US-Cuba Labor Solidarity – Building Relations with Cuban Labor
Fact Sheet on US-Cuba Relations
Passing Resolutions in Labor Organizations
Alicia Jrapko VIVE
A Life of Struggle for a Just World
Register at: https://peoplesforum.org/alicia-vive
ANALYSIS: Offensive or “Counteroffensive” by the United States against Cuba?
By José Ramón Cabañas on February 8, 2022
José Ramón Cabañas with other officials from Cuba and the US at the opening of Cuban Embassy in Washington, July 20, 2015. photo: Bill Hackwell
In conversations with neighbors, experts, young people and following the thread of our national press, it is common to hear the assessment (true by the way) that there has been a brutal onslaught of the United States against Cuba in recent years. A number of arguments have been put forward that make this assertion undeniable, the evidence is everywhere.
However, it would be useful to dwell on a small question when assessing recent events: is it an offensive against our country, or a “counter-offensive”? And many readers will say, who cares, it does the same damage! That statement is also correct, but from a political point of view it would be useful to analyze which of the two concepts best characterizes what happened, because the answer may have future implications.
On other occasions it has already been said that the level of intensity of the confrontation against Cuba during the Trump years was not constant, registering its highest notes in the last twelve months. There are also coincidences that the amorphous group of officials and opportunists that surrounded the businessman-president did not elaborate a detailed political strategy against Cuba, but rather handed over the conception and conduction of the main actions to a reduced sect of politicians with a high Cuban-American component.
What was being done against Cuba, however, was a component that fit precisely into the overall purpose of erasing from the history books any significant legacy that might have been recorded by the administration of the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama. It was also related to the long-standing consensual state policy against the island. But there is evidence that the setbacks on the Cuban issue were not as marked between 2017 and 2018, as it turned out from the second half of 2019.
Although the presidential directive on Cuba signed by Trump in June 2017 was intended to leave without effect the similar document endorsed by Obama at the end of his term, it did not suddenly cut off a group of trends that had been occurring and did not even question the 22 memorandums of understanding, which had been signed during the process of bilateral negotiations.
One of the most significant data to endorse this theory is that, although the facilities for air and sea connections between the two countries had been created in preceding years, it was in 2017, 2018 and 2019 when the main volumes of travelers from the United States were recorded. The official figures were 1,001, 424; 1,105, 801 and 1,001 391, respectively. Although the totals are divided almost in half between U.S. and Cuban-American travelers from that market, in the first two years the majority by a slim margin belonged to the first group.
On the other hand, the largest number of trips by Cubans residing on the island to other countries (in general) also took place during the same period, with historical totals of 889,542; 1,111,374 and 1,307,523, respectively. In an environment of around 80% in each case, these were trips to the United States, of which more than 70% of the people stayed for periods of less than 24 months, that is, they did not emigrate.
What did these figures taken as a whole mean? Well, at least two things:
- Although the relative political change with respect to Cuba had taken place in previous years, the human movement as a result of it was occurring later, in spite of the negative information flow against the Island that was already beginning to take place and the staging of the “sonic attacks” novel. At least 90% of the Americans returning from Cuba expressed that there was a difference between the reality they had seen and what they had been taught in schools, or what they received from the virtual world of the press and social networks. Of that percentage, the majority also returned with a favorable view of the neighboring country, or that at least they had not found the “enemy” that sought to attack “American democracy” in hotels, private homes, the Havana seafront, or on the country’s roads.
- The number of Cuban-American travelers questioned to a certain extent the discourse of the Floridian counterrevolution in its natural emporium. And if we talk about the quality of the travelers, the spectrum of travelers reached even old “anti-Castro fighters” without terrorist links, who came to reconnect with their country of origin, with their people, who recognized or not, publicly or not, that they had been on the wrong side of history, but who somehow reconciled with themselves and felt much more at ease on a second and third trip. The totals of travelers from here to there, also convey a similar message: I am free to go there (USA) to enjoy whatever spiritual or material I like, but I return to where I belong, even though they say “this is complicated”, in reference to material limitations.
