On December 29, 2025, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) celebrated its 65th anniversary in Havana. I was part of a delegation convened by Dr. Rosemari Mealy that attended the celebration along with 240 representatives of solidarity organizations from thirty-two countries around the world. Together we defied the escalating U.S. efforts to isolate and debilitate Cuba as part of its hegemonic plans to control all of Latin America with its neo-Monroe Doctrine strategy. Together we celebrated the leadership role that the Cuban Revolution has played globally in elevating the principle and practice of international solidarity over six decades, a role that was guided by Fidel, whose centenary is being commemorated throughout 2026.
Five days after the celebration in Havana, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were criminally abducted by the U.S. military, demonstrating once again that the U.S. imperialist system is founded on barbaric colonial aggression and greed—the antithesis of solidarity. Cuba’s proud affirmation of its resilient practice of solidarity has never been more relevant for building resistance to the empire’s destructive designs against the people of the world.
Through a series of activities developed for the occasion, our Cuban hosts explained how Cuba has engaged solidarity since the early 19th century, when Cubans fought alongside Simón Bolívar in Venezuela’s war for independence from Spain. José Martí expounded on the concept of solidarity throughout his writings, affirming that “la solidaridad es el alma de los pueblos” (“solidarity is the soul of the people”), a phrase that we saw painted on the wall of a community center in Havana. Cuba’s war for independence from Spain was won in 1898 with the support of combatants from thirty-seven countries, and freedom fighters from many countries joined the battle to win the Cuban revolution in 1959, most famously Argentinian Che Guevara.
After the triumph of the revolution, Fidel envisioned international solidarity as one of the fundamental pillars of the revolutionary process. In the face of immediate U.S. hostility towards the revolution, he proposed the creation of ICAP as the institutional embodiment of the principle of international solidarity, and it was founded on December 30, 1960. Insisting that “solidarity is the oxygen of the Revolution,” he guided ICAP in forging friendship with the world’s peoples by reaching beyond the official international mechanisms of diplomacy and embassies to build direct people-to-people engagement.
The formation of ICAP was not only an expression of the moral responsibility of the revolution to fight for others, it was also a strategy to resist the isolation that the United States tried to impose on Cuba as soon as the Revolution won state power. In this context, ICAP formulated its mission to promote global understanding and justice, defend Cuba’s right to self-determination, and vigorously counter negative misinformation about the political and social realities of the revolution.
Since 1960, Cuba’s internationalist leadership has been constant and multidimensional. In 1961 Cuba was the first nation to recognize the Algerian Provisional Government (GPRA) after it won independence from France and then continued its support for Algeria with military training and medical missions. In December 1961, Cuba was the first country to recognize the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and Fidel visited the liberated areas of South Vietnam.
Cuba went on to support national liberation movements in the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. It worked in solidarity with the government of Salvador Allende in Chile and supported the Puerto Rican struggle for independence. It supported Maurice Bishop in Grenada and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. With the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1998, Cuba and Venezuela became key allies, expressing political common goals and mutual solidarity in many ways.
Anchored by its advanced health care system, Cuba has sent international medical brigades to work in hundreds of countries around the world, providing critically needed health care since the 1960s. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuba sent 3,700 health workers to thirty-nine countries. Cuba also trains thousands of international medical students at no cost at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which was initiated by Fidel in 1999.
At the same time, Cuba has nourished the development of solidarity within other countries and people around the world to support its socialist project. In 1969, the Venceremos Brigade was started by a multinational coalition of radical activists in the United States to defy the U.S. blockade and its ban on travel to Cuba. From the beginning, ICAP members welcomed and guided the brigadistas to make concrete contributions, working alongside Cuban workers to support the sugarcane harvest and construction needs. The Venceremos Brigade went on to become the longest-lived Cuban solidarity organization in the world, serving as a model for the formation of other brigades from other parts of the globe.
In 1972, the Julio Antonio Mella International Camp was established by ICAP as a site for solidarity activists to come together to concretely support the Revolution through voluntary labor and political education. In 1977, I stayed at the Julio Antonio Mella Camp as part of the tenth Venceremos Brigade. There I was first introduced to ICAP, whose representatives were the Cuban hosts for the Brigade. They guided us in our work constructing homes, coordinated political education activities, led a tour around the island, and helped navigate the complex dynamics among hundreds of North American brigadistas. Through that direct experience, I began to understand the the multifaceted scope of ICAP’s role in nurturing solidarity through people-to-people engagement.
