By: Hana Saada
ALGIERS– In an interview with the Lebanese channel Al Mayadeen TV, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez did not miss the opportunity to welcome the strengthening of his country’s cooperation with Algeria.
The Cuban president highlighted the importance of his visit to Algeria, which took place last November, considering that he belonged to a generation which admired the Algerian revolution, while welcoming the warm welcome he had received during his stay in Algeria in last November.
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in this vein, recalled that the first Cuban medical mission had gone to Algeria, a few months after its independence, as a sign of deep friendship and historical ties between the two sisterly countries and the two brotherly peoples.
Algerian-Cuban relations are evaluating at a rapid pace in line with the commitments made by the high authorities of the two countries, following the visit of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez to Algiers as declared by His Excellency, the Cuban Ambassador in Algiers, Mr. Armando Vergara Bueno who has been deploying tireless efforts, since his arrival in Algiers, to promote historical and economic ties between the two friendly countries, welcoming, on different occasions, the dynamics of relations between Algiers and Havana, and lauding Algeria’ stances in favor of Cuba, which, for more than 60 years, has been facing an arbitrary blockade imposed by the United States of America.
Algeria-Cuba, model of friendship, solidarity
Algeria and Cuba are bound by historical relations of friendship and solidarity, based on the values of freedom, peace, and justice shared by both countries. Their privileged historical relations go back to the common struggle of their peoples and their commitment to support just causes around the world. Algeria’s permanent solidarity with the Cuban people to lift the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on their country for more than 60 years, is driven by the country’s commitment to the United Nations principles and the UN General Assembly resolution which calls for the lifting of this blockade.
This friendship constitutes a model to follow in terms of their bilateral ties of friendship, solidarity and mutual support since 1963, when Cuba sent a medical team to provide help to the brotherly Algerian people. Noting that both nations have maintained diplomatic relations since October 17, 1962. On this date, the-then Prime Minister of Algeria, Ahmed Ben Bella, signed a joint declaration with his Cuban counterpart Fidel Castro Ruz, formally establishing bilateral relations. A year later, in May 1963, Cuba’s first internationalist medical brigade arrived in that African country, an event referred to in history as the beginning of the Revolution’ solidarity cooperation. Thousands of Cuban professionals have served in the nation. Since then, both nations have maintained close ties, and their collaboration covers the sectors of health, energy, construction, education, culture and sports, among others.
The quality of political relations with their human dimensions is a prelude to a new stage of close bilateral cooperation in all areas, particularly the economic one. In this vein, the visit of the Cuban President to Algeria, last November, constituted an opportunity to materialize the common political will to strengthen economic cooperation and exploit investment opportunities in priority sectors, such as; agriculture, the agro-food industry, medicines, medical equipment and tourism. The visit was fruitful, culminating in the conclusion of a number of agreements.
Last month, an Algerian delegation participated in a business forum devoted to the inking of a range of cooperation agreements, crowning privileged relations, and the exploration of business possibilities between Havana and Algiers, in continuity to the agreements signed by the leaders of Cuba and Algeria at a meeting held in Algiers on the occasion of the Cuban President’s visit to the North African country. As part of this visit, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, received at the Palace of the Revolution, Health Minister Abdelhak Saihi.
Besides, the working and friendship visit by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel to Algeria coincided, noteworthy, with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of historic relations between the two countries, relations established before the independence of Algeria and maintained, subsequently, through the support of the two countries for the just causes of the peoples and their right to freedom, particularly the Palestinian and Sahrawi causes, in addition to solidarity, cooperation and the coordination of diplomatic positions in the various international forums.
For more details on the history of the bilateral relations between the two friendly countries, here is a sneak peek into Algerian Cuban relations:
Algeria has had a strong and solid allyship with Cuba since its independence from French colonialism in the early 1960s. Cuba and Algeria formed strong diplomatic links due to their historical and ideological proximity. Indeed, despite their geographical distance, the two countries saw themselves as the models of a successful socialist revolution against imperialist forces. More recently, Algeria invited the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez to participate in the festivities celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Independence.
How did it all start?
When Algeria snatched its independence from France in 1962, Ahmed Ben Bella, a few days after being elected Prime Minister, arrived in New York on October 15 to participate in Algeria’s accession ceremony to the United Nations.
The next day, he boarded a Cubana de Aviación for the Caribbean island and was greeted at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport by the commander-in-chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.
Soon after Ben Bella’s visit, Fidel gave a speech at the opening of the Playa Giron School of Medicine in Havana, where he proposed the idea of sending a medical brigade to help Algeria, which after independence suffered from a mass departure of French doctors and led to a significant shortage of health personnel in the country.
The medical team consisted of 54 health workers who flew to Algeria. There were 29 doctors, four dentists, 14 nurses, and seven health technicians.
In his speech, Castro said that “Most of the doctors in Algeria were French and many of them left the country. There are millions of Algerians and colonialism left them with many diseases. The population of Algeria is 4 million more than the population of Cuba, but they only have a third of our doctors or even less. For this reason, I informed our Cuban students that we require about 50 doctors to volunteer to go to Algeria.”
Castro’s words had great resonance and received an immediate response from many Cuban doctors who expressed their willingness to go and help the Algerians. As such, the first Cuban medical solidarity journey in Algeria came in the context of the latter having resisted and defeated the French colonial regime, and this pushed Cuba to provide services beyond the island’s borders.
This is how Cuba’s first medical solidarity mission took off to provide healthcare services beyond the borders of the country.
All-out bilateral cooperation:
Fruitful and privileged, bilateral relations have won several achievements, the latest being the installation, last February, of the parliamentary friendship group “Algeria-Cuba”. The installation of this group has made it possible to initiate a new era of bilateral cooperation and to strengthen exchanges in the various fields, especially parliamentary and economic spheres.
On the economic side, the two countries have considerable assets capable of promoting economic and commercial cooperation. The capacities of the two countries in this area were reviewed during the 22nd session of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Commercial, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation held in February 2019.
The 23rd Cuba-Algeria Intergovernmental Commission, serving as a platform for economic cooperation, held, last month, a meeting and identified opportunities for capital investment in areas of common interest for both countries. It culminated in the signing of legal instruments.
In addition, cooperation in the field of health has recorded a qualitative leap thanks to the signing of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and cooperation agreements during this year. The cooperation was extended to other areas, in this case; the training of Algerian general practitioners (gynecology-obstetrics, radiology and intensive care) as well as covering specialized training in ophthalmology, in addition to cooperation and the exchange of experiences with the Pasteur Institute of Algeria (IPA) in the areas of vaccine development and production as well as arbovirus surveillance and antimicrobial resistance studies in infections associated with healthcare and tuberculosis.
The cooperation, also, was extended to cover other aspects, such as; genomic surveillance of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and dengue, exchanging research on other health-related issues, as well as promoting the production of biological products.
In November 2021, a partnership agreement was signed between the National Pharmaceutical Products Agency (ANPP) and the State Control Center for Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices of the Republic of Cuba to exchange information, knowledge and expertise and strengthen collaboration regarding the training and development of human resources.
On another level, the many visits of Fidel Castro, who made five state visits to Algeria, the last of which was in May 2001, enabling him to be the faithful friend of Algeria, express the quality of the relations which have always linked Algiers to La Havana and which are marked by eye to eye views on the various issues of common interest at the level of the United Nations body, the Non-Aligned Movement and the South-South dialogue.
