With the aim of strengthening solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela, seven brigadistas from Puerto Rico traveled to Caracas to form the First Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías International Brigade.
Puerto Rican social leader Milagros Rivera informed Prensa Latina in San Juan that 30 brigadistas have confirmed their attendance: 15 from Colombia, seven from Puerto Rico, one from Ecuador, three from the Dominican Republic, one from Costa Rica, and three from Haiti.
“Our Haitian colleagues had difficulties traveling because they couldn’t obtain (in time) a document that would allow them to leave from the Dominican Republic, which was the fastest route,” stated the Puerto Rican leader, who coordinates the Commission along with Venezuelan Yhonny García Calles.
This is a different kind of gathering, one that had to be organized without funding, in a short amount of time, and outside of the holiday season, Rivera explained, but it was important to make it happen during this period, when we celebrate two important victories for the people of Venezuela and Cuba.
She noted that April 13, 2002, marked the return of Hugo Chávez to Miraflores Palace after the coup d’état orchestrated by the Venezuelan oligarchy with Washington’s backing, and that April 19, 1961, was the day of the Bay of Pigs invasion, against mercenaries trained by the CIA (United States Central Intelligence Agency) in Guatemala.
“This was the first defeat achieved against Yankee imperialism, caused by…” “By the revolutionary forces in Cuba, led by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro,” Rivera stated.
Now, he added, a broad program of reciprocal solidarity will be developed in Caracas in response to the imperialist onslaughts of the United States, which have humanity on edge, given President Donald J. Trump’s eagerness to seize the wealth of the nations he attacks.
The brigade members, in addition to raising the banners of solidarity with Venezuela and Cuba, demand the immediate release of the constitutional Bolivarian president, Nicolás Maduro Moros, and the congresswoman, Cilia Flores, who were kidnapped by U.S. military forces and remain in a New York jail.
Important activities will be held with the communes, workers, women, youth, and all sectors that are victoriously defending the Bolivarian Revolution today.
The Organizing Committee is made up of the Brigades Commission of the Continental Network, the Simón Bolívar Institute, and the Cuba-Venezuela Mutual Solidarity Movement.
The Continental Network, which this Saturday It will hold its 5th Assembly with more than 400 delegates, and is made up of solidarity movements from nearly 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
[ SOURCE: PRENSA LATINA ]
