Africa's Freedom Is In Your Hands–Cuban Solidarity Message To African Youth

Story by Fada Amakye

A solidarity message from Comrade Kambale Musavuli has charged African youth to take charge of the continent’s future and decide how Africa’s wealth is used.

Delivering the solidarity statement at the Youth Forum on Debt and Reparations in Accra, he said the responsibility to shape Africa’s future belongs particularly to the youth because they are not the future but the present.

You are the generation that must decide whether Africa’s enormous wealth will continue to enrich others or become the foundation of prosperity for African people, he said.

He added that the youth must also decide whether independence will remain a historical achievement or become a living reality, and whether Africa’s relations with the rest of the world will be defined by dependency or by partnership, equity and mutual respect.

He said Cuba will continue to stand with Africa, not because Cuba is powerful or rich, but because Cuba understands the value of solidarity.

Perhaps the greatest debt we owe the future generation is not to leave them a world in which they are forced to inherit our dependencies. We owe them a world in which they can inherit our courage, he stated.

He cited the courage of Cubans, the courage of Africa’s liberation generations, and the courage of doctors who returned to Sierra Leone after suffering Ebola as examples of solidarity.

He called on youth to pay the debt owed to future generations not with words but with action, not with dependency but with sovereignty, and not with despair but with hope.

Some debts must be repaired because justice demands it. Some debts must be honored because solidarity demands it, he said.