Other very important events that happened in those same years can be related, but these figures that have been mentioned in previous paragraphs and their social impact on both shores, shook for the first time the scaffolding of the “hate industry” and the whole framework of federal and private financing that has sustained it for more than 60 years. How to sell hate in a circumstance in which a genuine people-to-people contact was taking place at a level unthinkable in the past, How to sell the image of “lack of rights and freedoms” when American visitors were congratulating themselves that their children had a freedom at night that they did not enjoy in their places of residence in the North?
Although it has been mentioned in other texts, it is not idle to recall that what has been narrated so far took place in a historical scenography in which an unusual cultural exchange was taking place, in which several NGOs and private groups organized the most massive and extensive tours of Cuban artists and intellectuals throughout the U.S. geography. Not only in Miami, but also in the real circuits, ranging from New Orleans to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Washington DC itself. Those were the years when more than 30 resolutions were passed by cities large and small asking for collaboration with Cuba, 11 of them in the area of health. In 2017 Chicago, Illinois, saw its efforts crowned when it finalized the first of these agreements with the presence of Cuban experts. The same year (under Trump) the first joint agreement between two institutions (Center for Molecular Immunology and Roswell Park Cancer Center) of the biopharmaceutical industry was signed and began to operate. Those were the years of intense academic and university exchange, where U.S. specialists came to be the majority of foreign representations in events and congresses held in Cuba, as happened even in the commemoration for the 500th anniversary (November, 2019) of Havana, when the U.S. group was the largest among the visitors. At that time, a cooperation agreement was signed between the city of New Orleans and the Cuban capital,
In mid-2019, something very close to the purest American political tradition happened, the voice of “we are under attack!” was heard in South Florida, to justify a radical reaction against the state of affairs. The proximity to the occurrence of new electoral elections in 2020 made the legislative tribe of Cuban-Americans assume that, in the absence of a “fundamental change in circumstances”, they would have to abandon the business that had opened so many doors in their lives and start working in a tangible way for the first time. Although after 2001 the Cuban-born counterrevolution in the United States had to abandon terrorism as a fundamental weapon in its “struggle”, by the end of the second decade of the 19th century they perceived that they were running out of instruments and foundations.
The rest of the story is well known: changes in the Office of the National Security Advisor, in the Office of the Director for Latin America of the same body and an agreement between a senator from Florida and an upstart president: “you completely hand over the Cuba policy to me and in exchange I will protect your back on the Intelligence Committee over which I preside”. That is more or less the genesis of the majority of the 243 measures against Cuba that were rushed through in a short period of time, without respecting the sacrosanct interagency consultations, without reviewing how much of what was being done was or was not detrimental to the “national interest” of the United States.
There were three absolute priorities: “cut travel, cut travel and, additionally, cut travel”, which happened “over night”, literally with passengers on board ships, or flying over the Island.
In addition, a lot of money was authorized, all the money possible, that which is declared in the federal budget and that which is in the secret chapters, to set up a machinery of disinformation about Cuba, to erase everything that happened, to change the content of each event, to replace the memories of travelers and hosts, of senders and receivers. A machinery that changed the bright sun for the storm and relative peace for the most unbridled rivalry.
The “counterattack” had to be massive enough to have the same effect as napalm on the skin of Vietnam, but this time on the conscience of ordinary people. And along with massive disinformation, more surgical and punctual measures: knocking on the doors of academics and journalists who gave positive opinions about Cuba; disapproval of credits to businessmen who had discovered an opportunity in the Caribbean Island and placing an ideological scanner in the Miami airport for every Cuban artist who arrived, with a big sign that said: “if you do not repeat my political creed, here you neither play, nor sing, nor get paid”.
