In Rwanda, Salvador Valdés Mesa (I) was attended among other personalities by the first president Paul Kagame.
(Photo:@SalvadorValadesM)

By Roberto Morejón

With the aim of boosting relations in the economic-social and partisan spheres, Cuban Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa visited Rwanda, where he was received by high-ranking local authorities.
 
A landlocked country, with fertile and mountainous terrain, origin of the distinctive land of a thousand hills, Rwanda is located in East Africa, in the Great Lakes region.
 
Vice President Valdés Mesa stayed in Kigali, the capital, as part of a tour of four African countries.
 
In Rwanda, the Cuban leader was received, among other personalities, by President Paul Kagame.
 
The deputy head of state of the largest of the Antilles also met with the Prime Minister, Edouard Ngirente, authorities of the Senate and of the ruling Patriotic Front.
 
With all his interlocutors, the visitor underlined the interest of the Caribbean nation to strengthen and take bilateral ties to the highest level.
 
The hosts highlighted the training of Rwandan professionals in Cuba, particularly in medicine, as well as the work of brigades of these professionals at the beginning of the century.
 
Precisely, the two parties evaluated future cooperation projects in health, an area that could illustrate what President Paul Kagame called the revival of relations.
 
Rwanda is the scene of a plan sponsored by the UN World Food Program for the delivery of school meals, in which refined corn flour has been replaced by a more enriched whole-grain version.
 
The country needs these children and adolescents to support the future, 28 years after a civil war, a confrontation of castes defined by the Belgian colonial power, provoked a genocide.
 
In one of the smallest of the 54 nations of the continent, they are still trying to strengthen pacification and reconciliation, as part of a complex process that has turned Rwanda into a reference for economic growth and a platform for tourism promotion.
 
Cuba seeks to activate ties with Rwanda and with that objective in mind, the highest level delegation in half a century of relations was present in Kigali.
 
Cooperation and solidarity with African countries is part of the Caribbean nation's government policy.
 
Last August, Head of State Miguel Díaz-Canel visited Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa and in the latter country he participated in the BRICS summit in his capacity as president of the grouping of G-77 nations and China.