In such a masterful way towards his entry into the dramaturgy of our country, a voice with an artistic scope similar to that of a contemporary Lope de Vega, due to his eminently popular character and his extensive literary production to help us clarify, from the scene, in depth, the passions, crossroads and dreams of a large significant portion of our society.

But not satisfied with this, his career also, time and time again, touched the audience’s Diana with shows under his leadership such as “Odebí el Cazador”, where the magic of our cultural syncretism reached a dazzling expressive height that won us all. spectators and the collective of the National Folkloric Ensemble of Cuba and the author himself.

But it was not enough and with an unusual vigor and a protean and desecrated vision of our contemporary reality he masterfully played in the Diana, with critical success on our daily life at that time in “Calixta Comité”. The most honest, brilliant and controversial text that has risen to the stage in our theatrical panorama, in a long time.

No to the saga he knew how to delight us with texts like “My partner Manolo”, “Emelina Cundiamor”, “High risk”, “Lagarto Pisabonito”, “El Venerable”, “La Raft”, “Eclíptica, what’s wrong with that woman ” and “Aedes aegypti”. And with the expression of some of his texts and film scripts, which clearly speak of the transcendence of this predestined man who will continue to be for us our Big Brother, Papi, better known as Eugenio Hernández Espinosa.

“Pain in Cuban Baseball due to the death of Alejo O’Reilly Morejón. He shone for Ciego de Ávila during 16 National Series in which he batted for 303, with 240 home runs and 910 runs batted in, and represented Cuba with dignity. Our condolences to family and friends,” the agency wrote on the social network.

“Burnt of Güines is in mourning. Today he bids farewell to one of the greatest baseball figures in Cuba: Alejo Orrelly Morejón. The first baseman, who sealed the Intercontinental Cup with a decisive home run, today with the Cuban lineage worthy of him says goodbye to the field with the glory that leads him towards eternity. The deepest condolences of the people who saw him be born reach family and friends,” said the Santa Clara Telecubanacán television channel on its Facebook page.

O’Reilly was born on February 26, 1961 in Quemado de Güines, and was one of the best left-handed hitters who have passed through the National Series.

He shone in the teams of Villa Clara and Las Villas first (National and Selective Series respectively), and then with Ciego de Ávila and Camagüeyanos, and his playing skills also transcended in the national team.

He stood out in his career with the victories he achieved in 1987, at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis and at the Intercontinental Cup in Havana. The latter due to his hits in the final match that defined the victory of the Cuban team.

Cuban baseball has a sensible loss with his death.

By Flor de Paz

This Friday, August 26, Hugo Rius Blein, José Martí National Journalism Award winner for his life’s work, passed away. The interview that follows is just over five years old. From it emerged (and vice versa) a television capsule that we have placed at the end of the text. With it, the Union of Cuban Journalists remembers his life and his dedication to journalism.

 There is a photo in which Hugo Felipe Rius Blein is mounted on a camel, in front of the Great Sphinx of one of the pyramids of Giza, in Egypt. In 1953, exactly ten years before the moment he records the snapshot, he had contemplated them through a View-Master (3D slide viewer) that the wise men had “brought” to him. But the contraption came alone, without any of those cardboard discs and little windows through which the transparent images peeked out. To buy the first one, he scraped together 50 cents, coin by coin. And in a little store, located in San José between Galiano and Águila, in the heart of Havana at the time, he chose the “compact” of Egyptian landscapes. Prenuncio or luck? For Rius Blein, the initial assignment that they made him in Prensa Latina: to be a correspondent for the Agency in the mythical country of Northwest Africa.

“I wished for it, but it was life that took me there.” And if you go to Cairo, you have to go see the pyramids and ride a camel.

Hugo was born on August 23, 1940 in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó, where he also became an adult. From his father, Ramón, a tobacco shop reader, of Catalan descent, he inherited a surname (it means rivers) with which he has little luck being spelled correctly. The legacy of her mother, Mercedes, a destemmer by trade who devoted herself to caring for her children at home, is a variation of the original Bleu. She was the granddaughter of a 19th century free-belly black woman who adopted the Blen (wrong) from her owners. And later, when Hugo, the second of a progeny of two, took out his birth registration for the first time, he knew that they had written him down as Blein, and he stayed with him. Ramón and Mercedes had offspring between the fourth and fifth decade of their lives, “they were very humble people and they gave me a lot of love.”

