News24 reports former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is to receive the highest award South Africa can bestow on a foreign national, the Order of Companions of OR Tambo in Gold, the presidency announced on Wednesday.
But it is unlikely Castro, who resigned from office in February last year due to failing health, will himself attend the award ceremony set for later this week.
The presidency issued a list of names of 28 people who will have national order awards bestowed on them by President Kgalema Motlanthe at a ceremony in Pretoria on Friday.
Contacted for comment, presidency spokesperson Thabo Masebe said all the recipients of the awards had been contacted.
“Before names are placed on the list, there is a nomination process. All the people announced have been contacted, and have accepted the nomination for the award.”
Asked if Castro would be attending, he replied: “I don’t think he is. Talk to [the department of] foreign affairs.”
Foreign Affairs was not immediately available for comment.
According to media reports out of Cuba, Castro is too ill to travel.
Other recipients of national awards include Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa, who will both be bestowed with the Order of the Baobab in Silver for their contributions during negotiations that led to the founding of South Africa’s new democracy.
- SAPA
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Why am I not surprised by this? One Communist regime honoring another. Eff 'em both.
A los gusanos en Miami y Union City, NJ.: Tus madres son PUTAS! Maricones! Comunismo Siempre!
This crap has been going on for years since the communists took over SA. It helps to promote each others national self esteem since in reality everyone else in the world with half a brain knows how loathsome bother regimes really are.. My favorite ones are the “human rights” awards. Pathetic!
The nation of South Africa’s highest award is the “order of satins companions”. A fitting award for the new “democratic “or is it demonic nation of South Africa. It’s most unfortunate that this brute Castro is ill and cannot attend this ceremony.
Commissar Kgalema Motlanthe will have to send it my mail.
thanks to the whores who call themselves “liberals”, this murderer is honoured in a nation that kicked his ass in Angola! The U.S. and Europe sold out a great nation an put in a bunch of communist savages who are just like him!
Frank: Remember Cuito Cuanevale! Your boys lost there.
@ Elombe:
Crocker, Chester A. (1992). High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393034321. “In early October the Soviet-Fapla offensive was smashed at the Lomba River near Mavinga. It turned into a headlong retreat over the 120 miles back to the primary launching point at Cuito Cuanavale. In some of the bloodiest battles of the entire civil war, a combined force of some 8,000 UNITA fighters and 4,000 SADF troops destroyed one Fapla brigade and mauled several others out of a total Fapla force of some 18,000 engaged in the three-pronged offensive. Estimates of Fapla losses ranged upward of 4,000 killed and wounded. This offensive had been a Soviet conception from start to finish. Senior Soviet officers played a central role in its execution. … Huge quantities of Soviet equipment were destroyed or fell into UNITA and SADF hands when Fapla broke into a disorganized retreat… The 1987 military campaign represented a stunning humiliation for the Soviet Union, its arms and its strategy. … As of mid-November, the UNITA/SADF force had destroyed the Cuito Cuanavale airfield and pinned down thousands of FAPLA’s best remaining units clinging onto the town’s defensive perimeters.” Crocker was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Reagan Administration