These actions and others had for the first time a massive and reiterative dimension in the social networks with an impact that certainly sought to affect the Cuban public, but above all the millions of Americans who had already known Cuba first hand. A counterrevolution of stale racist and homophobic tradition began to try to move even in the spaces of Afro-descendants and LGTBQ communities and found some gullible people.
That’s where they were when that tiny actor that has made Humanity tremble appeared: SARS-CoV-2. By February or March 2020 there was confusion, but within a few days the thinking of what is considered the first economic world, but in reality is the third intellectual world, was enthroned. The conclusion was quickly reached that Cuba would not resist, that there would be massive deaths, that the medical system would collapse, which together with other hardships provoked from abroad, would finally lead to the longed-for “social explosion”.
That was the version delivered to Biden in 2021 by “deep state” analysts, who this time claimed to be closer to the truth than when Kennedy was convinced to sign the blockade proclamation in 1962 and Clinton to accept the philosophy of the Torricelli Act in 1992.
But it turns out that in 2022, and it seems to be 30 years in 30 years, Cuba has risen again from the last whiplash in an unexpected way: Producing five vaccines of its own against COVID-19, protecting almost the totality of its population, exporting its knowledge to those who want to share it, having one of the lowest rates of deaths per million inhabitants, being a pioneer in the immunization of minors, controlling to a good extent the risk of the opening of borders, showing an unusual success against what is called the “fourth wave”, with an adequate social order.
We know that the virtual reality counterattacks will continue, but the arguments used will also continue to blur, as happened in the recent past with the “sonic attacks”, “the troops in Venezuela”, the “generalized uprising” and these days with the “trials of minors”. Cuba and its people are well inserted in an international community from which part of the United States excludes itself. It is not the other way around.
José Ramón Cabañas was the first Ambassador of Cuba to the United States since the US severed ties with Cuba in 1961
Source: La Pupila Insomne, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
NNOC Update: The solidarity travel scholarship is back + upcoming
Let’s GO to Cuba! Regular travel is coming starting with May Day and the International May Day Work Brigade but plans are also underway for the upcoming year. Many NNOC member organizations are planning delegations OR are fundraising and outreaching to encourage and help new generations to see Cuba for themselves.
In this update:
- For NNOC Member Organizations apply now for $500 travel scholarship
- Chicago Press Conference Feb. 7 | noon Central | 60 years of injustice
- Venceremos Brigade Virtual Open House for Cuba travel curious Feb 16
- Save the date: Tribute to Alicia Jrapko’s life March 5
- A US-Cuba Normalization hybrid conference New York City March 18-20 (click this link for more information)
- Noted author, videographer Helen Yaffe offered her sabbatical time to speak in the U.S. mid March to mid April
- NNOC members discussion group. How to subscribe
Feb. 3 – Declaration by Revolutionary Government
The revolutionary government condemns the continuance for over 60 years of the economic, commercial and financial sanctions formally imposed by the United States on 3rd February 1962.
60 years since the proclamation that formalized the criminal economic blockade by the United States against Cuba
Declaration by the revolutionary government
The revolutionary government of Cuba condemns the continuance for over 60 years of the economic, commercial and financial sanctions formally imposed by the United States on 3rd February 1962. On that date, the then president, John F. Kennedy, issued Proclamation 3447, “Embargo on All Trade with Cuba” under Section 620(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. He thereby conferred official status on the unilateral economic hostilities already in effect against Cuba since our country’s revolutionary victory.
Since that time, Washington’s policy of siege and economic suppression has become the core of a strategy designed to curtail the legitimate right of the Cuban people to defend their sovereignty and realize a program of development free of imperialist domination.
Washington’s main argument then, for the application of the measure, was Cuba’s relations with the socialist countries, which allegedly offended against “the principles of the inter-American system” and posed a threat to the security of America and the Western Hemisphere. The pretexts have varied with the passage of time, while the intentions have remained unchanged.
