Category: Cuba
Details on the passing of Cuban nurse, Reinaldo Villafranca Antigua, in Sierra Leone
| January 21, 2015 | 8:52 pm | Africa, Cuba, Ebola | Comments closed

Statement from the Ministry of Public Health

Yesterday, January 18 at 7.00 a.m., Cuban time, 12.00 p.m. in Sierra Leone, the Cuban collaborator and nurse, Reinaldo Villafranca Antigua, from Los Palacios municipality in Pinar del Río province, died aged 43, after suffering from malaria with cerebral complications.
The collaborator formed part of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, currently fighting the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone. He arrived in the country on October 2, 2014, and was working in the Ebola Treatment Center located in the capital, Kerry Town.
On the morning of January 17, he presented the first symptoms of diarrhea, which he associated with a digestive problem, by the afternoon that day he had a fever of 38ºC. A test for malaria was taken and resulted positive, and the patient began to receive anti-malarial treatment orally. Hours later he was unconscious of his surroundings and continued to suffer from a high fever.
He was transferred to the British Navy Hospital, located in Kerry Town. A second test for malaria was taken which again was positive, as well as a test for Ebola, which proved negative.
The latest intravenous anti-malarial treatment was applied. The patient continued to progressively deteriorate, suffering from respiratory difficulty he was connected to a ventilation machine under the care of British specialists.
During the early morning his clinical state deteriorated further and he was unresponsive to treatment until ultimately passing away. Reinaldo Villafranca Antigua worked in the health sector for ten years and volunteered to form part of the group of collaborators traveling to West Africa.
We are grateful to the authorities of the Sierra Leone Health Ministry, representatives of the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the British Mission in the country, for their attention and monitoring of our collaborator.
To the family of our compañero we extend our sincerest condolences.
Cuba and the United States. New Age?
| January 16, 2015 | 10:15 pm | Analysis, Cuba, International | Comments closed

CUBASI

by Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada
January 16, 2015 | Comment

Last December 17th, the US president Barack Obama corrected an excessively long injustice, and simultaneously he changed the direction of history by releasing five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who were in prison for more than 16 years.

By acknowledging the failure of anti-Cuban policies, re-establishing diplomatic relations, removing all possible restrictions at hand, proposing the complete elimination of the blockade and demanding a new age in the relation with Cuba, all in a single speech, he (Obama) surprised everyone, including brainy analysts.

The hostile policy set up by President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) —before Obama was born— was followed by Democrat and Republican presidents of the U.S., and it was later codified with the Helms-Burton Law, approved by Bill Clinton in 1996.

It was pretty successful in the early years. In 1959, with the Triumph of the Revolution, the U.S. was at the apex of its power. It exercised unchallenged hegemony over several countries of the world, especially in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. expelled Cuba from OAS and the island was isolated. Cuba was then helped by the Soviet Union and its associates at the COMECON (Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), made of countries that signed the Warsaw Pact.

The falling of the so-called “real socialism” gave false hopes to those who believe it was also the end of the Cuban revolution.

They imagine the imminence of a long period of unipolar dominance. Gloating about good times, they do not notice the deep sense of things happening: the end of the Cold War opened new spaces for social struggles and made Capitalism face new challenges to overcome.

The fall of the Berlin Wall prevented them from seeing that in February 1989, Venezuela was shocked by a social uprising called “El Caracazo”, sign of the blossoming of a new epoch in Latin America.

Cuba survived the collapse of former allies. Its resistance was key factor for the deep transformation of the continent. The policy to isolate Cuba failed years ago since the U.S. ended isolated itself, as stated by current Secretary of State, John Kerry.

A new relation with Cuba was paramount for Washington. The U.S. needed to approach its relation with the continent, no longer its backyard. The achievement of such a goal is fundamental now. The U.S. cannot lead as it did before.

There is still a long way to go to reach that level of relation. First, the economic, commercial, and financial blockade must stop, as major sectors of U.S. business world are urging.

However, to normalize relations it is essential to learn how to coexist with a different viewpoint and eradicate old dreams of domination. It would imply to respect the sovereignty of people, fundamental principle of the UN Chart, which is not convenient for the most powerful countries.

In relation to the freedom of the Cuban Five, all U.S. presidents have used —without exception— the power granted by the Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution. All of them have used it for more than two centuries and nothing has stopped them.

