Vol. 80/No. 16      April 25, 2016

 

New Zealand events build support for Cuban Revolution

 
DUNEDIN, New Zealand — “Cuba still needs your solidarity and support. Continue mobilizing in order to defend our right to self-determination without the economic blockade and any interference in our internal affairs,” wrote Fernando González in a message to the opening of an exhibit of paintings by Antonio Guerrero here March 22.

González and Guerrero are two of the Cuban Five, who were imprisoned on frame-up charges in the U.S. for activities defending the Cuban Revolution.

The exhibition “I will die the way I’ve lived” — watercolors depicting the Five’s first 17 months in prison in the “hole” — was opened at the Otago Art Society Gallery by Cuba’s ambassador to New Zealand, Mario Alzugaray, with over 20 attending. The showing was sponsored by the Cuba Friendship Society in Dunedin and the Alliance Party.

“Many people are surprised when I tell them the embargo is still in place,” Alzugaray said at a meeting earlier in the day at the University of Otago, referring to the 55-year U.S. economic war against Cuba. “The small parts that have been lifted so far are directly connected to U.S. interests.”

“The blockade is imposed on companies around the world,” he said. “Even in China my colleague tried to buy a television from Walmart and the company refused when they saw he had a Cuban passport.”

“In Cuba we may not have the best hospitals in the world,” he said. “But the treatment you receive does not depend on your personal wealth,” a registration of the transformation of social relations as a result of the revolution.

An audience member challenged how Cuba could be socialist when it allowed Washington to have a naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Since the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, Alzugaray said, the revolutionary government has demanded the return of Guantánamo, which has been held by U.S. imperialism since 1903 under a “lease” it imposed on the Cuban people.

“As far as I know it is the only U.S. military base that is maintained against the will of the host nation,” he said. “An important part of defending our revolution just 90 miles from the U.S. has been to never give Washington a pretext for a full-scale invasion of our island. So there has never been an attempt to militarily take it back.”
 
 
Related articles:
‘Keep up fight to end US embargo, return Guantánamo Bay to Cuba’
Events on Cuba
‘Return Guantánamo to Cuba now!’
 
 
 
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