The clearest definition of the true aims of US policy towards Cuba had already emerged, in the form of an internal memorandum by Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department, dated 6th April 1960: “provoking disappointment and discouragement through economic dissatisfaction and hardships … weaken the economic life … denying Cuba funds and supplies to reduce nominal and real salaries with the objective of provoking hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government”.
The blockade has escalated to become the most complex, prolonged and inhuman act of economic warfare ever committed against any nation. Its effects have constrained the scope for economic growth, being designed to impede trading relations with third countries, cause maximum possible obstruction of banking and other financial operations, deter foreign investment and cut off all sources of revenue.
It is an essentially extraterritorial policy, in breach of international law, which uses pressure, blackmail and penalties in seeking to isolate Cuba and penalize those who establish any trading, commercial or financial links with the country. It is a practical expression in the 21st century of the Monroe Doctrine, which takes a proprietorial view of Latin America and the Caribbean as either America’s “back yard” or “front yard”.
The blockade has never had the least shred of legitimacy or moral justification.
It constitutes a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cubans. It amounts to an act of genocide within the meaning of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
In seeking to justify the policy, Washington resorts to lies, while attempting to obscure its criminal nature by financing campaigns to spread the notion that the blockade does no real harm to the Cuban economy, that its effects are not a significant obstacle to our development and economic stability. This falsehood is disseminated through the powerful mass media subservient to imperialism and through the digital networks designed to influence public opinion, including that of certain compatriots.
The losses accumulated during these six decades amount to over US $144,413,400,000 at current prices.
Since 2019, the coercive economic measures have reached unprecedented degrees of severity. Measures of non-conventional warfare, inapplicable in peacetime, are being enforced, in the attempts to block fuel supplies to Cuba.
In the context of the efforts addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensification of the blockade assumes an unheard-of level of cruelty, impeding donations in a spirit of solidarity, attempting to hinder the development of Cuba’s vaccines and to disrupt access to basic medicines and supplies. During the pandemic, and throughout the last 60 years, the blockade has had an incalculable human cost, suffered directly by several generations.
Despite the blockade, the strengths of the Cuban socialist system and the unity of the Cuban people have enabled the country to avoid the economic collapse it envisions and to reach an outstanding level of human development (according to the UN-recognized Human Development Indexes), while making unquestionable gains in terms of social justice and bringing about a gradual transformation in economic and production structure aimed at sustainable growth. One wonders how many small, underdeveloped economies could have survived an onslaught on such a scale.
This policy of economic siege is met with practically unanimous and universal rejection. In addition to the overwhelming support accorded to the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly every year, there are constant calls and denunciations by individuals, organizations and institutions worldwide, including within the United States.
Since 1959, there have 13 occupants of the White House. With certain variations, in every case there has been a constant intention to cause the economic collapse and unsustainability of Cuba’s revolutionary plan, through strict application of the blockade. It seems that 60 years has not been enough time to realize that it has not achieved, and will never achieve, the aims of its promoters.
The revolutionary government calls once again, strenuously and emphatically, for an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States. Our condemnation will remain firm and invariable until the complete cessation of this inhuman and illegal policy.
Havana, 3rd February 2022
(Cubaminrex)
Feb. 16 – Venceremos Brigade National Open House
❤️❤️ we are going to host a national open house on February 16th!!! ❤️❤️ please pick up the phone and invite your people! please pass this flier on! & if you’d like to help host the open house, please reach out to me (Sulan) and @Nova Lucero (she/lucero)!!
