Mandela, who has long been at odds with the US over his friendship with Castro, said South Africa ``is proud to be amongst the majority of nations who affirm the right of the Cuban people to determine their own destiny''.He added, ``Sanctions which punish them for having decided to do so are anathema to the international order to which we aspire''.

Mandela gave Castro, who is on a two-day state visit to South Africa after attending the Non-Aligned Movement summit which ended in Durban on Friday, the Order of Good Hope: Class One, Grand Class in thanks for Cuba's support for the struggle against apartheid.

Cuba was a staunch ally of Mandela's African National Congress during the apartheid era and also sent thousands of troops to Angola to fight apartheid government soldiers in the late 1970s and1980s.

At present hundreds of Cuban doctors are employed in South Africa's rural areas to provide health care for people previously impoverished by apartheid.

``You will not need my words, Mr President, to sense the special place that the Cuban people occupy in the hearts of millions of South Africans,'' Mandela told Castro.

A very emotional Castro thanked Mandela and saluted him as a world statesman and a ``foremost son of Africa''.

Castro said his visit earlier in the day to the cell on Robben Island where Mandela was incarcerated for most of his 27 years in prison, brought back memories of his own struggle in prison to keep faith against the odds.

``I only spent two years in solitary confinement and I am ashamed to compare myself to Nelson Mandela,'' he added. ``It would be good for those who try to ignore our countries to visit the cell and be locked in there for three days''.

He then thrilled some 800 guests by quoting fellow revolutionary Ernesto `Che' Guevara: ``Brothers and sisters ofAfrica ever onward to victory''.Castro earlier on Friday addressed a joint sitting of the two houses of the South African parliament and will Saturday visit the Hector Peterson Memorial, a symbol of black youths' revolt against apartheid, in Soweto.

Mandela last year gave the Order of Good Hope to another US pariah Libyan leader Moamer Khadafi for his support to the anti-apartheid struggle.