Oscar López: ‘Cuban Revolution offers example’

Ismael Batista

“Ever since the triumph of the revolution, Cuba has offered us an example that a better, more just world is possible,” Puerto Rican independence fighter Oscar López told a meeting in his honor in Havana, Nov. 13. “That example has to get to everyone.”

López was jailed in the U.S. for 36 years on frame-up charges of “seditious conspiracy” for actions supporting independence for the U.S. colony. An international campaign won his freedom and return to Puerto Rico earlier this year.

Fernando González, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), above right with López on his arrival at the airport the day before, also spoke to the overflow meeting at the ICAP office. It was attended by leaders of the Cuban government, the Communist Party, the Federation of Cuban Women, as well as visiting Puerto Ricans. González was one of the Cuban Five, imprisoned in the U.S. for actions to defend the Cuban Revolution from attacks by paramilitary forces in Florida. He shared a cell with López for four years at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. López called their time together “the best four years that I had in prison.”

“The real reason they punished you was because you wouldn’t surrender, you maintained your revolutionary values against all types of force and provocation from the most powerful government on the planet,” González said.

“I am working, traveling to different parts of the world, to advance the cause of independence for Puerto Rico to show the world that colonialism is a crime against humanity,” López said. “The Cuban people have been the biggest supporters of the fight for independence for Puerto Rico.”

On Nov. 14, the Council of State awarded López the Order of Solidarity. He will tour across Cuba until Nov. 26, talking to workers about the revolution and U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico.

— SETH GALINSKY