J’cans join Cubans in celebrating Fidel’s 93rd
Published:Saturday | August 24, 2019 | 12:08 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
Father of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz would have been 93 years old if he were alive today.
Last Sunday, local politicians joined diplomats inside a packed Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) Auditorium in Kingston to celebrate the life and times of the Cuban communist revolutionary, who ruled the island as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as president from 1976 to 2008.
The event was organised by the Friends of Cuba Organization and the Jamaica-Cuba Friendship Association and was attended by several opposition members of the Parliament, including Anthony Hylton and Horace Dalley, among other political and cultural figures.
A considerable representation of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps was also in attendance as well as members of various Jamaican organisations in solidarity with Cuba, including the Jamaica Peace Council, the Association of Graduates from Cuban Colleges, the Left Alliance for National Democracy and Socialism, the Pan-African Federalist Movement, the Association of Cuban Residents in Jamaica Antonio Maceo y Grajales, and the Cuban State Mission in Jamaica.
“The speeches that were offered reflected admiration and respect for Fidel; the gratitude to the Cuban Revolution for its selfless cooperation in areas of health, education, professional training; and the solidarity with the struggles of our people for the lifting of the criminal economic, commercial, and financial blockade; the return of the territory illegally occupied by the Guantánamo naval base, and against the anti-Cuban campaigns and measures of the current US administration,” said Ricardo Calvo Aguila, an adviser at the Cuban Embassy in Kingston.
Ulises Calvo Borges, third secretary in charge of consular affairs, spoke on behalf of the Cuban Embassy.
Castro, who was born on August 13, 1926, died on November 25, 2016, after a period of illness.