The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 74/No. 30      August 9, 2010

 
N.Y. meeting celebrates
Cuban revolutionary day
 
BY MICHAEL FITZSIMMONS  
NEW YORK—A July 24 meeting here marked the 57th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada garrison in Cuba, led by Fidel Castro, which began the popular armed struggle against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that culminated in the 1959 revolutionary victory. The celebration drew about 150 participants.

“The fighters at Moncada came from the most humble layers of Cuban society,” said featured speaker Rodolfo Benítez Verson, deputy permanent representative of Cuba to the United Nations.

Since 1959, he said, “hundreds of thousands of Cubans have volunteered in 167 countries, from defending Angola’s independence, to providing eye surgery and teaching literacy, always serving with modesty, solidarity, and heroism.”

Benítez stressed the importance of the gains made in the worldwide campaign to win freedom for the Cuban Five. Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González have been in prison since their arrest in 1998. They had been gathering information on counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups that have a history of violent attacks on Cuba and operate from South Florida with Washington’s complicity.

The five were framed up and convicted in 2001 on charges that included failing to register as agents of a foreign government and “conspiracy to commit espionage.” They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life. Hernández, who was also falsely accused of “conspiracy to commit murder,” was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years.

Benítez reported that over the past year the sentences of three of the five have been reduced. “The effort around the world and in the United States must be to raise a voice so loud that we win their freedom and their return to Cuba,” he said.

Nancy Cabrero, president of Casa de las Américas, a group of Cuban Americans in New York who support the revolution, reported on local efforts to win visas for the wives of two of the Cuban Five. Olga Salanueva, wife of René González, and Adriana Pérez, wife of Gerardo Hernández, have repeatedly been denied visas by the U.S. government to visit their husbands.

Other speakers at the event included Carol Delgado, consul general of the consulate of Venezuela in New York City; Joaquin Morante, a student from New York at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba; and Gabriela Quijano, a leader of the recent strike by students at the University of Puerto Rico (see interview on this page). Cuba solidarity activist Rosemari Mealy read greetings sent to the meeting from a Cuba solidarity organization in South Africa.

The cochair of the event along with Cabrero was Ike Nahem of the July 26 Coalition. He encouraged building and participation in upcoming events here in support of the Cuban Five. One of these will be a month-long exhibition of the artwork of Antonio Guerrero at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on the Lower East Side in September.
 
 
Related articles:
Cubans commemorate July 26 assault  
 
 
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