The nightly news here on ABC and CBS featured interviews with Cubans and Cuban Americans in Florida, following Fidel Castro’s death at 90 just yesterday. As Pres.Obama noted : ‘History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.’
That impact extended all the way to South Africa when Cuba involved itself in a civil war in Angola in 1975. By the end of that year, there were 25,000 Cuban soldiers in Angola. South Africa and its armed forces got drawn into the conflict as well. By the time I was conscripted in the South African Defense Force (mandatory two years of service), the war was nearing its end in 1989 – and I was not deployed to Angola or Namibia. (Thankfully).