Event recalls invasion, condemns embargo

  ANGIE LEVINE Sergio Martinez, the first
secretary of the Cuban interests section speaks on Wednesday.

By Michaele Turnage
Daily Bruin Contributor

A night intended to commemorate the 40th anniversary of
Cuba’s victory over the U.S. at Playa Giron, otherwise known
as the Bay of Pigs, quickly turned into conversations about
dispelling misconceptions of the foreign country.

Sponsored by Conciencia Libre, Wednesday’s event, titled
“Cuba’s Victory at the Bay of Pigs: The Living
Legacy,” featured a lecture by Cuban Foreign Ministry
Representative Sergio Martinez, who invited students to attend a
summer Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange.

Audience members also listened to testimonies of two of the 21
Conciencia Libre delegates who travelled to Cuba during spring
break. Similar talks were given at Compton College and California
State University, Los Angeles last week.

The event came the day before celebrations in Playa Giron, where
Cubans celebrated the country’s victory. But on Wednesday,
the United Nations’ condemned Cuba for human rights
violations.

Years of tensions between the U.S and Cuba exploded when 1,300
U.S-supported Cuban exiles invaded Playa Giron on April 17, 1961,
launching the Bay of Pigs battle on the south coast of Cuba. The
battle was intended to bring down Fidel Castro’s communist
government. Castro’s troops triumphed two days later, despite
the more than 100 casualties on each side.

The U.S. has had an economic embargo on Cuba since 1961. In
1992, the U.S. passed the Helms Burton Act, also known as the
Libertad Act, which strengthened the embargo.

According to the U.S. State Department Web site, “the
fundamental goal of United States policy toward Cuba is to promote
a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government
and respect for human rights.”

Meanwhile, event participants condemned what they called a
blockage against Cuba.

“If the Cubans want to be socialists, that’s their
choice,” said Mario Cuellar, who organized the event.

The long-standing animosity between the U.S. and Cuba has left
U.S. residents with a biased perception of Cuba and its people,
speakers said.

“Everything you read in the press regarding Cuba is about
the dictatorship of Fidel Castro,” said Sergio Martinez,
First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington D.C.
He added that in the U.S., it is easy to forget that Cuba is a
country of 11 million people because the press focuses on one
person.

“We have to stop thinking as an individual, or as a
country, and start thinking as a humankind,” Martinez
said.

Cuellar, a fifth-year political science and sociology student
who travelled to Cuba during spring break, declared the need to
inform people about the country.

“We wanted to go and see first-hand, and come back and let
the U.S. people know about it,” said Cuellar, who said he was
surprised when Cubans approached him voluntarily to assist him with
directions.

What most people don’t know is that Cuba provides free
health care and education, and meets all its citizens’ basic
needs, Martinez said.

During a visit by the Congressional Black Caucus to Cuba, he
said the congressmen were impressed by Cuba’s Latin American
School of Medicine. Like other universities, students can attend
the school free of charge, so long as they promise to serve their
communities after they graduate, he said.

Since their visit, the medical school received close to 200
applications from the U.S., he said, adding that the school wanted
to serve groups in the U.S. for whom it was difficult to get access
to education.

Additionally, Cubans have tremendous concern for other people,
speakers said. In the era of apartheid, Cuba sent troops to Africa
to aid Angola in its fight for independence.

While many celebrated Cuba for its accomplishments, reports
condemn Cuba for human right’s violations.

“The Cuban government continues to intimidate, detain and
arrest dissidents and human rights activists,” the U.S. State
Department Web site said. The report declared that Cuba
“denies citizens freedoms of speech, press, assembly and
association,” and that “hundreds of political prisoners
remain in Cuban jails.”

Though Cuba is a developing nation, delegates said its people
have a better quality of life than some in the U.S. because there
is no concern with making enough money to survive.

Also, race relations are different in Cuba, where more than half
the population is biracial or multiracial.

“You don’t feel black, you don’t feel Latino,
you feel like a human being,” said event organizer Mario
Cuellar, who added that one sees people of color in every position
in society.

College students in Cuba hold positions in the parliament and
have a large say in what goes on in their country and schools,
delegates to Cuba said. It is not like UCLA where only few students
have positions in the decision-making process, they said.

“As UCLA students, we exist in a bubble of
misinformation,” said German Gurrola, a second-year
anthropology student. “It is necessary for us to seek other
avenues of education in order to help ourselves and our
community.”