Such paragraph in the Constitution authorizes the President to cancel the sentences and grant pardons, in cases of alleged crimes against the United States.

There were lots of reasons to demand executive clemency for the Cuban Five. In 2005, a judge panel of the Appeal Court revoked the process against them —defining the case as a “perfect storm of prejudice and hostility”— and ordered a new trial.

In 2009, the same court determined the case has nothing to do with neither espionage nor national security in the United States. Both verdicts were approved with full consensus.

Regarding another important charge, that of “conspiracy to commit a murder” against Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, his prosecutors admitted it was impossible to prove such false accusation and they even tried to remove it in May 2001 in an unprecedented move. Such idea came from the attorneys of former President George W. Bush (2001-2009).

Five years had passed and Gerardo awaited any response to his repeated appeals to Miami court to free him, or at least revise his case, or order the government to present the “evidence” used to condemn him, or agree to listen to him about the extent of the money involved in such media campaign to trigger that “perfect storm”.

The court never answered back. No words from bigger media groups were hear before that unusual paralysis of the judicial system. It was obvious it was a political case and only a political decision could solve the situation. No one else but the President could do it.

Obama showed wisdom and determination when he faced with courage the basic problems rather than limiting himself to free any person. The Cuban Five saga was the consequence of an aggressive strategy and the best move was to put an end to both things simultaneously.

No one can deny the transcendence of the announcement of December 17th. It would be a mistake, however, to ignore that there is still a long, winding way to go. It will be necessary to advance firmly and wisely.

Written by Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, CubaSí

January 15, 2015

Cubasi Translation Staff

Cuban Doctor Returns to Fight Ebola in Africa
| January 15, 2015 | 7:50 pm | Africa, Cuba, Ebola, Health Care, International | Comments closed

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 15 (acn) Cuban doctor Felix Baez, who overcame the Ebola virus, which he got in Sierra Leone, returned to that Western African nation to continue fighting the disease along his comrades with the Henry Reeve international medical brigade.

Cubadebate website published a series of photos of the doctor along his comrades in Sierra Leone announcing his return.

An internal medicine specialist, Baez announced in December 2014 that he would return to the African nation to finish the job he started, once he fully recovered from the disease.

The 43-year-old doctor returned to Cuba after having been released from the Geneva-based Cantonal University Hospital, where he received treatment against Ebola.

In response to the World Health Organization call to fight Ebola in Africa, Cuba sent three brigades to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to fight the virus.

According to the World Health Organization over 8 thousand 800 people have died from the Ebola virus in Africa.

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LAST MEMBERS OF CUBAN FIVE RETURNING TO CUBA:

I am a 20th Century Escaped Slave
| January 9, 2015 | 10:37 pm | Cuba | Comments closed
From COUNTERPUNCH
COUNTERPUNCH
December 30, 2014
An Open Letter to the Media
 
by ASSATA SHAKUR
My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave.
Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.
I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.
In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. According to the report:
“The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers.
This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.”
I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed.
The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.
On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back.
Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Foerster. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths.

Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison.

In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.
The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today.
On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distorted the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States.
In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago.

After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell “my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman.

I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in true freedom, to publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

Assata Shakur lives in Havana, Cuba.
Close Guantanamo—Then Give It Back to Cuba
| January 9, 2015 | 10:28 pm | Cuba, International, National | Comments closed

TRUTHDIG

 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/close_guantanamo_–_then_give_it_back_to_cuba_20150107

Posted on Jan 7, 2015

By Amy Goodman

This week marks the 13th anniversary of the arrival of the first post-9/11 prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, the most notorious prison on the planet. This grim anniversary, and the beginning of normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S and Cuba, serves as a reminder that we need to permanently close the prison and return the land to its rightful owners, the Cuban people. It is time to put an end to this dark chapter of United States history. “The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable,” President Barack Obama wrote nearly six years ago, in one of his first executive orders, on Jan. 22, 2009. Despite this, the prison remains open, with 127 prisoners left there after Kazakhstan accepted five who were released on Dec. 30. There have been 779 prisoners known to have been held at the base since 2002, many for more than 10 years without charge or trial. Thanks to WikiLeaks and its alleged source, Chelsea Manning, we know most of their names. Col. Morris Davis was the chief prosecutor in Guantanamo from 2005 to 2007. He resigned, after an appointee of George W. Bush overrode his decision forbidding the use of evidence collected under torture. Davis later told me, “I was convinced we weren’t committed to having full, fair and open trials, and this was going to be more political theater than it was going to be justice.” Obama did create a special envoy for Guantanamo closure, although the person who most recently held the position, Cliff Sloan, abruptly resigned at the end of December without giving a reason. In a just-published opinion piece in The New York Times, Sloan wrote, “As a high-ranking security official from one of our staunchest allies on counterterrorism (not from Europe) once told me, ‘The greatest single action the United States can take to fight terrorism is to close Guantanamo.’” The U.S. has imposed a crushing embargo against Cuba for more than half a century, ostensibly to punish the small country for its form of governance. What kind of alternative does the United States show Cubans on that corner of their island that the U.S. controls? A hellish, military prison beyond the reach of U.S. laws, where hundreds of men have been held, most without charge, and many beaten and tortured.