—Runs in my veins black blood, Chinese coolies[i] and Catalan. My maternal grandmother was a mixture of black and Chinese.

When he was able to read and write, it was the most important moment of Hugo’s childhood. “Because without being literate you don’t know the world, you don’t know life, you’re not going to grow up”. Later, he especially remembers his birthday days, because of his parents’ efforts to make him feel flattered, happy; and Christmas Eve and waiting for the new year, hours in which the family gathered around a table seized by attachment and simplicity.

From adolescence, he does not forget that he was the best record of the course in high school. This condition allowed him to win a scholarship and prepare to enter the Normal School for Teachers, at a time when he also managed to compartmentalize studies with the Márquez Sterling Professional School of Journalism. Later, at the age of 29, he graduated, and after a long period in teaching journalism, Full Professor and Master in Communication Sciences. Because he has always been a teacher and journalist.

His vocation for journalism? It comes from the job of Ramón, his father, who came home every day with a mountain of newspapers and a red and blue pencil to mark what he considered important to communicate to the cigar workers. Little Hugo accompanied him and lived this daily exercise intensely. Thus was born in him a feeling of appreciation for the paper, for the purpose of transmitting news.

—I perceived that newspapers were very important, like food and water.

An article in which he fought for Cuba to have a national merchant marine, in a mimeographed newspaper that he did in the Superior School was his first journalistic adventure; he was fourteen or fifteen years old. In the Normal, he created the student Horizonte, which only reached one or two runs. During his time at Márquez Sterling he also produced a small newspaper, until he collaborated with the real ones: Hoy, El Mundo, Revolución, Juventud Rebelde and Granma.

During the last years of the 50s, and as part of the masonic youth (Association of Young Hope of the Fraternity), Hugo was linked with some brothers, “which is what we called him then” incorporated into the Movement 26 of July. And so he performed some tasks in the field of propaganda; among them, sending proclamations to Batista’s military in which they were warned that the tyranny was not going to last long, that they take a social position in life. Also, he went to the houses of some members of the underground in the provinces who had had to flee, to inform their relatives about them and collect clothes and other items that they had left behind.

—The same way I brought food to the prisoners of the Prince’s Castle, of my own lodge, where the possible money was collected. They are the small tasks that I fulfilled in the fight against tyranny, small in my opinion, but with a lot of commitment.

…

He is almost 78 years old and has dedicated his life to journalism. He remembers his beginnings, in 1962, at the Agencia Prensa Latina (PL), with a sustained gaze and reflective cadence. “Then it was still a journalist project, because he was only 22.” And so, based on decades of professional experience, he usually explains to his students of the optional subject International Journalism, that even at thirty years old one is barely a promise and at forty is when one knows if one really is a journalist.

—Without ruling out precocity. But if precocity does not assume a fundamental value: humility, they can be lost along the way.

That is why he describes his work as PL’s correspondent in Egypt as premature, barely a year after joining the Agency; although he is proud of having put all his will and knowledge into this task to do the job to the best of his ability.

Egypt was a privilege for me. It gave me great opportunities, like covering the founding of what is now the African Union, then the Organization of African Unity. His first conference was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“I was able to make it to the royal palace and meet and greet then-legendary Emperor Haile Selassie; the real character of The Emperor, by Ryszard Kapuscinski. I was at the entrance of the palace where Selassie used to have a live lion chained to a tree. Even Rius Blein coincided in Ethiopia with the Polish journalist and witnessed some of the scenes that he narrates in his work. “And now I am passionate about Kapuscinski’s books.”

It is around three in the afternoon on February 4, 2018. The set of the interview is Hugo’s real work space in her apartment on Calle Línea, in which the audiovisual director has barely made any changes before to film. An art deco style bureau, in front of a huge wood and glass bookcase, identifies the place set with plants, framed photos and diplomas, writing devices, small figures carved in precious African woods and other bookcases and tables, one of them for the computer and dissimilar devices associated with the digital age.

Rius Blein speaks slowly and in a low voice, without moving his hands too much. He is not disturbed by the cameras that focus on him. He does not miss the rhythm of the speech. He doesn’t smile. He maintains the tone of someone who owns a great fortune: the quarries of human culture to which he has been able to access, immersed as he was always in the routines of the worlds he knew to try to catch them in his learning; or also in the sources of reading. “Just like Ulysses on his trip to Ithaca. He arrived without material wealth, but he has the wealth of experiences. They are footprints that stay with you forever.

