Cuba honored work of its war correspondents in Angola

HAVANA, Cuba, July 23 (ACN) The War Correspondents' Circle of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) paid tribute to three recently deceased colleagues who fulfilled internationalist missions in the People's Republic of Angola, where Cuba sent nearly 400,000 combatants and 50,000 civilians between 1975 and 1991.

Empresa de Producciones Trimagen (EPT), the group's headquarters, once again gathered a large number of sympathizers at a meeting attended by First Colonel Jorge Luis Velázquez Segismundo, head of the Communications Department of the Political Division of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and UPEC president Ricardo Ronquillo Bello.

Memorable speeches about the role of each of the late correspondents in extreme situations cited Lieutenant Colonel (R) and renowned cameraman Mario Esteban Rivera Vena, who was twice in Angola and once in Vietnam; Raúl Inocente García Álvarez, who served in Angola on behalf of the weekly magazine Verde Olivo and worked for the news
agency Prensa Latina in North Korea, Nicaragua and Mexico; and Rigoberto Senarega Madruga, who boasted three tours in Angola under the FAR Film and TV Studios, as EPT was formerly known, provided remarkable footage of the famous battle of Cuito Cuanavale―where Cuban and Angolan forces defeated South African apartheid and secured the independence of Namibia and stability in Angola―and, as Director of Photography for the Cuban Film Institute, made the documentary Gracias por el miedo (Thanks for the fear) about epic moments of the said fight.

In a post on X after Mr. Senarega passed away, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez remarked that his documentary "honor the memory of our honorable internationalist missions in Africa."

The Circle established Cuban War Correspondent's Day on October 19 in honor of the radio journalist Juan Candelario Bacallao, who fell in combat in Angola in 1986.