OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 7.00pm.
THERE are still two South Africas and they should not be termed white and black, but rich and poor, Cuban President Fidel Castro told Parliament to thunderous applause on Friday.
The one South Africa, Castro continued, receives 12 times the income of the other; in the one 100% of the population are able to read and write, while in the other literacy is hardly more than 50%; the one has a lifespan of 73 and the other 56; and 12% of the people own 90% of the land, with 80% owning less than 10%.
In a 90-minute speech — brief by Castro’s norm — which both began and ended with standing ovations by PAC and ANC benches, Castro said the contradiction between peoples’ hopes and reality is not a challenge specific only to South Africa, but one that has to be debated the world over. Pointing to the colonisation of Latin America, Castro said the that “apartheid was universal and lasted for centuries”.
Most National Party members sat through the speech with expressionless faces, while the Democratic Party and Freedom Front boycotted the address.
Later in the day Castro paid a visit to Robben Island on where he viewed President Nelson Mandela’s old cell and the lime quarry where the president and other political prisoners laboured. Castro was accompanied by Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils and African National Congress MP Ahmed Kathrada, as well as South African Communist Party secretary general Dr Blade Nzimande and several other MPs.