HAVANA — Several young photographers won prizes at an event here Feb. 19 that highlighted both the fight against the U.S. economic blockade on Cuba and the ties of solidarity between the Cuban Revolution and the Puerto Rican independence struggle.
The contest was sponsored by Casa Editora Abril, publishing house of Cuba’s Union of Young Communists, the Puerto Rican Mission in Cuba and Cuba’s neighborhood-based Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Gerardo Hernández, national coordinator of the CDRs, noted that many of the photos captured, with an eye for detail, how the U.S. rulers’ economic war affects every facet of daily life there. As an eloquent statement of protest, he said, they are even more important today in face of Washington’s brutal oil blockade against the people of Cuba.
Hernández is one of the Cuban Five, who spent up to 16 years in U.S. prisons for helping defend their country against counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups planning violent attacks on Cuba. He was joined at the event by René González, another of the Five.
The meeting also marked the 60th anniversary of the Puerto Rican Mission in Cuba. Edwin González, a leader of the Hostosian National Independence Movement of Puerto Rico and representative of the mission, explained that this symbolic embassy of the Puerto Rican people — the only one in the world — is a testament to the Cuban Revolution’s internationalist commitment to the Puerto Rican struggle to end U.S. colonial rule. Well-known Puerto Rican photographer Ramón Frontera was one of the main organizers of the contest.
The jury choosing the winners was four Puerto Ricans, including Juan Segarra Palmer, who spent 19 years in U.S. prisons for his pro-independence actions. The audience also enjoyed songs by popular “trova” singer Tony Ávila.
Hernández condemned Washington’s military assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, and Cilia Flores, his wife. At his request, the audience honored the 32 Cuban internationalists killed during that attack with a minute’s standing ovation.