During the interview, Hugo thanks his wife, María del Carmen Marín, with whom he has two children, for everything he has achieved in his profession; for the tranquility with which he has been able to do it, for the love and patience that he has had for her. “This work often implies a share of neglect and renunciation of family enjoyment, in pursuit of an informative task. We have been together in all correspondents; she has been involved in the work and she has also known those other worlds.”

…

In Algeria, its destination after Egypt, the PL correspondent was located in an old house with Moorish architecture, which had been the headquarters of the OAS (the terrorist group that tried to prevent that country’s independence), thanks to the help of the first president Ahmed Ben Bella. There, one night, Che appeared with the Cuban ambassador, who was Commander Serguera. And this is another of Hugo’s stories.

—I was a second journalist, learning from Gabriel Molina Franchossi, an important figure in Cuban journalism. Photography obsessed me at that time, to the point that I would spend hours in a room-studio developing, in addition to doing my work as a correspondent. As a photographer I was the only one who covered that second visit of Che to the North African nation. The images I took were also the only ones published by Algerian newspapers. So, that night Molina decided to show them to Che. He checked them very carefully, and suddenly asked:

“Who made them?”

I answered, and he told me:

—Better dedicate yourself to studying economics.

That hit me like a bucket of cold water, but he immediately clarified:

—It’s just that I’m very fat; It’s not the photographer’s fault.

Some time later I discovered that in the background of his comment was the disagreement with his physique, facing the guerrilla projects that he was already nesting.

As part of that conversation, Che also told Rius about the time he used to take photos in Mexico’s Zócalo. “People passed by and he photographed them. In addition, he sold little virgins of Guadalupe. And I, in my innocence of age, told him that he lost if he threw away the photo and then they didn’t want to buy it. And he replied mischievously:

— And you think I’m stupid? First I pretended to throw away the photo, and if they picked up the piece of paper I told them, wait, I’m going to take a better one for you, and that’s when I really threw it away.

“Molina and I had worried about making a small library on Africa in a corner of that house in Addis Ababa; Che discovered it and went crazy with the books we had. And of course he ransacked the shelf for us.”

…

In the scaffolding of his stories, Rius Blein places the time and space of his existence, substantiated by events of universal value that he has witnessed, and by the diversity of human ways of living appreciated in much of the planet, but especially on the African continent.

The First Congress of the ANC and the election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa, is one of the events that he places among his significant emotions. “It was the first time that he went to the apartheid country and, furthermore, at the time that the ANC was no longer clandestine, he already had a formal citizenship card, because he always had a real one. And seeing that giant of history that was Nelson Mandela emerge up close, in a South Africa without apartheid, is a lesson in what it means to believe in a cause regardless of the sacrifice, the hardships. If you believe in it, you can achieve the sacred goal.”

From Ethiopia, he admires the kindness, affection and loyalty of that people with the Cubans. “At first I was crushed by the misery I found; but later, I got to know the nature of the Ethiopians, the respect they have for hierarchies, not only formal but also intellectual and human”. And that was the country where he most enjoyed professional accomplishments.

In addition to the founding of the African Union, Ethiopia, one of the oldest countries in the world, experienced the revolution led by Mengistu, Fidel’s visit, significant solidarity conferences and, finally, the arrival of the rebels when Mengistu fled and the country entered a situation of great violence and danger.

—Before that moment, there was an attempted coup and I was able to be the first to break the news. When my colleagues decided to say it, their communications had already been closed. I knew what happened through a boy who sold candy and chewing gum, whom I always bought to help him. We were near the Ministry of Defense and I asked him in Amharic: what’s going on? He, in his poor English, told me that they had killed the Minister of Defense. And indeed, they had killed him. That is why all sources must be respected.

Also in Ethiopia, he witnessed the extraordinary work of Cuban doctors, the presence of fighters from the island on the border and his contribution to defending the integrity of the country against the aggression of Somalia.

—That’s when they arrest Cardoso Villavicencio and take him to Somalia.

And in 1988, when the combatant’s long solitary captivity was broken, Hugo Rius was one of the first two Cuban reporters to receive him at the foot of the steps of an airplane upon his arrival at the Ethiopian Dire Dawa airport.

