50th Anniversary of Women Federation Celebrated in Cuba

Cuban women celebrated the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) at a ceremony attended by President Raul Castro

With an oath to defend and continue to improve the Cuban revolution and the socialist system, Cuban women celebrated the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) at a ceremony attended by President Raul Castro.

FMC Secretary General Yolanda Ferrer presented Raul with a framed copy of the text of the FMC’s oath, which she read before the audience gathered at the Universal Hall of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) in Havana.

“The FMC,” it reads, “is a bastion of the political vanguard of the Cuban people. Its creative, active members are ready to take on any challenges.”

In his speech, First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers Jose Ramon Machado said that the history of Cuba cannot be written without making reference to the role played by women. “Throughout these years of struggle,” he said, “there has not been a single economic, social or political deed, a scientific, cultural or political accomplishment in which women have not taken part.”

Machado spoke of the situation of women before the 1959 triumph of the Cuban revolution and how they were subjected to all kinds of racial, class and gender discrimination. In contrast, more than four million women are now members of the FMC, representing 88.5 percent of Cuban women over the age of 14. They also represent 46 percent of the labor force in the civil state sector, and 65.1 percent of technicians and professionals.

Machado noted that although Cuban women enjoy greater social equity, there is still much to be done, and as an example spoke of how Cuban society still views domestic work as the responsibility of women.

He added that the number of women in management positions is still low, and stressed the need to work towards making Fidel’s dream of a government of men and women come true.

With regards to the FMC, he spoke about the importance of improving efficiency and the work carried out in the communities with young and old generations alike.

He ratified the Party and leadership’s confidence in Cuban women, as the honorable and faithful followers of the eternal founder of the FMC, the late Vilma Espin, a woman who was “an example of abnegation, determination and love.”

Another gift for the Cuban FMC members on their special day was a message by two of the Cuban Five —five antiterrorist fighters who for more than twelve years have been unfairly imprisoned in the United States— expressing their eternal gratitude and admiration of Cuban women.

The ceremony also included the screening of Sentirte mujer, a documentary by journalist Eva Maura Diaz, and a performance by the Camerata Romeu women’s string orchestra.

Attending the celebration were Party and government leaders, FMC representatives from each of Cuba’s fifteen provinces, a group of the organization’s founders, relatives of the Cuban Five, and representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.

As part of the celebrations for this 50th anniversary of the FMC, 16 outstanding members of the organization were awarded the Ana Betancourt Order, granted by the Council of State at the request of the FMC.

The women received the decorations from the hands of First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers Jose Ramon Machado, Politburo member Concepción Campa Huergo, and FMC Secretary General Yolanda Ferrer.

http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/

AIDA BAHR TO SPEAK IN EDINBURGH

Aida Bahr is a prize-winning writer of fiction, a literary critic and
screenwriter from Cuba. She has been the director of the Oriente
Publishing House, based in Santiago de Cuba, since 1998. A
member of the National Union of Writers and Artists, she is one of
the organizers of the Havana International Book Fair. She also
lectures on Caribbean and Latin American literature written by
women.

Aida Bahr, a leading figure in Cuban culture, to speak on
CULTURE and the CUBAN REVOLUTION

Friday 10th September
Faculty Room South,
David Hume Tower,
George Square, Edinburgh
6.30pm
Hispanic Studies guest lecture

The revolution doesn’t tell you “believe”! It tells you –“read”!
Fidel Castro

Meeting sponsored by: Dr Fiona J. Mackintosh, lecturer in
Latin American Literature Edinburgh University; Dr Carolina
Orloff, Researcher Edinburgh University; Screen Academy
Scotland; Joy Dunn, President STUC; Elaine Smith MSP, Convenor
Cross Party Group on Cuba Scottish Parliament; Gerry Morrissey,
Gen Secretary, BECTU; Jeremy Dear, Gen Secretary NUJ; Cllr.
Gordon Munro, Lab. spokesperson on culture; Unison City of
Edinburgh Branch; Barry White (personal capacity), Campaign for
Press and Broadcasting Freedom; Florrie James, artist; Roxana
Pope, filmmaker & writer; Niroshini Thambar, musician &
composer; The Linlithgow Bookshop; Pathfinder Books; Word
Power Books; Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign; East Coast
Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Carlos Arredondo, FABULA

A Trip to Prison With One of the Cuban Five

Visiting Gerardo
By DANNY GLOVER and SAUL LANDAU

From the Ontario California airport some 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles we drove north on Highway 15, the road to Las Vegas. Cars with expectant amateur gamblers and loaded big rigs climb and descend the mountains where the Angeles and San Bernadino National Forests meet.