Johanna Tablada speaks with Rania Khalek on the Blockade & Cuba’s Anti-Imperialism
Breakthrough News was on the ground in Havana, Cuba where Rania Khalek spoke with Johana Tablada, General Deputy Director of US affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
Democracy Now: Despite U.S. Embargo, Cuba Aims to Share Homegrown Vaccine with Global South
(thank you to NNOC member organization Friends of Latin America for sending this to post)
Despite U.S. Embargo, Cuba Aims to Share Homegrown Vaccine with Global South
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/27/cuba_beat_covid_despite_us_embargo
January 27, 2022
A 60-year U.S. embargo that prevents U.S.-made products from being exported to Cuba has forced the small island nation to develop its own COVID-19 vaccines and rely on open source designs for life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators. We speak to leading Cuban scientist Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa about how massive mobilization helped produce three original vaccines that have proven highly effective against the coronavirus. “In a moment that the whole world was mobilizing to face this tremendous menace that was killing people around the world, the U.S. administration did not lift any of the 400 sanctions that were slapped on Cuba during the Trump administration plus this decades-long embargo,” says Valdés-Sosa, director of the Cuban Center for Neuroscience. “Medicines and vaccines are not a commodity. It’s not something to get rich with. It’s something to save people’s lives.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
Cuba has announced plans to deliver as many as 200 million doses of its homegrown COVID vaccines to nations in the Global South. Despite the U.S. embargo, Cuba now has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Cuba has also announced it will soon apply for approval by the World Health Organization for one of its vaccines, Abdala, which has been shown to be highly effective.
This all comes as Cuba prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the U.S. embargo, which has severely curtailed Cuba’s response to the pandemic, making it harder to import critical medical equipment and supplies. The embargo began on February 7, 1962, by President John F. Kennedy. It’s continued under 11 U.S. presidents since then.
We’re joined now by Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, the director of the Cuban Center for Neuroscience. He has played a key role in Cuba’s response to the pandemic.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Doctor. It’s great to have you with us. Can you talk about how Cuba has dealt with the pandemic, its plans to give out hundreds of millions of vaccines? And what? You’re reporting Cuba, this month, between seven-day averages of one to four deaths, daily averages?
- MITCHELL VALDÉS-SOSA:OK. Well, first, thanks for having me on the program. I enjoy your show very much. I watch it frequently in Cuba. So thanks for this invitation.
I think Cuba really faced the menace of the pandemic with trepidation. We were really worried, because we saw news around the world of people dying, intensive care units being overloaded, and new variants continuously being — coming — appearing and sweeping around the world.
I think the key to the Cuban response is the close coordination and collaboration of all the actors, everyone involved. So, one thing that happened is that all the research centers mobilized and started redirecting their work. And, for example, in the case of my center, which is a center for research on neuroscience — we study developmental disorders, Alzheimer’s disease — we decided to set that aside for a moment and start collaborating in preparing for the response of the pandemic.
And one of the things that happened is that several centers got together, and we started producing ventilators, because there was a shortage of ventilators. One of the effects of the embargo — or the blockade, as we call it in Cuba — that the U.S. has imposed on us for so long, it was difficult to get ventilators from the U.S., and even spare parts for ventilators that had been bought before the pandemic, some of them from Europe. But what’s happening is that if a company supplies something to Cuba, and then it’s bought off by a U.S. company, then they can’t sell us the spare parts. And this is a tremendously difficult situation in many areas of medical attention.
And here is something which is interesting because it shows the two sides of the relationships between the U.S. and Cuba. One of the ventilators we started manufacturing is an open source design, which was put on the internet by MIT. And this is, I think, very generous. This happened all over the world. People started sharing solutions for the pandemic. I think the pandemic really brought out generosity in people, solidarity. And that’s, I think, a very interesting aspect. And we took the design from MIT, adapted it to Cuban conditions, and we started building the ventilators. This is the good side of the coin. But on the other side, we couldn’t buy any of the parts in the U.S. And we had to change some of the — part of the design, and we had to go to sources far away, and sometimes at much higher prices. And this is incredible that in a moment that the whole world was mobilizing to face this tremendous menace that was killing people around the world, the U.S. administration did not lift any of the more than 400 sanctions that were slapped on Cuba during the Trump administration, plus this decades-long embargo. It didn’t budge an inch.