President Obama rightly chastises Egypt for imprisoning three Al-Jazeera journalists, Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. “They should be released,” Obama told reporters last August. Yet, sadly, Egypt only needs to look to the U.S. to determine acceptable treatment of Al-Jazeera journalists. Sami al-Hajj was a cameraman for the network. He was covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 when the Pakistani military picked him up and handed him over to U.S. forces. After 17 brutal days at Bagram Air Field, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held without charge for more than six years. He was tortured, beaten and humiliated. Al-Hajj went on a hunger strike for 480 days, and was subjected to forced feeding through nasal tubes. He was released in May 2008. I sat down with Sami al-Hajj in December 2012 at Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, where he was heading the network’s Human Rights and Public Liberties desk. He said the U.S tried to coerce him into spying while he was imprisoned: “They [offered] to give me a U.S.A. nationality and take care about my family if I work with them in CIA to continue my job being journalist with Al-Jazeera, just send them information about the link between Al-Jazeera and al-Qaida and the terrorist people and some people in the Middle East. Of course, I refused to do that. I told them, ‘I’m journalist, and I will die as a journalist.’” The United States knew he was innocent, but wanted him to spy on Al-Jazeera, so it subjected him to years of harsh imprisonment in an attempt to break him? The United States took Guantanamo Bay by force in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, and extracted an indefinite lease on the property from Cuba in 1903. Returning Guantanamo Bay to Cuba will begin to right more than a century of wrongs that the U.S. government has perpetrated there. Most importantly, the return of the Guantanamo Bay prison and naval base will make it harder for any future war criminals, whether in the White House, the Pentagon or the CIA and their enthusiastic cheerleaders in Congress, to use Guantanamo as their distant dungeon, to inflict torture and terror on prisoners, many of them innocent, far from the eyes of the people of the United States, and far from the reach of criminal courts. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.   Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.   (c) 2015 Amy Goodman

Cuban Doctor who contracted Ebola will return to West Africa
| December 30, 2014 | 9:02 pm | Cuba, Ebola, International, Latin America | Comments closed
Source: Telesur English
Felix Baez Sarria will reunite with his colleagues in the Ebola-stricken country next month.
After contracting the Ebola virus while attending patients in West Africa, Cuban doctor Felix Baez Sarria pledged to return to the region once he recovered.

Baez announced this week that he will rejoin his 254 Cuban colleagues in the area to keep fighting the disease.

“I feel very good emotionally and physically,” Baez told the Cuban daily Granma​ in Havana, where he arrived early December after contracting the disease during a medical mission in Sierra Leone.
 “My recovery has gone very well and I am now enjoying my family and friends.”
However, he explained to Cuban TV that he will “go back in the first days of of the new year to Sierra Leone.”
“We are going to fulfil the commitment to return to Cuba, all of us, safe and sound with the satisfaction of having fulfilled our duty”
“The first day they (Cuban colleagues in Africa) told me, ‘take care of yourself, you have to come back’ and I told them ‘of course, I’m going to be with you, don’t worry, I’m going to be back with you again as soon as possible’,” Baez continued.
Baez, 43, is one of the hundreds of Cuban medical professionals deployed in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – the nations most affected by the disease.
The United Nations has praised Cuba for its contribution to tackle the disease, which according to the World Health Organization has infected more than 19,000 people and killed about 7,000.
Repeal the Helms-Burton act now!
| December 27, 2014 | 11:33 pm | Action, Cuba, International, Latin America, National | Comments closed

Please sign the petition http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-the-helms-burton?source=c.em.mt&r_by=8638452