To the east lies the high desert some 4,000 feet above sea level. Amidst junipers, Joshua trees and sagebrush, we turn off from the man-made freeway to the jester’s creation of a shopping mall in Hesperia where we pick up Chavela, Gerardo Hernandez’ older sister. (Danny changes trousers because the prison doesn’t allow visitors to wear khaki).

We pass fast food joints with chain names, nail and hair salons, tattoo parlors, gas stations and min-marts (a drive by of American culture) going west and then north on 395 to the six year old US. Federal Penitentiary Complex, a 630,000 square foot high-security prison ($101.4 million); designed to cage 960 male inmates.

In the institutional grey visitors’ lobby a guard hands us forms with numbers on top, nods at a book to sign and eye-signals to a pile of pens. We write, hand him back the forms (Danny had to stand against the wall while a guard recorded his photo onto the prison computer) and sit in the gray waiting room with other visitors – all black and Latino. (Saul’s and Chavela’s pix were already stored in the prison computer from previous visits).

We wait for twenty minutes. A guard calls our number. We empty our pockets except for money. (Danny checks his car keys; Saul hands over a pen fastened to his shirt pocket). We pass through a sensitive airport-type screening machine, pick up our belts and eyeglasses that have gone through Xray, and extend our inner forearms for stamping by another uniformed guard. Two black women and an elderly Latino couple get the same treatment. We exchange nervous smiles. Visitors in a strange land!

He passes our ids through a drawer connected to another sealed room on the opposite side of a thick plastic window. A guard there checks the documents and pushes buttons to open a heavy metal door. The group enters an outdoor passage. Blinding late morning sun and desert heat shocks our bodies after the air-conditioned chambers. We wait. A guard confers through a small slit in the door of the building housing the inmates – gun towers on each side; masses of rolled barbed wire covering the tops of concrete walls.

We wait, get hot, then enter another air cooled chamber; finally, a door opens into the visitor room. A guard assigns us a tiny plastic table, surrounded by three three cheap plastic chairs, on one side (for us) and one on the other for Gerardo. African American and Latino children exchange places on their fathers’ laps as daddies in khaki prison overalls chat with their wives.

Chavela spots him 20 minutes later, waving, and bouncing across the room. Chavela almost crying says “He’s lost weight.” He seems the same weight as when Landau saw him in the Spring. Gerardo hugs and kisses his sister, embraces Saul and then Danny, thanking him for his efforts to spring him from the hole, where he spent 13 days in late July and early August.

Two FBI agents who were investigating an incident unrelated to his case, he informs us, questioned Gerardo in prison. Then, prison authorities tossed Gerardo into the hole although there existed no evidence, logic or common sense that could possibly have implicated him into the alleged occurrence. The temperatures inside the hole rose to the high nineties. “I had to use my drinking water to keep me cool, pouring it on head,” Gerardo told us. “It didn’t help my high blood pressure. I couldn’t even take my medicine. But, I think, thanks to the thousands of phone calls and letters from people everywhere they let me out.”

Chavela kept bringing junk food to the table – the only kind available from the vending machines. We nibbled compulsively while Gerardo told about living in a sweat-box for almost two weeks. “No air circulated in there,” he laughed, as if to say “no big deal.”

We talked about Cuba. He kept up on the news, reading, watching TV and from visitors who informed him. He felt encouraged by steps President Raul Castro had taken to deal with the crisis. He had watched on the prison television parts of Fidel’s speech and "q and a" from the Cuban National Assembly Meeting. “I saw Adriana [his wife],” who sat in the audience. His smile faded. “You know what’s painful. She’s 40 and I’m 45. We don’t have that much time to have a family together. The United States won’t even give her a visa to visit me. She’s behaved with such courage and dignity throughout this ordeal.”

Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban 5, is serving two life sentences for conspiracy to commit espionage and aiding and abetting murder. Prosecutors presented no evidence of espionage at the Miami trial. The aiding and abetting charge presumed evidence not shown that Gerardo sent to Cuba flight details of the Brothers to the Rescue planes shot down by Cuban MIGs in February 1996, which he did not, and that he knew of secret Cuban government orders to shoot them down, which he did not.

The 5 men monitored and reported on Cuban exile terrorists in Miami who had plotted bombings and assassinations in Cuba. Cuba then shared this information with the FBI. Larry Wilkerson, (retired army Colonel and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff) compared the 5’s chance of getting a fair trial in Miami to an accused “Israeli’s chance of justice in Teheran.”

We sipped cloyingly sweet, bottled, iced tea. Chavela brought more potato chips.

Gerardo, reanimated the mood by recalling an incident when in the 1980s, as a Lieutenant in Cabinda, Angola, he escorted top Cuban officers to a dinner-party with visiting Soviet brass. “I told my Colonel I had memorized a short Mayakovsky poem in Russian (from his school classes) and could recite it to the Soviet officers.

He recited the poem to us in Russian. We applauded. He smiled. “They were roasting a pig and had bottles of booze, a party.”

“I recited the poem. The Soviet colonel hugged me, kissed me on both cheeks -- very emotional. I had to repeat my performance for the other officers. Finally, the Cuban Colonel told me I’d milked the scene long enough and I left.”

Two hours passed quickly. We waited for the guards to let us out. Gerardo stood at attention against a wall near the cell-block door next to another prisoner. We gave him a fist salute. He returned it. His sister blew a kiss. He grinned reassuringly – as if to remind us. “Stay strong.”

Danny Glover is an activist and an actor.

Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow and author of A Bush and Botox World (AK Press / CounterPunch).




http://www.counterpunch.org

Latin Americans Defend Cuban Five

Havana, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) Members of the 17th Latin American and Caribbean Cuba Solidarity Brigade visiting this capital denounced the unjust U.S. imprisonment of the antiterrorist fighters known as the Cuban Five.

During a meeting on Friday with relatives of the Cuban Five, held in U.S. prisons since September 1998, the solidarity group�s members demanded their immediate release by Washington.

Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez are currently serving harsh sentences for preventing Miami-based terrorist groups from organizing actions against Cuba.

In a statement, the solidarity group also condemned the White House-imposed economic, financial and trade blockade of Cuba for the last 50 years.

The statement called for the creation of social networks and to use the media more efficiently for this cause, the National News Agency reported.

Since arriving on August 1, the 91-member solidarity brigade has carried out an extensive program of activities, including volunteer agricultural work.



http://www.plenglish.com

Latin America Congratulates Fidel Castro on his Birthday

Mexico City, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) Admiration for Fidel Castro, "an extraordinary man, loved by the peoples and hated by the exploiters and aggressors," brought together hundreds of people in this capital to celebrate the Cuban leader's 84th birthday.

In a rally last night, Mexican anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas highlighted the respect Fidel has earned and the hatred his rivals profess, and also the moral example set by the Cuban Revolution, capable of overcoming, defending itself, and enduring just 90 miles away from U.S. imperialism.

From Caracas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez wished the iconic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, a happy 84th birthday, via his Twitter account, twitter@chavezcandanga. During the presidencies of Fidel Castro and Chavez, Cuba and Venezuela have grown very close, and that relationship is a pillar of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

The two countries now collaborate in agriculture, the fishing industry, and energy, and thousands of Cubans are providing services in education, health care and sports in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, in Asuncion, Paraguay, the 4th Social Forum of the Americas highlighted the ethical, humanistic, revolutionary and consistent virtues upheld throughout Fidel Castroâ�Ös more than 60 years of struggle.

Friends of Paraguay's Cuba Solidarity Coordinating Committee, intellectuals, artists, diplomats, and dozens of people from various Latin American and European countries, most of them young, attended the tribute.

The tribute included a photo exhibition by photojournalist Liborio Noval and the documentary "Elogio de la virtud" (In Praise of Virtue), by direcator Roberto Chile.

