The Cuban Revolution

A revolution within the Revolution

A revolution within the Revolution
The 60-year path of emancipation Cuban women has taken bears the imprint of Vilma, the militant fighter, the dreamer of the future, who led the struggle along an ever ascending course: that of a Revolution with a vocation for justice, with noble leaders like Fidel and Raúl who always understood the importance of women being protagonists. Beginning today is the 10th Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women

Author: Granma | internet@granma.cu
march 6, 2019 09:03:07

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Photo: Liborio Noval
Dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the initiation of Cuba’s independence struggle; the 60th of the Cuban Revolution; Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz; Vilma Espín; and all young Cuban women, beginning today is the 10th Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), with 360 delegates and 40 guests on hand.
Scheduled today are four commission meetings, to be held in different institutions around the city, in which the role of the organization and its mobilizing role will be analyzed in the context of the updating of Cuba’s economic model; gender equality in the family and society; youth as a guarantee of the FMC’s continuity; and the organization’s internal functioning.
The venues for this first day of the Congress are the Ministry of Agriculture; the Revolutionary Martyrs of Tarara National Police Academy; the University of Havana Event Center; the Center for Engineering and Biotechnology; and the Party’s Ñico López School.
March 7-8, plenary sessions will take place in Havana’s International Convention Center.
Among activities that took place prior to the Congress included the inauguration of social works, photographic exhibitions dedicated to women, political-cultural galas, and the granting of awards to outstanding workers.

Korda’s militia woman

Idolka Sánchez, the militia face immortalized by Korda’s lens in 1962

Korda’s militia woman
The story of Idolka Sánchez, the militia face immortalized by Korda’s lens in 1962, one of the millions of women protagonists of the Cuban Revolution

Author: Alejandra García | internet@granma.cu
march 6, 2019 13:03:06

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La Miliciana. Photo: Korda, Alberto
Among the crowd that May Day, 1962, a young photographer focused on the adolescent face of Idolka Sánchez, as she marched in front of the José Martí Memorial in Havana.

One of the almost 2,000 members of the Lidia Doce women’s militia battalion, Idolka saw him approach, camera in hand. He appeared as if hell bent on photographing her, as if he had seen her from a distance and couldn’t let her escape his lens. He had chosen her.

“Lift up the machine gun!” the man she had barely heard of ordered. This was the same photographer who, in March 1960, had immortalized Che’s face, hair blowing in the wind, during the funeral of the victims of the terrorist attack on the La Coubre steamship. The order was followed by several clicks of his camera and, in a matter of seconds, Korda had disappeared.

Idolka had already forgotten the incident when the photographer reappeared, that same morning. Korda wanted to take two more shots of her. He didn’t just want to capture a face or an image. He was seeking a symbol, and he found it. The following day, the photo was seen across the island, on the front page of the newspaper Revolución. Continue reading Idolka Sánchez, the militia face immortalized by Korda’s lens in 1962 →

Helms-Burton Act

A failed policy dusted off

A failed policy dusted off
Twenty-three years have passed since the Helms-Burton Act was approved. Its authors are barely remembered, but Cuba is still here, free and sovereign, and more committed than ever to our social project

Elson Concepción Pérezfebruary 28, 2019 10:02:36

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Photo: Jose M. Correa
In March of 1996, the U.S. government approved the Helms-Burton Act, intent upon starving Cuba and not content with the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed in 1962. They have yet to learn that Cuba knows how to defend itself, most importantly with our dignity and resistance.

In this country, where things change little if a Democrat or Republican is elected, it was Bill Clinton who signed the Helms-Burton, to appease the most reactionary sectors of the anti-Cuban mafia in South Florida.

Its purpose, from the economic point of view, was to put a brake on foreign investment here, by any means available.

Title III of the law, which the Trump administration has now dusted off, authorizes U.S. nationals to file claims in U.S. courts against any foreigner who “traffics” with properties that were nationalized in Cuba in the 1960s, in a legitimate process that was recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States, and carried out by the Cuban government in full compliance with national and international law.

(Any investor in a Cuban state enterprise with assets that belonged to a U.S. company, 60 years ago, could be targeted. Given the international outcry about such a preposterous law, Title III has been suspended by successive U.S. Presidents since its early years. Breaking with this pattern, Trump recently suspended the provision for only 45 days.)

Twenty-three years have passed since the Helms-Burton Act was approved. Its authors are barely remembered, but Cuba is still here, free and sovereign, and more committed than ever to our social project, as evidenced by the approval of our new Constitution with 86.85% of voters casting a YES ballot.

Cuban Constitution

STATEMENT FROM MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

STATEMENT FROM MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Cuban Foreign Ministry strongly condemns disrespectful U.S. State Department declaration
The Republic of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the disrespectful statement made by the United States Department of State, presented by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, in which an attempt is made to question the Constitutional referendum, freely and sovereignly conducted by Cubans this past February 24.

Author: Granma | internet@granma.cu
february 27, 2019 10:02:17

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Photo: Juvenal Balán
The Republic of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the disrespectful statement made by the United States Department of State, presented by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, in which an attempt is made to question the Constitutional referendum, freely and sovereignly conducted by Cubans this past February 24.

The text of the statement is an expression of imperialist thinking deeply rooted in the foreign policy of the current U.S. administration. It reflects the pretension, already announced, to once again impose the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, accompanied now by McCarthyist intolerance.

The Cuban people spoke loud and clear on February 24, with resounding eloquence. They freely made use of the ballot box in the construction of socialism, doing so massively to express their will, despite the pernicious campaign by the United States government intended to influence the vote. Some time ago, Cubans cut short any U.S. pretension to control the destiny of our country.

The State Department should end the practice of meddling in the internal affairs of other states and interfering in electoral processes or votes in other nations. This is a mania that violates international law, with which the United States government disregards the norms that govern relations between sovereign states.

Havana, February 26, 2019