So, all that Cuba did — and I think we were very successful. If you look at the rates of death in — people that died in Cuba, of people that were infected at different moments, Cuba has been very successful compared with every country in this continent. And I think we achieved this because there was a massive response of all the population supporting all the measures that the public health system started orienting, and every resource in the country was mobilized.
To finish the story about our ventilators, we managed to manufacture 250 ventilators, that were delivered to hospitals all over Cuba. And immediately after this, we started working on a second ventilator. I mean, the second design was also open source, from the UCO in the U.K. They were very helpful, managed to collaborate. Cubans there, that live in the U.K., they did crowdfunding. They got the funds. They bought the parts, the components, sent it to Cuba. We got help from the European Union, from the World Health Organization, and we managed to start manufacturing another 250 ventilators. And this was something that was done with collaboration from many research centers, people working very hard, working nights, working weekends. And I think we managed to help the health system manage this very difficult situation, which became much tougher after the new variants came up, first Delta and then Omicron.
But I think that the really interesting aspect of this work is how Cuba, in less than a year, managed to develop three vaccines. And there, the embargo is really crippling, because you need, to manufacture vaccines, production facilities. You need different fermenters, if you’re going to make it through genetic engineering. You need chemicals. You need all kinds of supplies. And it was very trying to get this, because the impact of the embargo is not only that we cannot buy in the U.S. There are two additional add-on effects which make things difficult. One is that European or Japanese suppliers get scared off. We have negotiated. We’ve tried to buy materials from people in Europe, and they say, “Well, we could sell, but we would get into trouble with the U.S. We have big contracts in the U.S.” So, that’s one of the additional knock-on effects of the U.S. embargo. The second is that even though we sell products, Cuban products, abroad — and that’s what the Cuban pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry does: It sells products abroad. But to buy raw materials to be able to manufacture the subsidized and very low-cost medicines and products that are sold to the Cuban population — and when we try to bring the funds to Cuba, we try to use them, then all the bank operations are hampered by U.S. regulations. So, the embargo has a very strong effect, a very noxious effect, on the development of anything. But despite this, in one year, Cuba managed to develop its three vaccines, and now there’s a fourth vaccine on the way.
The interesting thing is that the rollout of the vaccines was very, very effective and very easy. I’d say the Cuban population, the Cuban people, have great trust in their health system. They don’t see it as something that’s separate from them. They collaborate with it. It’s not a money-making machine. Public health in Cuba is free for everyone. We have family doctors in every neighborhood. People trust their doctors. So, we’re very puzzled when we see the news abroad that there are people that distrust the vaccines, that there are people that don’t want to get vaccinated. In Cuba, there’s no vaccine mandate, but people just line up and are really anxious and enthusiastic to get vaccines. And we have over 80% of all the population with the full vaccination program. Everybody’s been vaccinated. And now we’re rolling out a booster, an additional booster vaccine. Over 50% of the population has received the booster. At our center, in addition to redirecting our work to manufacture ventilators, we also set up a vaccination center. We gave over 6,000 shots. The doctors and nurses that work at our center volunteered, and they were working very hard. And just people would call and come with enthusiasm.
And I think the important thing is that there’s been years of working up trust in science. People feel that the future of the country is really connected to science. And they see the scientists that developed the vaccines as heroes. Even some of the most popular songwriters and musicians have written songs about the vaccines and about the doctors. And I think this is part of a really consistent message of all society. When you see on Cuban TV anyone talking — it could be the president, it could be a minister, it could be a teacher, a sportsman — everybody is masked up. This has been a consistent message to all the population. And every day the Ministry of Public Health, on television, reports how many cases there are, if there’s any deaths. And this problem of keeping the public informed and of being straight, talking straight to them and really giving them information, has been very useful. And I think we’ve been successful in controlling this pandemic, although it’s been incredibly difficult, and we’ve had to manage and invent many, many ways to work around all the negative effects of the embargo.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Doctor, despite the effectiveness of the vaccines that Cuba has developed, they have not yet received approval from the World Health Organization. Could you explain why you think that is and what steps Cuba is taking to ensure that that approval comes? Because Cuba has also made commitments to donate vaccines or to give vaccines to low-income countries, and WHO approval is important for that.
