Record of the meeting on March 8, 1986 between Honecker and Castro. Topics include plans to celebrate the impending 40th anniversary of the GDR, the Cuban government's relations with the Catholic Church, the arms race, U.S. imperialism and importing/exporting of Cuban goods.

Honecker thanks Qaddafi for his contributions to the cause of the movement of progressive states in the Middle East and the defense against imperialism and Zionism. He expresses concern about the conflict in the Horn of Africa region and wants to arrange a meeting of GDR representative Werner Lamberz with Qaddafi in Tripoli. Further proposed topics for this meeting include talks with representatives of the Palestinian revolution and the continuing development of East German-Libyan relations. (There is a telegram from 1 December 1977 signed by Hermann Axen that refers to this meeting.)

Honecker gives a positive assessment of the consultation between the GDR delegation led by Werner Lamberz in Tripoli in December 1977. He comments on the most common position in the struggle against imperialism in the Arab countries and Africa and commits to extended East German-Libyan cooperation on political, economic and military levels. Honecker confirms the planned visit of a Libyan military delegation to Berlin, the planned first meeting of a common government committee, as well as the deployment of a temporary GDR representative to Tripoli.

The following excerpt--from a discussion on 3 April 1977 at the House of the SED Central Committee in East Berlin--contains Castro's impressions of the situations in several southern African countries, (e.g., Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, People's Republic of the Congo), and several guerrilla or liberation groups in the region, such as the African National Congress (ANC), then struggling for power in South Africa, and two groups fighting to rule Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African Political Union (ZAPU). Also included are Castro's assessments of individual political leaders, remarks about coordination with Moscow, and an over-all conclusion that Africa was the place to inflict a major blow against world imperialism.