In Quito, Ecuador, a cultural fiesta, "The ALBA Sings to Fidel Castro and Osvaldo Guayasamín," was held at the Guayasamín Foundation's theatre in this capital.

The activity was organized by the Bolivian, Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan embassies, with support from the foundation, to pay tribute to the leader of the Cuban Revolution on his 84th birthday.

In Brazil, Cuban residents there and Brazilians in general also celebrated the Cuban historical leader's birthday on Friday night

http://www.plenglish.com

There's Still Hope for the World, Fidel Castro Says

Havana, Jul 31 (Prensa Latina) "Man can not miss his opportunity to survive with all that he knows today," Cuban leader Fidel Castro emphasizes in a message addressed to Cuba's young people, in which he comments on the challenges and perils humanity faces.

Fidel Castro Condemns Mistreatment of Cuban prisoner in the U.S.

Below, Prensa Latina provides Fidel's "Message to the Cuban Youth:"

For 57 years, two generations of Cubans, the one that came before us and our own, which led both from January 1 to today, have fought against the most powerful empire humanity has ever known.

I do not harbor the slightest fear of seeming to exaggerate; I say this with modesty, even embarrassment. It hurt to see how hundreds of millions of young people in the world were not even able to learn how to read and write, or are semi-illiterate, or do not have jobs, and are ignorant of everything related to the inalienable rights of human beings.

A colossal crime is being committed against thousands of millions of adolescents and young people of both sexes, whose wonderful intelligence is manipulated by the mass media, and in fact, many of them, especially males, are turned into soldiers to die in unjust, genocidal wars carried out all over the planet.

The economic system that has prevailed is incompatible with the interests of humanity. It must end and it will end.

The new generations of young Cubans will make their message be heard, the one born from their country's experiences; they will fulfill a sacred duty imposed by the era in which it befell them to live. They will do so with humility, and brandishing the truth, without any stupid beliefs in racial or national superiority of any kind.

I have asked myself many times, why do our children and adolescents have to die?

Why do our young people have to die? Why does all this intelligence, where so many virtues could be implanted and cultivated, have to disappear?

Why do their parents have to die in fratricidal wars?

Imagine that the website Global Research deserves no credit at all; that the theory of Gregory Ryskin, a biochemical engineer at Northwestern University, regarding the methane bubble that article writer Terrence Aym associated with the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, deserves no attention at all, inviting us to sleep peacefully.

The Global Research site published the only explanation possible for the sinking of the Cheonan, a sophisticated antisubmarine ship capable of detecting a ship of that type from 185 kilometers away. Obviously, it could not be sunk by an old, Russian-made submarine built more than 50 years ago.

We prefer to cling to the hope that the arguments used in the "Reflection" to be published on Tuesday, August 3, fit reality.

Otherwise, the other danger of a war breaking out, of immediately becoming a nuclear one, would be the only alternative, and therefore, this message will be more important than ever.

There is not a chance of one in a thousand, in ten thousand, or any number you like, that the United States or Israel will drop the sanctions established by the United Nations Security Council, with strict time limits; nor is there one of Iran accepting the inspection of its ships.

Even a blind man would see it is crystal clear.

We will not surrender, nor will we allow the empire to deceive the world.


Fidel Castro Ruz

July 30, 2010

http://www.plenglish.com

Gerardo Hernández is out of "the hole"!

Gerardo is released!

Gerardo Hernández, Cuban Five hero, has just been released this morning from isolation after an intense campaign by his attorneys and thousands of supporters around the world, including nearly a thousand emails to the Bureau of Prisons generated by the National Committee's appeal.

Leonard Weinglass, one of Gerardo's attorneys, visited Gerardo this weekend along with fellow attorney Peter Schey. He described this morning to Gloria La Riva of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five the abysmal and cruel conditions that Gerardo was placed in. "Gerardo is in great spirits but he's really suffering. In 100+ degree weather, the air was so stifling that Gerardo was laying on the floor sucking in air from the bottom of the door. He couldn't take his blood pressure medicine as his doctor advised him because the weather was too hot. He couldn't use the shower because it was scalding hot water. He was given dirty bedsheets, and he had to resort to washing them in the toilet."

Weinglass noted that "we sent a five-page letter to the prison containing all the errors that they made in putting him in isolation. The letter outlined their own regulations that they violated."



