Vol. 74/No. 12      March 29, 2010

Mariya Abrosikova, president of the Student Political Science Association, opened the Hunter event. Her group was one of several campus organizations, including the Hostos Puerto Rican Club and the Women’s Rights Coalition, that hosted the event.

The cochairs of the Hunter meeting were Nancy Cabrero, president of Casa de las Américas, a Cuban American organization here that defends Cuba’s socialist revolution, and Alison Bodine of IFCO/Pastors for Peace. The July 26 Coalition also sponsored both the Hunter and Harlem events.

Maritzel González, the FMC’s foreign relations representative for North America, explained that August 23 will be the 50th anniversary of the founding of the FMC, which “came out of the triumph of the revolution.” She was referring to the 1959 overthrow of a hated U.S.-backed dictatorship by millions of Cuban workers and peasants. They threw the wealthy landlords and factory owners out of power and formed a government representing their own class interests. This revolutionary government carried out an extensive land reform, nationalized industry and placed it under workers control, and enacted measures to uproot race and sex discrimination, including programs to bring women into the workforce, politics, and society. The FMC has been at the center of the revolution’s effort to overcome women’s oppression ever since.
 
Cuban role in Haiti
González pointed proudly to the role of Cuban medical personnel in Haiti, many of them women, in the aftermath of the earthquake this year. Cubans go anywhere help is needed, she said. “We go into jungles, we ride mules if we have to.”

When the quake hit, González added, a Cuban medical team of several hundred was already there. In many parts of Haiti they were providing the only health care there. “Today there are more than 1,400, including 406 Haitian graduates of Cuban medical schools,” she said.

González contrasted this to the U.S. embargo, which forces Cuba to buy medical supplies “at much higher prices from third countries,” rather than from U.S. companies.

Castañeda spoke about the case of the Cuban Five. These five Cuban revolutionaries have been in U.S. prisons since their arrest in 1998. They were in Florida monitoring the activity of right-wing Cuban American groups that have a history of violent attacks on Cuba. They were convicted on trumped-up “conspiracy” charges in 2001 and given long sentences. “Thanks to your efforts here,” she said, “you put enough pressure on the U.S. government to reduce the sentences of three of them. They deserve much more than a reduction. They should be free!”

Yamila González spoke about the campaign the FMC is waging to win visas for Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, the wives of Cuban Five prisoners René González and Gerardo Hernández respectively, so they can visit their husbands. Washington has repeatedly denied them visas. Nancy Cabrero announced that Casa de las Américas is launching an effort in the New York area to win support for the visa fight.  
 
Harlem meeting
The issue of Black rights in Cuba was a topic at both the Hunter and Harlem meetings. In Harlem, the predominantly Black audience warmly welcomed the FMC representatives. Nellie Bailey, president of the Coalition to Save Harlem, chaired the meeting.

In the discussion one African American woman said she had encountered racist attitudes when visiting Cuba and asked the speakers why.

Castañeda explained the Cuban Revolution’s history of combating racism. “Prior to the revolution you could see signs that said, ‘No children, dogs, or Negroes allowed,’” she said. “We inherited a nation full of racism and discrimination against women. Only because of the revolutionary transformation in Cuba, have women, blacks, and people of color achieved full and equal rights under the law.”

She said that while legal discrimination ended with the victory of the revolution, “there is still work to be done, because discriminatory attitudes remain in the minds of many. With 50 years of the revolution we have not been able to eliminate 450 years of colonialism.”

The Harlem program also featured presentations opposing the slander campaign launched by Carlos Moore, a longtime opponent of the revolution who claims the Cuban government is racist and violates the civil rights of black Cubans. The speakers were U.S. writer and political activist Amiri Baraka and Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report.  
 
Discussion of ‘dissidents’
One participant in the Hunter meeting asked the FMC representatives their opinions on the recent suicide by Cuban prisoner Orlando Zapata. Zapata died while waging a hunger strike and refusing medical treatment.

“The U.S. media called Zapata a ‘dissident,’ but he was a common criminal, who had many victims,” said Yamila González. “They don’t tell you this, or how hard our doctors struggled to save his life.”

A Cuban American opponent of the revolution took the floor to claim that the wives of “dissidents” imprisoned in Cuba were being mistreated by the Cuban government. The FMC speakers said that political debate is encouraged in Cuba, but those who accept Washington’s money to organize against the revolution are mercenaries, not “dissidents.”

An African American student asked how she could be part of Cuban educational programs, such as the medical school other U.S. students have attended. Maritzel González said that U.S. law denies citizens here the right to freely travel to Cuba. “That’s the greatest difficulty you will face,” she said. “The U.S. government has to give you a license. Without that you can’t go to school there.”

“I was inspired by the presentations,” said Enrique Zender, who came to the Hunter event after getting a leaflet on campus. “If there’s ever been a time to learn the truth about Cuba, it’s now.”
 
 
Related articles:
Chinese-Cuban general starts speaking tour in Montreal
Cuban 5 art shown in Oregon
Miami car caravan protests U.S. ban on travel to Cuba  
 
 
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