This is a video of images, and a song, about Che Guevara.
From AAP news agency, the Australian Associated Press:
Cuban doctors help Che Guevara‘s killer
September 30, 2007 – 7:39PM
Cuban doctors volunteering in Bolivia performed a free cataract surgery for Mario Teran, the Bolivian army sergeant who killed the legendary guerilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara in captivity, the daily Granma newspaper reported.
“Four decades after Mario Teran attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle, and continues on in the struggle,” the Communist Party of Cuba‘s official newspaper said.
On October 9, 1967, Teran killed Guevara while he was being held prisoner and suffering from combat wounds in La Higuera, the paper recounted. It said he acted on orders from generals Rene Barrientos and Alfredo Ovando, as well as the White House and the US Central Intelligence Agency, to execute the Argentine-Cuban rebel leader.
Nearly forty years to the day later, Teran underwent eye surgery in a Santa Cruz hospital that was donated by the Cuban government and recently inaugurated by Bolivian President Evo Morales.
“Now an old man, he (Teran) can once again appreciate the colours of the sky and the forest, to enjoy the smiles of his grandchildren, and to watch football games,” the article said.
“But surely he will never be capable of seeing the difference between the ideas that drove him to murder a man in cold blood, and the ideas of that very man.”
The reports said one of Teran’s sons asked the local Santa Cruz daily El Deber to publish a notice thanking the Cuban doctors who restored his father’s sight with the successful operation.
Che Guevara and rugby: here.
A special film screening will take place in Petersham, Sydney on September 28 to celebrate the graduation of the first 18 East Timorese students through Cuba’s medical training aid program, which began in East Timor in 2003: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
U.S. students study for free at medical school in Cuba
Posted by: “Compa�ero” companyero@bellsouth.net chocoano05
Thu Oct 4, 2007 12:44 am (PST)
UNM Daily Lobo
U.S. students study for free at medical school in Cuba
Posted: 9/28/07
by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
The average graduate from UNM’s medical school in 2005 was more than $90,000 in debt, according to a study by U.S. News and World Report.
More than 100 U.S. medical students, including one UNM alumna, found an opportunity to study for free in an unlikely setting – Cuba.
The Latin American School of Medicine is an internationally certified medical school.
The program is offered by the Cuban government and the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, a Harlem, N.Y., nonprofit.
It allows students to study medicine with a full scholarship from the Cuban government.
Students who attend the school must commit to work for two years in a public health clinic in underserved communities in the United States, said Ellen Bernstein, associate director of the foundation.
“It’s going to provide health and healing to communities that haven’t had it before,” she said. “They will come back fully trained, thanks to Cuba’s help, and they’ll be offering services that are badly needed.”
Studying medicine in Cuba
Although it is in Cuba, the Latin American School of Medicine is not tainted by ideology or government affairs, said Tatyana Guerrero-Pezzano, a student in the program.
“This isn’t a political program at all. It’s just to train doctors,” she said. “If you want an excellent medical education for free, this is the place to look.”
Guerrero-Pezzano, who grew up in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, began her fifth year of medical school in Cuba this fall.
The first class of eight U.S. doctors graduated from the program July 24 at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana.
They will help fill a vital need for public health care in underserved communities in the United States when they begin practicing medicine, Bernstein said.
“The Cubans cover the cost of tuition, room, board, books, toiletries, and they even give a small stipend which is pocket money to take the bus and stuff,” Bernstein said. “(Medical students) have the freedom to practice where communities don’t have the resources to pay them a high salary, but where medical attention is sorely needed.”
The program is accredited nationally and internationally, but it needs accreditation from individual states before students can practice medicine in them, said Arnold Trujillo, a recruiter with the program.
He said the program is on track to be accredited by the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners within a year, which is before the New Mexican students are set to graduate.
How the program started
The Latin American School of Medicine opened its doors in 1998 to help Latin America countries devastated by hurricanes, said Lucius Walker, executive director of the religious foundation.
Cuba trains doctors for free from around the world because it sees universal health care as a human right, Walker said.
“The idea Fidel (Castro) had was to open a medical school to teach and train doctors who would go back to the regions devastated by hurricanes to work amongst the most affected,” he said.
Walker said the medical school has 3,500 students from more than 20 countries in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.