- MITCHELL VALDÉS-SOSA:Yeah, WHO approval is very important, and Cuba is in conversations with the WHO to obtain this approval. But it’s not, let’s say, a barrier, because the regulatory body of every country has the right to decide which vaccines it uses. So, the equivalent of the FDA in different parts of the world are examining the Cuban vaccines, and, for example, in Vietnam and Venezuela and recently in Mexico, they have approved using the Cuban vaccines.
Cuba is working with the World Health Organization, and it’s finishing a new production plant in Mariel, the latest technology. And the idea is transferring production of vaccines to this new facility, so it will have all the possibilities of receiving an inspection by the World Health Organization and being finally approved. But this does not impede, it’s not an absolute barrier, because other countries can use their regulatory bodies, and they’re doing so. And so countries are now receiving Cuban vaccines. We think at the beginning of this year we will have this approval and that this process will be finished.
This new production facility, it’s called Mariel-CIGB. It was just finished. And it’s really top-notch. It has the most advanced technologies for production of biotech products. And we’re sure it will come out very successful in the inspections that are needed for approval by the World Health Organization. But that does not limit the possibility of helping other countries. And that’s going on now at this moment.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Valdés-Sosa, we only have a minute, but could you explain what plans Cuba has for technology transfer to allow other countries to manufacture Cuban vaccines?
- MITCHELL VALDÉS-SOSA:OK. This is already going on. Cuba has now reached an agreement with the Pasteur Institute in Iran, and they are now producing the Cuban Soberana vaccine. And Cuba is negotiating with other countries and is open to share its technology so it can be used worldwide.
One of the concerns we had when the epidemic began is that we knew that there would be a shortage of vaccines to reach everyone. And it’s absolutely clear, if we don’t vaccinate the whole world population, there’s going to be the risk — and it’s almost certain — that new variants will rise, and some will be able to circumvent and to get around the defenses that previous vaccines have achieved. So, Cuba is very open to this. We are part of the Global South. And we understand that medicines and vaccines are not a commodity. It’s not something to get rich with. It’s something to save people’s lives. And we’re really in favor of sharing technology and of working with people around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, we want to thank you for been with us, director of the Cuban Center for Neuroscience.
January 30 Sunday actions demand #unblockCuba
Please check the calendar for the cities, times and locations
Alicia Jrapko, PRESENTE!
Dear Comrades and Friends,
With deep sorrow and on behalf of her family, we announce that our dear colleague, sister and friend Alicia Jrapko passed away last evening after fighting a cruel illness for more than two years. In spite of the hard treatment, she never stopped working as much as she could. Alicia regretted not being able to continue contributing, loving and living with the energy that always characterized her.
Alicia was a great Argentine revolutionary, the daughter of workers who at a very young age took up the struggles of a generation that dreamed of building an Argentina with social justice for the people. Alicia once said in an interview…”in Latin America a great admiration was forged for Cuba, for Fidel, Raul, Che and so many other revolutionaries. In Argentina we wanted the same thing, but it was not achieved and a great part of my generation lost their best children”.
Alicia was born on January 1, 1953 in Merlo, Buenos Aires province, grew up and was educated in Córdoba, where she studied journalism. Argentina’s military dictatorship imposed in 1976 unleashed a fierce repression against all popular militants. Thirty thousand were detained-disappeared, among them many of Alicia’s classmates. She was unable to finish her degree, and with the clothes she was wearing, in the same year ’76 she had to go into exile.
Each of Alicia’s three children bear the middle names of her disappeared comrades: Gabriela Emma, Eileen Mabel and Juan Alberto.
