Cuban President Regrets Passing of Outstanding Diplomat

Havana, Jun 14 (ACN) Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel regretted the passing of outstanding Cuban diplomat Giraldo Mazola at 86.

On his X account, the head of state extended his condolences to the relatives, colleagues and friends of whom he called “the unforgettable Girardo Mazola.”

Mazola joined the fight against the Batista dictatorship that ruled Cuba before 1959 when he was a 16-year-old medical student.

After the revolution victory in 1959, Mazola turned president of the Cuban Friendship Institute in 1960. This position took him to work close to Revolution leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the setting up of a structure to prevent the isolation of revolutionary Cuba.

He was also executive secretary of the Cuban Communist Party provincial committee in the eastern province of Camaguey from 1969 to 1974 when he joined the Cuban Foreign Ministry. In this office, he was appointed director for Northern Africa and the Middel East up to 1989; he was also deputy foreign minister and chief of the Office for the Attention to the Cuban People up to 2023.

Mazola was ambassador in Algeria, Mauritania, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Chile and Namibia, while he met many official missions in other nations.

At the time of his passing, he was working at the at a research center rescuing the historic memory of the Cuban Foreign Ministry.