But Rius’s bond with Ethiopia is so deep that even he had the misfortune of closing the PL office in Addis Ababa, when the Agency went into crisis in the 1990s, due to the economic problems Cuba suffered. So he moved to Zimbabwe.

—It hurt me so much that, years later, when there was talk of reopening offices in several countries, I said: if they ask for a correspondent for Ethiopia, I’ll leave with what I’m wearing. At that time I was in the UN (2000-2005), and the people there did not believe me. But the idea of ​​going back to the country in the Horn of Africa was more valuable to me than staying at the United Nations, without letting me stop thinking that it was also important.

At the UN, he had to cover dramatic and significant events such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Cuba’s resounding victories in the votes against the United States blockade, and he also had to move in the host city within the restricted 25 miles, under the very hostile government of Bush Jr.

…

To exercise journalism, Rius has had the good fortune to be in various media. For Prensa Latina, he was a correspondent in Egypt, in Algeria; in Ethiopia, for the horn of Africa; in Zimbabwe, for Southern Africa, and at the UN and in Vietnam. He is now the editor of the PL English website.

“The Agency has given me the charm of immediacy. A spell that gravitates towards achieving, in a short time, the precise text; dense and brief at the same time. And those are also his challenges.

PL, where he has been for two stages (1962-65 and 1988 to date), opened doors to realities such as wars, conflicts, coups, calamities. By the way, he recalls an anecdote from the 19th century, by Henry Morton Stanley (a journalist for British and American publications), which he captured in his book The Search for Dr. Livingstone: Journey to the Middle of Africa. This great explorer had been lost for two years and was finally found by Stanley north of Lake Tanganyika. The man went with his arsenal of questions, and before he could ask the first, Livingstone told him: ‘Tell me, journalist, what’s going on in the world?’

—Well, that’s what a journalist on international affairs or from an agency like PL does. That is to say, he builds the “Imago world”, he says what happens, because the world is no longer wide and alien, now it is narrow and his own, thanks to the development of new communications technologies.

Through Bohemia (1972-87), Hugo Rius experiences a deep feeling of closeness. “It was the medium that trained me to write my books[ii], by having the possibility of recreating what happened, because it is a publication that is not limited to punctual, immediate information. So, you can play with literature a bit, make a bit of literature. There, I matured, grew up and felt very fulfilled professionally. I was also a writer specializing in Africa and the Middle East, chief information officer and deputy director”

As a special correspondent for the magazine, he covered the ECLAC conference in Guatemala and the UN General Assembly in 1977; Fidel’s visit to Ethiopia and Cozumel, and the first steps in the process of change in the country on the eastern end of Africa, in 1978. He toured Yemen, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and Benin, where he reported on Cuban internationalist work on different fronts. In Angola, he traveled with joint FAPLA and FAR troops to the Quibala-Eboe, Ambriz-Ambrizete fronts until the fall of Santo Antonio do Zaire, with the forces of the Cuban commander Zayas and the similar Angolan Antonio Dos Santos (N ´Give it). He was also in Benguela and Huambo. Based in Luanda, he accompanied President Neto to Santo Tomas and Principe as a journalist. And he toured Afghanistan at a time of clashes between a progressive government and the CIA-armed Taliban.

…

Vietnam was for Rius a pending issue. Because in 1965 he had a lapse in his journalistic work, he worked at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples as a French language guide, and later he was director of Afroasia there.

— I was part of the organization of the Tricontinental Conference in 1966, and then we were very concerned with Vietnam, with the entire solidarity movement that was generated. I wanted to go to Vietnam, what Cuban doesn’t want to go?

But the invitation came to him at a time when he was in Poland. The then President Jaruzelski had given him an interview, and he was unable to go to Vietnam. Until in 2011 he had the opportunity to visit the country he imagined: that of the Vietnamese walking through the streets with their sticks and a load of fruit, a very impoverished country.

—It was very surprising to see how in such a short time it had become a nation of medium consumption, according to the UN classification. That is, they raised the industry and take advantage of technology.

“They have solved the fundamental problems: food, clothing, transportation, and around the difficulties with housing, they have looked for alternatives, due to the little space they have left to develop. So, at every turn, I experienced a mixture of blue envy and shame. Because I think: Caramba, we were helping this people that was made of land and when they finally defeated the North Americans in ’75 there was a poverty level of fifty-nine percent, they had to import rice to eat, they had nothing . However, today they donate the rice to us, and the coffee also comes from there!”

