Havana, July 5 (Prensa Latina) Cuba doesn’t need affection because it has a lot, it needs greater recognition of its merits, said Alicia Rodríguez, a member of the Puerto Rican Solidarity Brigade Juan Rius Rivera, whose program continues on the island today.
After 16 trips to the largest of the Antilles, Rodríguez believed that one of the most important actions he was developing was to educate about the reality of Cuba so that Puerto Ricans, especially young people, are not carried away by what the press reflects will you live here.
In this sense, the presence of new people in the XXXI. Brigade convened by the Puerto Rico Committee for Solidarity with Cuba, most of them members of a sound project dedicated to the so-called Jíbaro music.
We come to Cuba in an act of solidarity with the revolutionary process, we want to come here freely, without the problems caused by the US blockade, and to exchange everything that unites us, the professor emeritus from the University of Puerto Rico added exclusively to Prensa added latina rich.
These are two brother countries with similar revolutionary histories; The Puerto Rican was frustrated, but the Cuban was reached and we want that union to be sustained in these times.
Rodríguez expressed Cubans’ constant solidarity with the cause of their country’s independence, subject to the status of a free associated state with the United States, which limits their sovereignty.
I always think of José Martí, who spoke of the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico, of Lola Rodríguez, who lived and died in Cuba and author of the poem with the famous verse that says that Cuba and Puerto Rico are two wings of one bird.
He added that in his speeches, including at the UN, Fidel Castro has always spoken of his willingness to fight for Puerto Rico’s independence, a position he will take with the current Cuban government.
For the economist, the liberation of Puerto Rico is of great importance for the Latin American continent, which is currently experiencing historic moments for the peoples of the region.
The former longtime president of the Association of Puerto Rican Economists acknowledged that the island nation is going through an economic and social crisis that dates back to 2006, before the devastating Hurricane Maria.
Puerto Rico is in a recession that is already a depression and forecasts are being revised downwards, there is a drop in economic activity with very negative impacts on agriculture.
He explained that the government supports a policy of encouraging foreign investment, particularly for North American companies, but has now moved to granting business subsidies.
We are facing a massive emigration, mainly of productive young people who are leaving Puerto Rico with an education because they cannot find professional fulfillment and have a better quality of life in the face of the crisis and social unrest in the country.
Rodríguez, along with almost a hundred members of the Solidarity Brigade, will visit historical sites in the east and center of the country, attend the Caribbean Festival in Santiago de Cuba and the tribute in Cienfuegos to the 69th anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Lawns.
For more than three decades, the Juan Rius Rivera Brigade has been promoting solidarity between the two islands, defying the US blockade, developing local development projects and discussing economic and social realities.