Vol. 79/No. 24 July 13, 2015
Serrano, a deputy to Cuba’s National Assembly for People’s Power, visited Australia and New Zealand as Cuban leaders reach out around the world to strengthen solidarity with the socialist revolution there, building on the victory registered Dec. 17 when Cuban President Raúl Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama announced they would begin talks on restoring diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries, which were severed by Washington more than five decades ago.
“We are celebrating a huge victory in winning the freedom of the Cuban Five and the failure of U.S. policy” against the Cuban Revolution, Serrano said. She noted that “our five comrades had been unjustly imprisoned” by the U.S. government for up to 16 years. The remaining three Cuban revolutionaries, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, returned to Cuba Dec. 17.
To applause, she saluted this “real victory, not only of the Cuban people but also of you. It is thanks to the resistance of the Five, the resilience of the Cuban people, the international solidarity and the wisdom of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution.”
The public meeting here took place as part of a national gathering of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, attended by representatives from across the country, as well as the new Cuban ambassador to Australia, José Manuel Galego, and guests from New Zealand and Timor Leste.
In Canberra June 4-5, Serrano met with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and other parliamentarians. The Cuban leader spoke at a public meeting of more than 80 people in Melbourne June 7.
Washington’s opening of talks to normalize relations showed the U.S. government acknowledges that the policy of “refusing to recognize Cuba’s revolutionary government” for over half a century failed to overturn the revolution, Serrano said. Now, without any concessions by Havana, the “complex but respectful negotiations are step by step eliminating the main barriers to diplomatic relations.”
“On May 29 Cuba was withdrawn from Washington’s state sponsors of terrorism list,” she said to applause. “Cuba should never have been on that spurious list.” The U.S. has no moral authority to make such lists, she said, adding, “Cuba has been a victim of state terrorism sponsored, financed, tolerated and promoted from the U.S.”
Pointing to the everyday impacts of “the financial, commercial, and trade blockade by the U.S. and international financial system,” Serrano said the fight to end this economic war “is the first priority of the international solidarity that we need.”
In response to a question about Obama’s escalation of sanctions and threats against Venezuela in the midst of the Washington-Havana negotiations, Serrano said, “We are very concerned about increasing attacks against Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia; against all the Latin American countries challenging U.S. hegemony.”
‘We will not abandon principles’
“Nothing will divide Cuba from Venezuela,” she said. “Yes, we are talking with the U.S. but that doesn’t mean we are abandoning our principles. We will not abandon any of the causes we have supported during the history of the Cuban Revolution.”Washington was forced to back off from recent threats and sanctions against Venezuela when March 16 talks in Havana between U.S. and Cuban representatives ended abruptly, as the Cuban government made its intransigent opposition to these attacks known.
The Australia-Cuba Friendship Society gathering also featured two public panels June 6. The first was on a Cuban program for adult Aboriginal literacy in remote towns in central Australia known as Yo si puedo (Yes I can). Jack Beetson, a veteran Aboriginal leader and director of Literacy for Life, spoke alongside Cuban Ambassador Galego.
Beetson explained how he had worked with the Cuban Embassy to initiate the literacy campaign for Aborigines in isolated rural towns. The project has been an outstanding success.
In Wilcannia, a largely Aboriginal town of 600 people in far western New South Wales, “not one adult had graduated for literacy in 20 years, although [the Australian government] had spent millions of dollars funding literacy courses,” Beetson said. “In six months, 16 people graduated from the first ‘Yes I can’ pilot program.”
Beetson paid special tribute to the Cuban volunteer teachers sent to isolated towns. “That sort of sacrifice is required to make a difference,” he said.
Serrano spoke on a second panel, “Cuba in Today’s World,” alongside Tim Anderson, a Sydney University lecturer, and Dr. Merita Monteiro from Timor Leste.
Monteiro explained that in 2004 she was “one of close to 1,000 students” who studied medicine in Cuba. “The spirit of humanity and solidarity is the most important thing we have learnt from Cuba. That is what makes it so different,” she said. “Now we are following the Cuban preventative programs bringing health services to the communities,” house by house.
Serrano responded by pointing to the pride of the Cuban people in their revolution’s internationalist missions of doctors, teachers and fighters around the world. “It is not something we do to gain influence,” she said. “As our commander-in-chief says, ‘To be internationalist is to repay our debt to humanity.’”
BY PATRICK BROWN
AND JANET ROTH
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Cuban revolutionary Kenia Serrano was met with keen interest at meetings here June 10-11 as she described the Cuban working people’s unwavering continuation of their revolutionary course. Upwards of 100 people heard her at a public meeting, a gathering of trade union activists in the FIRST Union hall, and a round table discussion hosted by the Centre for Latin American Studies at the University of Auckland. She also did three media interviews.
FIRST Union, with 27,000 members, is based in retail, transport, banks, lumber and textile.
Serrano, whose visit was organized by the Cuba Friendship Society, told the public meeting June 10 current talks between Washington and Havana “are the result of our resistance. We didn’t give up. We didn’t go back to capitalism.”
U.S. President Barack Obama “recognized the failure of the policy” of open confrontation, Serrano said. But the U.S. government “is not changing its goals, it is changing its methods.” She called for an end to the U.S. economic embargo.
“Do these changes mean there will be a McDonald’s on every corner?” asked one participant.
“We allow foreign investment only for the benefit of the Cuban people,” said Serrano. “Investors and companies have to accept the Cuban labor code and laws on investment. And the fundamental property remains state property.”
Does the Cuban government block access to the Internet? another asked.
“We are very open to the Internet,” Serrano said, “but it’s a problem of resources. Transmission through the United States is prohibited under the blockade. So we have built a fiber optic cable linking us to Venezuela.
“We aim to have every school connected by 2018,” she said. “If the blockade is lifted, we will achieve much more.”
At the University of Auckland round table, Serrano was asked, “What will happen when Fidel and Raúl Castro are gone?” The revolution’s historic leaders have helped to “prepare new generations,” she said. “It is not one generation ending and the next starting but different generations doing things together in continuity.”
Washington and its allies “underestimate the Cuban people,” said Serrano. “They think the young people are so weak they’re not going to be revolutionaries. They don’t know us.”
Serrano condemned Washington’s campaign against the Venezuelan government. “We are forever with Venezuela building independent countries,” she said.