…

Hugo Rius Blein, in 1970, gave Salvador Allende the first telephone interview for Cuban radio. After much insistence, the newly elected president answered the call.

— He spoke to me about what his victory meant on the third occasion that he was running, about the need to make changes in Chile. And it was obvious that he was very besieged by the press and by many people.

Rius’s journalistic career was then in a germinal phase and it was the most intense stage of his work on radio and television (1967-1972), when he also wrote scripts for the audiovisuals of the Teatro Testimonio program, which dramatized Latin American conflicts. At the same time, he made comments on Radio Rebelde, without disdaining that, during the 10 million harvest, he was a reporter and director of Radio Reloj, nor that he was an international commentator for NTV and the current affairs roundtables at the time.

From his current journalistic activity, La Coletilla highlights his contribution to Cubadebate. Rosa Miriam Elizalde involved him, and “it has been a pleasure to write various articles for that space, since “it is the most conceptually and practically advanced Cuban media.” However, he does not omit his exercise as an opinion columnist in Juventud Rebelde, and more recently in Granma.

Now, Hugo Rius Blein has many completed works and not a few in the pipeline; he has the respect of his colleagues and his students (especially when they call him Kapuscinski behind his back); he has life to live; He has children; has grandchildren; he has María del Carmen, he has journalism!

— Journalism?: Capturing the essences of life. Because without looking for the essence of what you are reporting, without transmitting a breath of guidance or at least a mobilizing breath of other people’s thinking, you cannot speak of journalism. Journalism is to contribute to the mobilization of other people’s intelligence, of human cognition.

A similar message was sent by Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla: “Our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of U.S. political leader and activist Ramsey Clark. His impeccable record in defense of justice merits respect and admiration.”

The renowned jurist died at the age of 93, and Cubans remember him for his support to the struggles for the freedom of the Five and for the return of Elián González. He was awarded Cuba’s Friendship Medal in 2013, in recognition of his courageous attitude.
Fernando González thanked Clark for his valuable support during the battle to free the Cuban Five. Photo: Juvenal Balán

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza likewise stated, in a tweet, that Clark confronted imperialism and was never afraid to denounce it, calling him “a friend of the Bolivarian Revolution and a tireless defender of peace and human rights.”

(Taken from Granma)

Starting from scratch, film after film, Raúl Pérez Ureta got better, working to become an essential director of photography, to whose death, at 79 years of age, we can only respond by putting a hand to the chest and taking a long bow.

Pérez Ureta is the architect, in images, of a good number of Cuban films that remained forever in the imagination of viewers. The composition of lighting, shots, counterplanes, angles, the blessed magical ability to capture the aesthetic thinking of directors, suggesting variants and even going beyond the original proposals.

The story of this modest, deliberate man is that of many young people who, following the triumph of the Revolution, had the opportunity to change the uncertain destiny he had previously faced, given his humble origins.

From the foothills of the Escambra, he came to Havana to work as a janitor who one good day decided to knock on the door of the new Cuban Film Institute (Icaic). He got started by doing whatever was needed – assistant cameraman for cartoons – until Santiago Alvarez ran into him in a hallway, desperate because he urgently needed a soundman. The young Raúl assured him that he knew more than he really did, and from then on, became a member of the impetuousdirector’s crew.

An entire school of young people learned to do things on the fly alongside Alvarez, especially in the production of the Noticiero Icaic newsreel. This was where Pérez Ureta made his great contribution, as cameraman for more than 800 editions between1965 and 1984.

His resume includes work as head of photography for more than forty documentaries (and the same number as cameraman or soundman) and, his greatest achievement, as director of photography, in seventy fictional works in which he left an imprint of the highest quality. Suffice it to mention, among them, La película de Ana, Mujer transparente, La vida es silbar, Un paraíso bajo las estrellas, Martí, el ojo del canario, Suite Habana, Amor vertical and Hacerse el sueco.

Raúl contributed to international cinematography, as well, for many years simultaneously teaching at the San Antonio de los Baños International Film School.

In 2010, he became the first cinematographer in Cuba to win the National Film Award and today, on the occasion of his departure, it is comforting to say goodbye to this man and friend, recalling how he lived his life and left a remarkable body of work.

