Hundreds of Cuban women, answering a call by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), demonstrated at the Mariana Grajales Park in Havana April 7 in defense of Cuba’s socialist revolution and to demand an end to Washington’s blockade against the Cuban people.
“Our people remain on the side of the revolution. We made a revolution bigger than ourselves and we continue on its side,” said Delsa Esther “Tete” Puebla, a brigadier general in Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, who joined the rally. “We’re guerrillas of the Mariana Grajales women’s platoon,” she said, referring to the first women’s platoon formed during Cuba’s revolutionary war under the leadership of Fidel Castro.
“Our struggle is against imperialism, against capitalism, against the blockade,” Teresa Amarelle Boué, secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women, told reporters, “because presidents change, but the blockade remains. And imperialism remains. That’s why this anti-imperialist spirit will always be part of who we are.”
Washington’s economic war is “the most comprehensive, and longest-lasting system of coercive measures ever imposed against an entire people,” said Josefina Vidal, deputy foreign minister, who was also present at the rally. “It must stop. This abuse cannot continue.”