Chicago brigadistas explain ‘What we saw in Cuba’

Militant/Laura Anderson

CHICAGO — More than 50 people attended a “What We Saw in Cuba” meeting here May 19 with participants in the 12th International May Day Brigade to Cuba. Above center, Arewa Karen Winters addresses the event at the Trinity Episcopal Church. Winters was one of the brigadistas who traveled to Cuba for the first time. Steve Eckardt, Chicago Cuba Coalition co-coordinator and a brigade participant, chaired the event.

“I went because I was interested in socialist revolution,” Samir Qaisar, a packinghouse worker, told the crowd. “I had already learned about the importance of revolutionary leadership. In Cuba the July 26th Movement was that leadership. I learned in Cuba that leadership needs broad popular support, and they had and still have it.”

Eriika Etshokin, a medical research administrator at Lurie Children’s Hospital, spoke about what people in the U.S. could learn from the revolution. “This was my Cuba 101 course. We often speak about the need to end the embargo and how it would benefit the Cuban people,” she said. “But it would also benefit us in the U.S. There’s a lot of medical innovation going on there that we don’t have access to, such as diabetes and cancer vaccines. I got to see a society where human wellness and quality of life is not a business.”

Andrea Meza and Courtney Castillo, students at Columbia College, came to learn more in preparation for a trip they are making to Cuba this summer.

There are plans for an “In Che’s Footsteps” brigade to Cuba Oct. 1-15. Che Guevara was assassinated 50 years ago by CIA agents and Bolivian army troops. Guevara had been captured while leading combat against the dictatorship there. The brigade, sponsored by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), will visit places where Che fought the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba and where he lived and worked helping to advance the revolution after its victory in 1959; meet combatants who fought alongside Che; and do voluntary agricultural work. For more information, email alatina.csur@icap.cu.

— JOHN HAWKINS