NEW YORK—Some 70 people attended an “An Evening of Culture, Solidarity and Celebration: Cuba and Puerto Rico, Two Wings of the Same Bird” here Jan. 5 to back the fight to free the Cuban Five and the Puerto Rican political prisoners held in U.S. jails.

Jan. 1 marked the 54th anniversary of the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba by a revolutionary movement headed by Fidel Castro, opening the socialist revolution in the Americas. Jan. 6 was the 70th birthday of Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican independence fighter jailed in the U.S. for more than 31 years.

Nancy Cabrero, president of Casa de las Américas, and Benjamin Ramos, a coordinator of ProLibertad, chaired the event, which included music and poetry.

Cabrero introduced Rodolfo Reyes (above with microphone), the new Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, and pointed out that he had been a volunteer combatant in Angola. Cuban internationalists played a key role in helping the Angolan people defeat invasions by the white-supremacist South African army in the 1970s and ’80s.

“Twenty thousand of our people died to win our independence,” Reyes, told the meeting, “and 5,000 have been killed or injured since then through terrorist activities supported and in some cases financed by U.S. authorities.

“Even though revolutions can pass through difficult times,” Reyes said, “we don’t need to be pessimistic.

“The work to free the five will continue,” he said. “And we will keep fighting against the U.S. embargo of Cuba and for self-determination for Puerto Rico.”

—SETH GALINSKY