During my 1977 visit, Cuban support for newly independent Angola against attacks from South Africa and the United States was highlighted in our political education sessions and on posters, billboards, and banners across Cuba. As part of the 65th anniversary events, I was very moved to meet members of the first Cuban women’s artillery militia that fought in Angola and now work with the Karibuni Project in Havana. Maria, now eighty years old, was excited to talk to me about my experiences with the tenth Brigade. She spoke proudly of her time in Angola and asked me to bring back a message to people in the United States to challenge the disinformation that is disseminated about Cuban participants in international missions: “Tell them that we went to Angola voluntarily out of solidarity for their struggle. We weren’t forced in any way!”
It was also powerful to hear younger activists who were part of the delegation reflect on their understanding of the kinship between liberation struggles today. One young Palestinian woman on our delegation expressed her perspective:
The United States understands that the strength of Venezuela and Cuba’s existence as alternatives to its hegemony in the Americas largely relies on their solidarity with each other. As a Palestinian organizer, I recognize in their struggles my own people who are being punished for defying the bondage of empire and our determination to maintain a path towards sovereignty and liberation despite the exponential cost. I also see national liberation struggles facing the existential question of what comes next. As a young person, I understand that we cannot simply revere the lineages and systems we inherit from a proud history in Palestine and Cuba, we must work to actually build and maintain them.
I asked Aylen, the ICAP representative responsible for guiding our delegation, how she came to work with ICAP. She explained that in 2014 she attended an international training in New Delhi, India while she was working for the Cuban Institute for Radio and Television. For the first time she had the opportunity to meet many people from countries of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. When she told people that she was Cuban, everyone reacted enthusiastically by saying, “Cuba, Fidel viva!!”
Aylen was very inspired by these responses and decided she wanted to work for an institution where she could share the reality of Cuba with people from around the world all the time. She applied for a job and has worked with ICAP since 2019.
She told me, “This anniversary has been an amazing experience for me. During the celebration when I saw the images on the videos of all the people from around the world that we have worked with, I felt so proud and happy. It also keeps alive the ideas of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel!”
As part of the 65th anniversary activities, ICAP released a book authored by Iliana Garcia Giraldino, titled, La solidaridad de los pueblos, siempre con Cuba (The Solidarity of the People, Always with Cuba). At the presentation of the book, Fernando González Llort, president of ICAP, praised the book as “not only a historical account; it is a living testament to that truth…. Within its pages beats the heart of thousands of men and women in more than 150 countries who have embraced the Cuban cause, who have stood with us, and who, in the most difficult times, have been our inspiration and our strength.”
Fernando became vice president of ICAP three months after he was released from a U.S. prison in 2014, having spent fifteen years unjustly incarcerated as part of the Cuban Five case. His freedom and that of the other members of the Cuban Five was won through a global campaign coordinated by ICAP that epitomized the significant role that international solidarity against U.S. aggression has played in defending revolutionary Cuba. Dozens of countries around the world met annually in Cuba for many years to strategize for the freedom of the Five. After they all won release at the end of 2014, the Five traveled across the world to thank the countries who had supported them.
In 2017 Fernando became the president of ICAP, and his role has expanded over the years as U.S. aggression has escalated. In his keynote address at the main celebration event, he stated:
In recent years, we have faced unprecedented global challenges. The economic war against Cuba has reached extreme levels, with the attempt to suffocate our economy becoming increasingly cruel and inhumane…. Faced with this reality we have witnessed the permanent mobilization of the worldwide solidarity movement with Cuba…at ICAP, we do not see ourselves as an institution: we see ourselves as a trench of ideas, as a workshop of friendship, as a piece in the strategy for the defense of the Revolution.
On January 3, immediately after learning about the U.S. attacks on Venezuela, thousands of Cubans and international supporters rallied in front of the U.S. embassy in Havana to express their outrage, grief, and continued commitment. The next day Cuba declared two days of national mourning on January 5 and 6 for the thity-two Cubans who died defending Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores from the U.S. special forces attack as part of the presidential security team. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s passionate words resonated across Cuba and the world: “Bolivar’s land is sacred! And an attack on its children is an attack on the dignity of all the children of our Americas! Long Live Cuba and Venezuela!”
As Trump intensifies his threats against Cuba and the U.S. media proclaim that Cuba is on the verge of collapse, President Diaz-Canel responds, “Those who are now hysterically railing against our nation are doing so, consumed by rage, because of this people’s sovereign decision to choose its own political model…Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the U.S. for 66 years, and it does not threaten, but rather prepares itself, ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.”
Sharing the legacy and vision embodied in ICAP’s history strengthens us in the U.S. for the struggle ahead. As the National Network on Cuba stated in their message following the aggression against Venezuela, “We stand in unwavering solidarity with the people of Venezuela and with all nations resisting imperial domination…. This is not merely Venezuela’s struggle. It is a defining moment for the future of global peace, sovereignty, and justice.”