Vol. 71/No. 39      October 22, 2007

Basilio Gutiérrez, vice president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, was the main speaker. He said Guevara’s most important contributions to the character of the Cuban Revolution and its people were “solidarity and internationalism,” and a “communist attitude, where the most important thing is the example.

“The U.S. wants to kill the example of the Cuban Revolution,” he said. But Washington has failed in this effort, because it has always “underestimated the Cuban people.”

Gutiérrez pointed to the U.S.-organized Bay of Pigs invasion and to Washington’s hopes today that Cubans will abandon the revolution after the passing of Fidel Castro and leaders of his generation. Jane Franklin, a longtime activist in solidarity with Cuba and author of several books on U.S.-Cuba relations, spoke on the 1976 bombing by U.S.-backed Cuban exiles of a Cuban airplane.

Ben Ramos of the Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban Five read a message from Oscar López Rivera, in prison for his actions in support of Puerto Rican independence. López’s message urged Puerto Ricans to throw themselves into the effort to free the Cuban Five.

Ramos also read a letter from Fernando González, one of the five, about his transfer in September from a federal prison in Oxford, Wisconsin, to Terre Haute, Indiana. López Rivera is also jailed there. Ann Lamb from the Jericho Project read a solidarity message from Mumia Abu-Jamal, who called for the five’s freedom. Abu-Jamal is an activist on death row framed-up on murder charges.
 
 
Related articles:
Nat’l Latino congress backs freedom for Cuban 5
Atlanta campus meeting wins support for Cuban 5
Int’l conference on Cuban 5 to be held in Toronto in November
Join campaign to free Cuban 5  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home