The Cubans hail Rex

Nettleford

THE EDITOR, Sir:

The undersigned organisations offer our deepest condolences at the sudden death of Rex Nettleford, professor emeritus, former vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, and outstanding fighter for civil rights and against racism.

Rex Nettleford was always on the side of Cuba. As a leftist Caribbean academic, he always had the capacity to identify with the Cuban nation, its culture and sensibilities. And this shared sensibility led him to identify more deeply with us. One of his last public acts attests to this. Rex Nettleford used his name, prestige and capabilities to criticise the persistence of racism in Cuba and to analyse, with acute comprehension, the subtleties with which this scourge evolved, almost quietly, in our Caribbean and Latin American worlds.

Fight for civil rights

For this, we shall always be grateful to him. Rex Nettleford contributed to the recognition by our neighbours that Cuba has serious problems with race and colour. In addition, he helped to highlight the lot of those who are fighting for civil rights in Cuba. For this, Darsi Ferrer joins his voice and adds his signature, without hesitation, to the side of those of us who feel the physical loss of someone, unknown to many in Cuba, who discovered how to see us.

On behalf, alsos, of the intellectuals and activists who have signed and who continue signing this pro-foundly felt Cuban text, we send our condolences to his relatives and friends, to the Caribbean intellectual community which must feel his loss; and to all those who were trained and sensitised over many years under his moral, civic and intellectual guidance.

I am, etc.,

Juan Antonio

Madraza Luna

Citizens Committee for Racial

Integration

Via Go-Jamaica