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Cuba and Angola’s Liberation

Eternal gratitude for Cuban blood shed to win Angola’s independence

Eternal gratitude for Cuban blood shed to win Angola’s independence
As part of his official visit to the island, Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço met with Cuban combatants who fought in his country’s independence struggle, recalling those times

Author: National news staff | informacion@granma.cu
july 4, 2019 10:07:23

Cuba contributed decisively to the liberation of Angola.

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Photo: Archive
As part of his official visit to the island, Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço met with Cuban combatants who fought in his country’s independence struggle, emphasizing his people’s eternal gratitude for this solidarity.

During the meeting, participants recalled those times, when Cuba’s friendship, solidarity, and cooperation was established, “consecrated and eternalized when both shed precious blood to defend the most noble human ideas; freedom, and the right to seek one’s own destiny,” Gonçalves said.

Upon receiving the José Martí Order, earlier this week, the highest distinction awarded by the Cuban state, the Angolan President emphasized that the two people’s “united in an indestructible alliance and defeated on all fronts the powerful forces attempting to prevent, with aggression and war, the independence of Angola, and the liberation of Namibia and South Arica from the grip of apartheid.”

Operation Carlota in Angola, from August of 1975 through May of 1991, when the last group of Cuban internationalists returned, was the Cuban government’s response to a request for help made by the historic leader of the Angolan Liberation Movement (MPLA), Agostinho Neto, given the aggression perpetuated by the apartheid regime in South Africa, with its internal and external allies, in an attempt to deny Angola independence, defeat the MPLA, and occupy the country.

A total of Cuban 385,908 combatants participated in the mission, and 2,398 gave their lives.

Not one of them was seeking personal glory or riches. They were motivated by the desire to be useful, and their loyalty to the Revolution’s internationalism.

U.S. sanctions on Cuba

U.S. sanctions Cuban oil importer

U.S. sanctions Cuban oil importer
Justifying the aggressive move, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated: “Sanctions on Cubametales will disrupt Maduro’s attempts to use Venezuela’s oil as a bargaining tool to help his supporters purchase protection from Cuba and other malign foreign actors”
International news staffjuly 4, 2019 15:07:15

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Photo: Granma
Yesterday July 3, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the Cuban oil import-export state enterprise Cubametales, placing the company on its blacklist, for maintaining ties with Venezuela.
Justifying the aggressive move, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated: “Sanctions on Cubametales will disrupt Maduro’s attempts to use Venezuela’s oil as a bargaining tool to help his supporters purchase protection from Cuba and other malign foreign actors.”
Entities on the list face freezing of all goods and assets which persons or companies may hold, directly or indirectly under U.S. jurisdiction, as well the prohibition of any legal transactions that involve U.S. citizens or entities.
Through November of 2018, a total of 205 Cuban entities had been listed, including hotels in important tourist destinations like Varadero, Havana, and the Villa Clara keys; as well as stores and shopping centers.
In March of 2019, five more enterprises were added to the list, and in April, the U.S. penalized 34 ships belonging to Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA, used to transport oil from that country to Cuba.

Cuba Helms-Burton Act

The only troops Cuba has in Venezuela are the doctors in our army of white coats

Trump knows about war, but nothing about solidarity
The only troops Cuba has in Venezuela are the doctors in our army of white coats, helping to save lives there, as thousands of others do around the world

Bertha Mojena Miliánjune 28, 2019 10:06:43

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Photo: Martirena
President Donald Trump shows no signs of ending his unfounded accusations of Cuba. In a June 20 interview on Telemundo – his first on Spanish language television – he stated, “Do you see what is happening in Venezuela? It’s awful. And do you know who is primarily responsible for the problem? Cuba. They have 25,000 soldiers there.”If that weren´t enough, he also said that he would “fix the situation in Cuba,” and that his policy of tightening the blockade, and adopting new measures to reverse the progress made in bilateral relations during the Obama administration, would “accelerate the transition towards democracy on the Communist island.”
He reiterated that Cuba is responsible for prolonging the crisis in Venezuela, with its military support to the government of Nicolás Maduro, although he admitted that Juan Guaidó has not been able to “displace” the Venezuelan leader since this is “a process” that takes time.
The U.S. President is definitely obsessed with Cuba and Venezuela, leading him to be irrational, compulsive, monothematic, and rude, repeating absurd arguments that are not believed even in his own country.
Cuba has exposed these and many other slanders invented in Washington, with reason and truth on our side. The only troops we have in Venezuela are the Cuban doctors in our army of white coats, helping to save millions lives there, as do thousands of others in many parts of the world. Our teachers and professors are also working in the Bolivarian nation, serving as coordinators and advisors to missions that have raised the quality of education in that country and taken it to the most remote places. There are art instructors who rescue and reinforce national and Latin American identity, and athletes who work in the recruitment and training of talented young Venezuelans, to represent the country in international competitions.

Trump’s aberrations, like as those of his advisor John Bolton – another pathological liar – unwittingly show who is really responsible for the situation in Venezuela: the same people desperately attempting to economically asphyxiate the Cuban people, to subjugate us with hunger and diseases, discredit the will and love that our collaborators spread, and debase the very essence of solidarity.

– Cuba has 48,000 health professionals cooperating in 66 nations of the South, more than all rich countries together. Only in Venezuela, Cuban cooperation has helped save 1.5 million lives, in 12 years.

– The Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, specialized in natural disasters and severe epidemics, was recognized in 2017 by the World Health Organization, for serving more than 3,500,000 people in 21 countries.

– More than 4,000,000 individuals with limited resources, from 34 countries, have been provided eye surgery free of charge, through Operation Milagro.

Source: Cubainformación

The legal basis of Cuba’s nationalizations

The legal basis of Cuba’s nationalizations

The legal basis of Cuba’s nationalizations
The first nationalizations took place in Cuba when the Agrarian Reform was enacted, in May of 1959, and established compensation with 20-year government issued bonds

José Luis Toledo Santanderjune 11, 2019 11:06:26

The Revolutionary government promulgated nationalization laws to fulfill the Moncada program.

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Photo: Granma Archives
Given the increase in U.S. imperial aggression and arrogance, many Cubans are being heard these days paraphrasing General Antonio Maceo, on the occasion of his historic statement in Mangos de Baraguá, in 1878, when responding to a surrender agreement known as the Zanjón Pact, he said, “No, we do not understand each other.” I agree with them, we cannot understand the U.S. government, for many reasons, among them because we make an effort to give words the interpretation they deserve.

In the Helms-Burton Act, the terms “confiscated property” and “confiscated assets” are used regularly. As Dr. Olga Miranda Bravo explains, these terms are in no way “similar to nationalization,” defined as an act by which a nation, in a legal process, can, for different reasons, order the appropriation of private properties and place them within the public treasury.”

The confiscation of assets is an accessory legal act, subsequent to the commission of a crime, which implies, in addition to a penalty, the restitution of property ill-gained, with no right to compensation.The Council of Ministers, in use of powers recognized by the Fundamental Law of the Republic, February 7, 1959 – broadly and specifically inspired by the 1940 Constitution – enacted Law No.15 on March 17, 1959, which ordered the confiscation, and consequent adjudication to the Cuban state, of assets owned by Fulgencio Batista and all those who collaborated with his dictatorship, recognized as responsible for multiple crimes, as set forth in the Code of Social Defense, in effect at that time.When the Helms-Burton Act refers in its section 302 of Title III to trafficking with property confiscated by the Cuban government, it is protecting the very criminals cited in Law 15/1959, whose assets were confiscated because they had committed crimes. Continue reading The legal basis of Cuba’s nationalizations →