Cuban VP attends South African president’s inauguration

Cuban VP and Political Bureau member Salvador Valdés Mesa attended today in Johannesburg the inauguration of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s second term of office.

“Cuba could not miss out on this significant encounter of brothers,” the official wrote in a post on X regarding the ceremony that gathered people of every origin, lifestyle and political leaning, as well as Heads of State and of Government and other mostly African dignitaries.

Upon his arrival in South Africa on Tuesday, Valdés Mesa visited the war memorial that honors more than 2,000 of his compatriots fallen in Africa and met with Cuban aid workers, local labor unionists, and members of Cuba solidarity groups.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between Havana and Pretoria on May 11, 1994—one day into Nelson Mandela’s presidential mandate—was the new South Africa’s first foreign policy action.