For several years she lived in exile in Mexico, then settled in the United States, the most difficult country and at the same time the most necessary to support the causes of Latin America and fight against imperialism…it was difficult for her to understand the aggression, the lies and the attacks against Cuba by the media and the government.
Alicia became committed to the struggles of US workers and starting in the early 1990s to Cuba solidarity work through IFCO- Pastors for Peace, where she worked closely with Rev. Lucius Walker as his west coast coordinator and helped organize and recruit African American and Latino students to attend the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) for free to become doctors in their communities. Her solidarity work brought her closer to Cuba every day; she became a spokesperson for many caravans of Pastors traveling thousands of miles through the US to counter the lies of the US government against the revolutionary island while collecting humanitarian aid as a symbol of solidarity with the Cuban people. “We knew that the humanitarian aid we were taking to Cuba was symbolic, but we wanted to show that the U.S. government could not block solidarity between peoples. And we wanted to show that Cuba was not alone. The experience of traveling to Cuba on Pastors for Peace caravans changed my life forever and brought me closer to Cuba and its people.”
In 2000 Alicia was in the forefront of the battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba but her pivotal work can be found in the struggle to free the Cuban 5 political prisoners, unjustly incarcerated for monitoring the activity of terrorists in the US against Cuba.
Alicia assumed with determination and incomparable courage the leadership of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five in the United States, and managed to get trade unionists, religious leaders, congressional representatives, jurists, intellectuals, actors and artists to join the campaign for the release of Cuban anti-terrorist fighters Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Ramon Labañino Salazar, Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert.
From 2002 until his release in 2014, regardless of the risks and the enormous distances, together with her partner in struggle and dreams, Bill Hackwell, she visited Gerardo Hernandez more than a hundred times in two maximum security federal penitentiaries , and was the constant and affectionate supporter of family visits.
Alicia’s enormous work and political commitment transcended before the Cuban people who conferred her several distinctions, among them the Felix Elmuza Medal awarded by the Union of Journalists of Cuba, the Shield of the city of Holguin and the Medal of Friendship awarded by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba through the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples -ICAP-, for her immense work during the long years of struggle for the freedom of the Five.
Pages would not be enough to describe the enormous work that this courageous woman carried out with extraordinary modesty, simplicity, dignity and fidelity, with all her energies placed at the service of human betterment throughout her precious life.
Alicia’s work focused on Latin America including the defense of the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela and she was also a visible presence in the anti war movement to end the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since 2011 Alicia has been a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC). She was the coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity for the Peoples in the US, and founder and co editor of Resumen Latinoamericano in English. She created the US chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity and was a member of its General Secretariat. In her last project, despite being ill, Alicia was the co-chair of the Nobel Committee for Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigade, in one more effort in her tireless fight against the criminal blockade of Cuba.
Her name, Alicia, is the essence of truth. That truth was carried as a banner by our dear Ali throughout her life, the truth of the people against injustice, the truth, honesty, dignity and modesty of true revolutionaries, capable of giving their all, without any other personal ambition or motive. Alicia’s style of leadership pulled people to her and the struggle, always with her big smile and sincerity, earning her the respect of all.
She honored us with her friendship and affection, with her enormous courage. And she leaves us all in this infinite sadness, but she also leaves us with her example of how to live a life, of struggle, nobility, dignity and hope.
All our love goes to Gabriela, Eileen and Juanito, her beloved children, her life partner Bill Hackwell, her six grandchildren, the youngest Che Simón, born this January 5th, whom she could not see or hold in her arms, but was able to listen to an audio of his cry for the future with a big smile; to her dear brother in Argentina, family, friends and colleagues in the United States.
We will never forget you, soul mate, dearest sister and mother.
Hasta Siempre Ali Querida!
You will always be present!
Until Victory Always!
Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo and Graciela Ramirez
January 12, 2022 from Havana
https://www.cubaenresumen.org/2022/01/alicia-jrapko-presente/
