cuba) after his release from prison. The viewer is then taken back to the start of Cuba™s long engagement with Africa from 1960 onwards, beginning with independence in the Congo, and the subsequent assassination of its first president Patrice Lumumba.

Cuba also contributed to South Africa™s liberation struggle by fighting against apartheid-governed South African forces during the Angolan civil war. In 1995, Mandela commemorated this contribution when addressing delegates in Johannesburg: ˜Hundreds of Cubans have given their lives, literally, in a struggle that was, first and foremost, not theirs but ours. As Southern Africans we salute them.™

The techniques used by filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri shed new light on this fascinating period of history, and allow us to see the advent of independence in Africa from a refreshing perspective.