(feature article)
Cuban leader: ‘Help fight to lift Washington embargo’

Bill Hackwell

RICHMOND, Calif. — At a packed meeting of 200 people here Nov. 13, Kenia Serrano, above, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, hailed the opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba as a “victory of international solidarity.”

“It came because the U.S. policy toward Cuba was a failure,” she said. “It left the U.S. isolated. It came without Cuba making any concessions. We continue on our path of building socialism.”

Serrano thanked the many individuals and organizations in the audience who were part of the international campaign to free the Cuban Five, five revolutionaries imprisoned by Washington in 1998 for working to protect Cuba from violent attacks by enemies of the revolution based in the U.S.

“Support is now needed for lifting the U.S. economic blockade, that is a tremendous obstacle on Cuba’s development,” Serrano said.

Richmond’s mayor, Tom Butt, and City Councilwoman and former Mayor Gayle McLaughlin welcomed Serrano. Butt read a proclamation calling for an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The meeting was chaired by Alicia Jrapko of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity, which along with others sponsored the event.

Walter Turner, president of the board of directors of Global Exchange, which coordinated the Bay Area visit by Serrano and Leima Martínez, a representative of the institute’s North American division, highlighted Cuba’s record of international solidarity. “We would not have seen the freeing of Nelson Mandela without what the Cubans did, sending troops to Angola to fight the invading South African apartheid army,” he said. “Three of the Cuban Five fought in Angola.”

A life-size image of Oscar López Rivera, the Puerto Rican independence fighter who has been held for 34 years in U.S. jails, was on the stage. López sent a message to the meeting that was read by Karina Valentín, his granddaughter. Serrano said Cuba stands with the campaign to win his freedom, pointing out that Fernando González, one of the Cuban Five, spent four years in the same cell with him.

Next week’s Militant will report on all the Bay Area tour events, including a meeting of over 100 sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition and the Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition in San Francisco, Serrano’s appearance at the Commonwealth Club, Serrano and Martínez’s meeting with leaders of farmworkers’ struggles and fast-food workers and their exchange with dozens of students at San Francisco State University.

— BETSEY STONE