(Taken from Granma)

Arriving at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Industry and Art (Icaic) in 1961 as a simple apprentice, Tabío made documentaries on various subjects before making his feature-length debut with Se permuta (1984), a film that inspired me, that very year, to write in these pages: “For Tabío it was important for viewers to not only have fun and laugh, but also reflect on what they were seeing, to feel part of the story and its possible solutions. If his film is an engaging dialogue from beginning to end, it is because “the Cuban”, the everyday, the popular and unshaven, is there…”

Arriving at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Industry and Art (Icaic) in 1961 as a simple apprentice, Tabío made documentaries on various subjects before making his feature-length debut with Se permuta (1984), a film that inspired me, that very year, to write in these pages: “For Tabío it was important for viewers to be not only have fun and laugh, but also reflect on what they were seeing, to feel part of the story and its possible solutions. If his film is an engaging dialogue from beginning to end, it is because “the Cuban”, the everyday, the popular and unshaven, is there…”

This was a constant in his filmmaking, marked by experimentation, a willingness to disregard the conventional and, at the same time, very effectively employ critical social comedy, extracting from reality what fiction could make transcendent.

Se permuta, Plaff, Lista de espera, El cuerno de la abundancia, were films that brought millions of spectators to our theaters, and it is enough to close our eyes for a moment to remember those days when going to the movies was an event, and Juan Carlos Tabío became the magician of “serious laughter,” adored by an audience that applauded throughout the screening.

Serious laughter, because in his stories there was nothing mechanically included, and every provocation, with humor as the narrative basis of forceful arguments, came from a social and human context he knew well, an indispensable requirement to make the critical function of art an effective instrument, as long as one has talent and sensitivity, and Tabío had plenty.

When Tomás Gutiérrez Alea got sick in the middle of filming Fresa y Chocolate (1993), he found in Tabío that indispensable other self to become co-director. It was then that a fusion emerged of characters not given to repeating themselves in a drama that did not lack a touch of humor. Alea was more focused on the intellectual aspect of the conflict, Tabío drawing on his popular roots, and with the emotional power of the script by Senel Paz, Gutiérrez Alea himself, would make the film an international event. An audacious combination that both directors would repeat in Guantanamera (1995).

Aunque estés lejos, El elefante y la bicicleta, La inolvidable Dolly Back, (the short film about impersonation that happily disconcerted viewers) and others, are also among the memorable works of Tabío, who was a screenwriter and professor as well, widely acclaimed both nationally and internationally.

The 2014 National Prize for Film was awarded to this intelligent artist, with vast wisdom and culture, with whom it was always a pleasure to discuss art, or life itself, and see him move from an amicable tone to the most open emotionality, those outbursts that made him as authentic as his films.

The world of cinema, and especially Cubans, will miss him, and not only because of his transcendence as a filmmaker.

(Taken from Granma)

Rosa Aurora Freijanes was married to Fernando González Llort, one of the Cuban Five. On multiple occasions, she strongly denounced the obstacles that the U.S. government imposed on her visits to see Fernando and the rigged judicial process that convicted him and his brothers.

Journalist Arleen Rodriguez Derivet commented on Facebook: “A quintessential Cuban woman has left us, a woman with a strong soul and delicate health, transparent and sweet as her blue eyes. Rosa Aurora Freijanes Coca spoke, even without speaking, with her intelligent and clear, honest and sympathetic look. She had a sharp sense of humor and a tender and firm sense of affection and friendship. She fled from cameras and microphones, from lights and mirrors.

“She knew no vanity even when the world revered her as one of the spouses of the Five. But once she accepted the challenge of going up to a podium to explain the truth about Cuba, she moved the audience to tears with her sincere words, with the deep tenderness of her heart.
Rosa Aurora (left) with Elizabeth Palmeiro, Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, her sisters in the struggle for the freedom of the Cuban Five. Photo: Yander Zamora

“She was the mother who could not be of her beloved nephews and the daughters and sons of her friends: Adriana Pérez, Olga Salanueva and Elizabeth Palmeiro, her sisters in the struggle for the freedom of the Five.

“I reached out to them, to her loving sister Mary and the rest of her family, the heartfelt embrace of those of us who knew, admired and loved that girl who was always cheerful, even in the midst of the worst circumstances, especially when the chords of her favorite songs were playing (Tu fantasma or Rosana) with the guitar and voice of their creator, Silvio Rodríguez.”