Moments later this morning, in a new phone call, Weinglass announced "they've just released him to the general population!"

It's thanks to the great efforts of the attorneys and the national and international solidarity movement with the Cuban Five that this punitive and unwarranted prison action against Gerardo has been ended. Thanks to everyone who responded so quickly to this emergency situation.

Clearly, the struggle must intensify to free Gerardo and all the Cuban Five from prison. One thing you can do right now is to send a letter to Gerardo, letting him know you and all of us are with him in the continuing struggle. Also, if you are not already receiving emails from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, please click the link below to add your name to this low-volume list, so that we'll be able to notify you if another emergency arises.

http://www.freethefive.org

Cuba Pledges to Release Political Prisoners

by COHA Research Associate Sara Nawaz

State Department Must Seize Golden Opportunity to Utilize Momentum to Change its Cuban Strategy, and not Duck Behind Shallow Platitudes

On Wednesday, July 7, Cuba vowed to release fifty-two political prisoners, five immediately and forty-seven in upcoming months. If successfully carried out, this would mean that about one-third of current political detainees on the island will have been released, leaving approximately one hundred still in custody. This is the first large-scale prisoner release by Havana since 1998, when upwards of 100 political prisoners were released following Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba. Spurred on by E.U. pressure, the current release was negotiated by the energized Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega, Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, and Cuban president Raúl Castro. The Obama administration, which so far has failed to live up to its campaign rhetoric of broadening ties with Cuba, would be wise to seize this opportunity to warm up its outdated and unproductive Cuban strategy.

Despite promises to shift U.S. policy toward Cuba in the direction of greater flexibility, the Obama administration has so far only managed to reverse some of the more extremist policies implemented by President George W. Bush. While the current administration removed the limit on remittances to Cuba, as well as the cap on travel that prevented Cuban Americans from traveling to the island more than once every three years, its Cuban policies otherwise have been lame, listless, and bereft of imagination. While necessary, these have ultimately been only token steps that have failed to ignite much enthusiasm in Latin America because of their limited nature. Furthermore, despite Obama’s orders for the CIA to close Guantanamo Bay last year, the prison will now remain open for the next two years.

The just-announced prisoner release pledge provides fresh momentum and a ripe moment for the Obama administration to inaugurate progressive policies towards Cuba and open a renewed dialogue with Cuban leaders. Two fruitful steps would be for the administration to push through Congress the pending bill to repeal the travel ban on American visits to Cuba (Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, H.R. 4645), and to loosen the rules on food sales to Cuba. Both of these legislative initiatives appear to enjoy significant majorities in their favor. The U.S. should also respectfully ask Cuba to consider releasing Alan Gross, the American citizen working on a democracy-promotion program, who was detained in Cuba in December 2009 on grounds of alleged espionage. In addition, the US should choose this opportunity to immediately remove Cuba’s name from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, a specious announcement made by the Obama administration in January 2010.

If the U.S. truly wants to work towards the normalization of relations with Cuba and obtain its goal of democratization of the island, it might consider using a prisoner exchange program similar to the one it is rumored to be considering with Russia. This program would supposedly allow for swapping of Russian and U.S. political detainees. A similar agreement with Havana might provide for the political leverage needed to foster an improved U.S.-Cuba relationship. The case of the Cuban Five, for example, would lend itself admirably to such a treatment because of the extreme importance attributed to it by the highest level of Cuban government.

Rather than the White House, it has been Spain that has taken the lead in working with Cuba in the direction of rational relations between Havana and the outside world. In spite of the relentless anti-Castro lobby in Miami, it is now the Obama administration’s responsibility to grasp this opportunity and take bold action that could liberalize ties between the two countries. Another moment may not come again soon.

For more information on recent US-Cuba relations, read this article and timeline: http://www.coha.org/cuba-u-s-rhetoric-timeline-hope-for-a-basic-shift-in-policy-disintegrates-into-continued-polarization/

For in-depth analysis of these issues, watch for upcoming articles by COHA Research Associates Bethan Rafferty on the Catholic Church and human rights in Cuba, and Abigail Griffith on the E.U.’s common position on Cuba.


Original article from COHA

http://www.cuba-solidarity.org