Giraldo Mazola Collazo

Outstanding Cuban diplomat. Secretary of Foreign Relations of the National Leadership of the 26 of July Movement. Founder of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).

At the Ministry of Foreign Relations he held the positions of director of North Africa and the Middle East, vice minister and head of the Office of Attention to the Population. In his diplomatic career he served as ambassador and carried out numerous official missions in various countries.

He completed his secondary education at Instituto Edison. Roberto Fernández Retamar, who was his professor at that stage, turned him into an insatiable reader of history books.

He studied Medicine until the university closed in late 1956, always incorporated into the action groups of the 26 of July Movement, although he continued working in the orthopedics ward of Calixto García Hospital.

After the revolutionary triumph he studied Social Sciences at the Ñico López Superior School of the PCC.

He participated in conspiracies, suffered imprisonment, wounds and torture. He witnessed firsthand the massacre at Castillo del Príncipe in late July 1958.

He participated in the World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna in August 1959, which led to his return to the direction of the Movement in Havana, coordinated by Emilio Aragonés, naming him secretary of International Relations of the 26 of July. Thus he began at the end of 1959 as secretary of Foreign Relations of the National Leadership of the 26 of July Movement; he held those functions for two or three months, until Emilio called him and told him:
"the Commander in Chief wanted them to make him a bill project to create an organization that would be called the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples"

After the triumph of the Revolution, at 23 years old, he became founding President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in 1960, this responsibility allowed him to work closely with Fidel and Che in the creation and implementation of a structure designed to prevent the isolation of revolutionary Cuba.

Among his memories remained the days of 1960 when he was entrusted with the task of directing an institution that had just been founded and whose objectives would be forged as it progressed.

Regarding his experiences as founding president of ICAP he expressed:
"ICAP for me was something extraordinary because it put me in contact with the highest leadership of the country," says the then young founder emotionally, who from visible modesty adds, "they entrusted me with a task that undoubtedly exceeded my capacity, according to my scarce experiences"

The first instructions on how to guide so many people he received in conversations with the Commander of the Revolution himself Fidel Castro Ruz, who closely supervised the work of the fledgling organization.

"Fidel wanted many people to come to Cuba to see for themselves the transformations that were taking place in Cuba and that could be extended to other places"

Mazola remembers how "solidarity with Cuba arose spontaneously and always brought support, backing and admiration from the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean".

"Not giving the little that we had left over, but sharing what we had was an important premise that marked ICAP from its beginnings"

Mazola pointed out the progress of Cuba's solidarity work and considered ICAP: "a machine for making friends"

He had the possibility, while young, of participating in meetings of Fidel and Che, with Raúl Castro and Osvaldo Dorticós, with leaders and foreign delegations that visited ICAP.

Later, from 1969 to 1974, he served as secretary of the Executive Bureau of the Provincial Committee of the PCC in Camagüey, among other functions.

In 1974 he entered MINREX, coming to hold the positions of director of North Africa and the Middle East from 1978 to 1989 and vice minister from 1980 to 1993 and head of the Office of Attention to the Population until 2023.

He also served as ambassador to Algeria, Mauritania, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Chile and Namibia and carried out numerous official missions in other countries.

At the time of his death, he was working at the Documentary Management Center, from where he continued his work of rescuing the historical memory of MINREX as a legacy for the different generations of Cuban diplomats.

He passed away on June 13, 2024 in Havana, Cuba at the age of 86.