(Taken from Granma)

The feminine “heart” of the Revolution had stopped beating; an entire people were deprived of the kindness, tenderness, rebellion and simplicity of a woman, everyone’s godmother, who was physically gone, only to become a flower, a breeze, an unforgettable memory, a living presence.

Death is mistaken, if it believes that more than four decades have made a dent in this nation’s memory of Celia Sanchez.

It is impossible to forget the young girl from Media Luna who joined her father Manuel – an honorable doctor – helping to heal the poor. The same girl who climbed Turquino Peak on José Martí’s centenary to honor the Apostle.

It is hard not to remember, today, the young woman who, in the underground battle against the dictatorship, devised ingenious plans like placing messages wrapped in cigarettes, even inside a cake; or inventing a pregnant woman’s belly to outwit authorities.

The same young woman who organized life-saving support for the Granma expeditionaries; the first woman to wear olive green in the Sierra; the person with the foresight to record and collect, on scraps of paper, the history of the war; and became light for Fidel, not a shadow.

The imprint of her efforts is indelible wherever the Revolution’s new ideas took shape, in Lenin Park, the Coppelia Ice Cream Palace, the Convention Center, the Council of State’s Office of Historical Affairs, schools and workshops, just to mention a few.

She was a National Assembly member who took better care of her people than her own health. A member of the Party Central Committee who won the affection of millions with her work, humility and unparalleled dedication.

If “detail” needed a name it would be hers. If “modesty” needed a name it would be hers. If serving as an example could be measured, it would be enough to think of her life.

Although we refer to her in many ways, Heroine of the Sierra and the Plains, Cuba’s most autochthonous flower, tireless guerrillera, it is enough to say Celia, to make clear that she is simply eternal.

(Taken from Granma)

The statement has the effect of a gunshot in the middle of a concert.

How is it possible to spoil his style this way?

Does the President know anything about the human relations Maradona shared with Fidel and Chávez?

We Cubans know them very well, and thus we have the right to be offended.

We can start by clarifying that these relations were not “visits,” since the meetings were repeated over the course of many years, at any time of the day or night. Encounters during which the mutual admiration of brothers was evident cannot be described as visits.

All the images, words, statements inside and outside the country – many over a long period of time – are very well remembered and, since the death of the Argentinean star, of current interest around the world, where they are recalled as a testimony of an unconditional brotherhood, because Maradona not only identified with the causes of the humble inherent in any Revolution that respects itself, but also defended them until the last minute of his life.

Why then offend the memory of our number 10 and assert that these visits will leave a “bitter taste of defeat?”

Bitter taste for whom, and from what point of view?

Why recognize Maradona’s revolution only on the field and not beyond?

With the greatest respect for President Macron, we must remind him that there are plenty of examples related to these sincere friendships that will go down in history without idle comment, examples that – as Voltaire said – “correct much better than reprimands.”

(Taken From Granma)

Cuba’s President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez paid tribute to the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution on his Twitter, writing: “Fidel: How do I greet you? Every day we strive to follow in your footsteps”.

For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros described Fidel in a tweet as “the teacher, father and man of ideas” who taught us to never surrender when it comes to defending the cause of the oppressed, and reiterated, “Four years since your departure to eternity, the Venezuelan people take your presence into every battle and every victory.”

A communiqué from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry also evokes the greatness of the man who Comandante Hugo Chávez defined as the “Caesar of dignity and socialism,” while recalling “his legacy of unwavering struggle for sovereignty and independence, and his example of integrity, courage, solidarity and justice, which continues to guide the awakening of the peoples, in spite of the permanent, criminal attacks of imperialism.”

In a message to Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President Miguel Díaz-Canel, from Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo emphasized that Fidel is “the intelligence and heart of our Revolutions, of our struggles, of our efforts, of our invariable commitment.”

The official website of the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei published for the first time statements made at a meeting with Fidel on May 9, 2001. “I have known him for years, and our people hold his name and his correct positions in high esteem. Undoubtedly, the common points and affinities we share have played an important role in creating the cordial and spiritual ties that exist between us (…). I hope that your visit to Iran will open a new chapter in relations between our countries. Although we are far apart geographically, we can have close ties and relations,” Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stated at the time.

Legislators, Cuban diplomats, representatives of friendship associations and graduates of Cuban universities also paid tribute, in different regions of the planet, to the Comandante en jefe, recalling his enduring legacy supporting humanity’s just causes.

(Taken from Granma)