Vol. 80/No. 13 April 4, 2016
End embargo, says Cuban official in Bay Area tour
Fraga is taking advantage of the re-establishment last year of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments, which were broken by Washington in 1961. Until recently, Cuban diplomats had to apply for special permission to travel outside the capital. Now they simply have to inform the State Department of their plans.
Fraga spoke to hundreds of students at five campuses during a March 7-12 Bay Area tour, as well as at meetings of 120 here and in San Francisco.
In each presentation Fraga cited facts about life in Cuba that were new to many students, including life expectancy of 79 years, near zero illiteracy, free education, and 50,281 health care workers providing services in 68 nations today. “For us, health care is not a business,” he said. “This is what we call solidarity.”
These accomplishments have been possible because of the 1959 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, despite the impact of the U.S. economic embargo and attempts to isolate Cuba.
Fraga showed audiences a U.S. Department of State memo from April 6, 1960, that explains the origin of the embargo. Citing majority support for the revolutionary government, the memo calls for “denying money and supplies to Cuba, … decreas[ing] monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” That policy, which was deepened under Democratic and Republican administrations alike over the next five and a half decades, utterly failed to achieve its aim.
Fraga also explained how Washington has maintained a naval base on Cuban territory at Guantánamo, against the will of the Cuban people. So while relations between the two countries are increasingly diplomatic, he said, they are not normal.
At Merritt College in Oakland Siri Brown, chair of the African American Studies Department, introduced Fraga and spoke about the record of Cuba in supporting liberation struggles worldwide. “They fought against apartheid in South Africa,” she said. “It is the one nation that has withstood imperialism for decades.”
Brown said she had visited a facility in Cuba for juveniles charged with crimes. “There was no barbed wire fence. No guns. The whole point of the facility was to reorient the youth.”
Fraga spoke to students at Chabot College, Sonoma State, San Francisco State and the College of Marin. The tour was organized by the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity.
The public meeting in Richmond was held in the City Council chambers. City Council member and former Mayor Gayle McLaughlin read a council resolution opposing the embargo.
Fraga spoke the next night at the ANSWER coalition headquarters in San Francisco, where Supervisor John Avalos presented Fraga with a Board of Supervisors proclamation welcoming him and calling for an end to the trade embargo.
Related articles:
US out of Guantánamo! End Cuba embargo now!
Socialist Workers Party campaign statement
As Obama visits, Cuban people defend revolution
Cuban women’s leaders speak on gains of revolution
‘For us socialism means freedom, sovereignty, dignity’
Letter: Cuba mobilizes against Zika virus
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