http://themilitant.com/2016/8019/801959.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 19 May 16, 2016
DC event: Solidarity needed to lift US embargo of Cuba
BY VED DOOKHUN
WASHINGTON — “The blockade is still in place,” José Ramón Cabañas, Cuban
ambassador to the U.S., told a meeting here April 22. “Solidarity is
needed now more than ever to demand Washington lift the 55-year
economic, financial, and trade embargo and end other attacks against Cuba.”
Cabañas was the keynote speaker at the panel discussion “Through Cuban
Eyes,” held at the University of the District of Columbia David A.
Clarke School of Law. Nearly 120 people attended.
“We recognize what President Obama has done in re-establishing
diplomatic relations,” the ambassador said. “But the core questions
remain the same.”
Among obstacles to the normalization of relations between Washington and
Havana, he said, is “the Cuban Adjustment Act, which has to be stopped.”
Since 1966, the U.S. government has maintained this policy, which gives
expedited permanent residency to any Cuban who reaches the U.S.,
encouraging perilous crossings by boat and even hijackings. “Cuba is in
favor of safe and legal migration,” Cabañas said.
He also denounced Washington’s Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program
as “immoral and a form of slavery.” Over the last decade, U.S.
immigration authorities have enticed some 7,000 of the tens of thousands
of Cuban doctors and medical workers who have volunteered in other
countries to defect to the United States under this scheme, part of
Washington’s propaganda against the Cuban Revolution.
“And, of course,” Cabañas said, “there is the need to re-establish Cuban
sovereignty over Guantánamo,” where Washington maintains its naval base
on Cuban territory against the will of the Cuban people.
“Ecuador needs solidarity,” the Cuban ambassador said, pointing to the
social disaster unfolding for workers and peasants in that country after
a huge earthquake April 16. “Cuba is sending more medical volunteers to
help,” he said, noting that three of the hundreds of Cuban doctors
already there died in the quake.
Other speakers included Jorge Jérez, a young Cuban born with cerebral
palsy. He is the subject of a documentary titled “The Power of the Weak”
by producer Tobias Kriele, which highlights the Cuban medical system and
the horizons it opens for those with physical or other limitations.
Jérez is touring the United States presenting the film.
“Obama is betting on Cuban youth as the generation of change,” against
the revolution, Jérez said. “I am here to tell you that he is mistaken.
We are the heirs of the revolution fighting for sovereignty and
independence of our country.”
Other participants on the panel included Vanessa Avila and Alicia
Steele, youth from the U.S. who recently graduated from Cuba’s Latin
American School of Medicine; attorney José Pertierra; writer Stephen
Kimber; Jennifer Bryant, representing the Venceremos Brigade; and Gail
Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace.
The panel capped the second annual “Days of Action against the Blockade”
organized by the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity.
The April 18-22 activities included congressional lobbying against the
embargo and showings of “The Power of the Weak” at UDC and American
University.
Omari Musa contributed to this article
Related articles:
Millions rally in Cuba on May Day to defend revolution
Book by Cuban 5 is powerful indictment of capitalist ‘justice’
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home