Beloved President Bouteflika:

For the Cuban people and for me, it is a very high honor to have the opportunity to recognize, in your own country, the merits that have characterized your life and the efforts of a distinguished son of Algeria such as yourself.

The history of your life is closely linked to the national liberation process, first in the ranks of the National Liberation Army and later on within your country’s internal life, as a parliamentarian and as minister of youth affairs, sports and tourism. You also had the privilege of working alongside our unforgettable friend, President Houari Boumedienne, in the post of foreign minister, during a difficult and important period for the Algerian people and for the peoples of the Third World.

Those were years of harsh confrontation with colonialism and its vestiges, during which Algeria played a transcendental role in the defense and consolidation of the most just causes of the new countries emerging in Africa and other Third World regions. You were given the historic opportunity to contribute, with your tenacious efforts, to the attainment of those supreme objectives. As Algeria’s foreign minister, you were an energetic defender, in international forums, of respect for peace, sovereignty and independence for the new nations and the long-suffering peoples of the world.

In that context, Algeria valiantly assumed the organization of the 4th Summit of Non-Aligned Countries in 1973. It was here, in Algiers, where I ratified Cuba’s internationalist vocation and announced the Cuban revolutionary government’s decision to break diplomatic relations with Israel, as a consequence of the expansionist, aggressive and genocidal policy which that state defended at that time and still maintains against the Arab countries, and especially the heroic Palestinian people.

You were an indefatigable promoter and sponsor of friendship and cooperation between Cuba and Algeria, in particular in the last 10 years, when the ideas of unipolar hegemony and neoliberalism have been considered by many as the only apparent alternatives to the failed socialist experiment in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe.

You have been outstanding in your dedication, your conviction and your actions so that Algeria may attain the place it deserves in this convulsive world, and for the recovery and strengthening of your homeland’s prestige in Africa and the Third World.

Because of your invaluable contribution to peace, sovereignty and respect for self-determination, without foreign interference divorced from cultural and social traditions; because of your insistence on respect for the norms that should regulate the international behavior of states, without considerations of power, size, population, creed or culture; because of your devotion to your country’s reconstruction and the Algerian people’s unity; because of your decisive contribution to the consolidation of friendship and solidarity between Cuba and Algeria, the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba has decided to award you the José Martí Order, the highest decoration granted by the Cuban state.

On behalf of the people of Cuba, allow me to pin it on your chest, as recognition of your role as a Third World statesman and as a supportive friend of the Cuban people.

I beg you to do us the honor of receiving it.