The South African Communist Party (SACP) congratulates the Communist Party of Cuba for its successful 8th Congress and Comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez for his election as the First Secretary of the Party. We also congratulate all comrades who will serve on the Central Committee and the newly elected Political Bureau and the Secretariat. In the election of Comrade Miguel and the entire leadership, the Communist Party of Cuba has kept on its promise of continuity while preserving the core principles of the Cuban Socialist Revolution.

Cuba has been under intense imperialist aggression since the people won power in January 1959. The SACP thus deeply appreciates the leading role played by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz during his tenure in defence of the Cuban Revolution, a struggle he began in his youth. 

The Cuban people reserve the right to choose their own developmental path free from interference. In his congratulatory message to the Communist Party of Cuba, the SACP General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande said: “We reiterate our calls for the United States to immediately and unconditionally lift the decades-old blockade it has imposed on Cuba in utter violation of international law, to cease its meddling in the internal affairs of Cuba, and to evacuate the Cuban territory of Guantanamo Bay.” 

The SACP reiterates its stance against imperialist aggression, which is chiefly spearheaded by the United States against the Cuban people, against Cuban freedom and democratic sovereignty, against the right of Cuba to determine and pursue a transformation and development path chosen by the Cuban people, against the success of the Cuban Revolution which shows that a just world, an alternative to capitalist barbarity, is possible.

As Comrade Fidel proclaimed on April 16, 1961, and as it remains today, the Cuban Revolution is a Socialist and Democratic Revolution of the Humble, with the Humble and for the Humble.

Issued by SACP