Cubasource

December 2: Fidel Castro paid homage to the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who fought alongside Africans in their past battles against colonialism as the island's Revolutionary Armed Forces marked its 49th anniversary. The 79-year-old Castro said the men and women who fought battles and provided medical and other assistance in countries including Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia and South Africa through the 1970s and 1980s wrote "a glorious page in history" that should be copied by future generations of Cubans. Stretching over more than three hours, Castro's speech celebrated military successes at home and abroad during the Cold War before the military refocused on homeland defense, bolstering the island's post-Soviet economy. [Fidel Castro’s speech ] (AP, 2/12/05)

December 11: Hundreds of thousands of Cubans took part in training drills under the island’s "The War of All the People" defense strategy to face a possible military aggression by the United States. The Defense Councils were activated at the local and national levels to discuss plans to carry out in the case of an invasion. The training exercises included evacuation drills and maintaining the internal order, in which Civil Defense and Ministry of Interior authorities played the lead role. The training exercises were supervised by Pedro Saez Montejo member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party and President of the Provincial Defense Council; Alvaro López Miera, a three star general and deputy defense minister and chief of staff of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces; and other high ranking military officers. (Granma, 12/12/05)

December 26: A high-ranking Russian military delegation arrived in Havana, headed by the chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, Army General Yury Baluyevsky. The Army General said that the principal aim of his visit to Cuba is the strengthening of ties with the island in the military sphere. “We expect to impart a new quality to our relations”, Baluyevsky said. "I feel that we are duty-bound to maintain friendly relations with Cuba and not to abandon it at a difficult time for this country,'' Baluyevsky told the press. ``Contacts in the military field will be given new meaning.'' General Alvaro López Miera, chief of staff of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, welcomed the delegation. This is the first visit of a high-ranking military delegation from Russia since 1998. (Itar-Tass, 27/12/05)

December 28: Cuban Defense Minister Raúl Castro met in Havana with Russia's second-ranking military officer, official media said, in a throwback to the Cold War when Cuba was armed and financed by the Soviet Union. The entire front page of the Communist party daily, Granma, was taken up with a photo of the meeting and commentary describing the encounter as one between old friends. "The conversation between the two military leaders was cordial and friendly, with both recognizing the historic ties between their two countries,'' Granma said. Baluyevsky is touring military units and installations equipped with vintage Soviet hardware, and was expected to vacation on the island as well. Diplomats said Russia had been supplying some spare parts, and little else, to the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, but that could change if Cuba re-entered the arms market in earnest. Russia recently sold 100,000 AK-47 automatic rifles and other equipment to Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally. (Itar-Tass, The New York Times, 28/12/05)