“Afghanistan cannot be allowed to set a precedent.”
An interview with Dr. Matin Baraki on the historical lessons from the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
An interview with Dr. Matin Baraki on the historical lessons from the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
An East German medical school dedicated to internationalism
As part of our research into the Medical College, we conducted an interview with former German teacher Ulrich Kolbe in July 2021. In this first part, he describes the GDR’s anti-imperialist strategy in general and discusses the development of the political consciousness of GDR citizens.
Ronnie Kasrils, born 1938 in Johannesburg, joined the South African Communist Party at the age of 23. He was a founding member of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC). After receiving military and intelligence training in the Soviet Union and the GDR, Kasrils helped to establish a sophisticated underground network of anti-apartheid fighters from the mid-1960s onwards. Following the victory over apartheid, Kasrils served as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry (1999–2004) and Minister of Intelligence Services (2004–2008) in the ANC governments.
Achim Reichardt, born in 1929, had served as a diplomat for the GDR in Sudan, Lebanon, and Libya. From 1982 to 1990 he was general secretary of the Solidarity Committee of the GDR, an organization emerging in the 1960s to administer the financial and material donations collected by the GDR’s mass organizations to support the liberation movements and newly independent states in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Solidarity Committee became a central coordinator of the GDR’s solidarity worldwide.