The scholarship program for U.S. students began in 2000, when members of the Congressional Black Caucus visited Cuba to learn about its health care system, Walker said.
The first class of U.S. students began the six-year medical program in April 2001.
Although the U.S. Treasury Department prohibits most United States citizens from traveling to or trading with Cuba, Walker said the program is protected by a special federal license.
“Despite the Bush regime’s hostility towards Cuba, the students who graduate from the program are considered the same as graduates from any other fully approved international program,” Bernstein said.
A New Mexican in Havana
Growing up in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Guerrero-Pezzano knew she wanted to be a doctor.
She said she started at UNM but became disillusioned with the corporate influence in American health care.
“It started as one of those childhood dreams,” she said. “By the time I was at the age to apply for medical school, I had sort of lost my attraction with the business-oriented direction that health care was going in America.”
The full scholarship from Cuba opened the door to medical school for her, Guerrero-Pezzano said.
Cuban medicine has an excellent reputation for family and preventative care, which are her areas of interest, she said.
But she said there are challenges that come with training in Cuba, such as learning in Spanish, living with basic accommodations and having less access to innovative medicines and technology available in the U.S.
She said the program has benefits that outweigh the disadvantages.
“They will practice with a certain sensitivity and skill, and they’ll know the community where they’re working,” she said. “Plus, they’ll be totally bilingual, which is worth its weight in gold in almost any U.S. hospital.”
Guerrero-Pezzano said it is inspiring to work in a country with free, universal health care. She said Cuban doctors focus on patients’ needs rather than the cost of quality treatment.
The doctors at the medical school emphasize working with patients rather than lab results and high-tech equipment, she said.
“The training is just awesome,” she said. “Sometimes they’ll tell us to pretend we’re in the mountains with nothing else than our stethoscope.”
Revitalizing public health in New Mexico?
New Mexico’s health care is one of the worst in the United States, according a ranking by Morgan Quitno Press.
The state was 49th in the research company’s 2007 Healthiest State Rankings.
The ranking compares health care according to 21 factors, including access to providers and affordability of care.
Cuba has less money and resources than the U.S., but it provides quality health care for all its citizens, Guerrero-Pezzano said.
She said Cuba’s focus on preventative health care and education could benefit underserved communities in New Mexico and the United States.
“If we were to focus on health promotion and prevention instead of treating something once it’s already developed into a full-blown disease, I think this country and this state would have a lot less of a bill to pay in terms of public sector health care,” she said.
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40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s Assassination
On October 8th, 2007, it will be 40th year of the assassination of Ernesto Che Guevara, the Charismatic Latin American revolutionary from Argentina. Ever since then Che’s name has become an icon of protest throughout the world by anti-imperialist forces.
Even after 40 years of his assassination, Che’s name is very much alive and his portrait is the most significant symbol at any demonstration in any part of the world.
Che was the close comrade – at – arms of Fidel and spent together in the Sierra Maestra Mountains planning the overthrow of Batista regime in Cuba. Hence Che’s contribution to the Cuban revolution was enormous which the Cuban leadership and the people have gratefully acknowledged.
AAPSO has its recollection of Che Guevara when he visited Cairo during his revolutionary mission in Africa. He is the only Latin American leader whose name is implanted in Africa and Asia and is widely adorned.
Che relinquished his responsibilities as a minister in the Cuban government and left for wider revolutionary exploits and was in the jungle in Bolivia fighting side by side with the patriotic forces when he was captured and executed. His body was secretly buried but was discovered later and the remains were taken to Cuba and re-buried with honours.
As the Bolivian patriotic movement has won the election under Morales who became the new President, Bolivia, Cuba and several other Latin American countries will commemorate this event on the 40th anniversary of Che’s assassination.
AAPSO join them and pay homage to this great revolutionary leader.
Nouri Abdul Razzak Hussain
Secretary – General
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The Huffington Post
October 10, 2007
By Sarah Stephens and Peter Kornbluh
The Terrorists Among US
Posted October 6, 2007 | 01:32 PM (EST)
Think of how angry Americans would be if Pakistan’s government let
Osama bin Laden emerge from his cave of refuge and take up open
residence in Islamabad? A scene just like that is the reality here
in the United States where Luis Posada Carriles, who ranks in the
top ten list of the world’s most prolific terrorists, is living
freely in Florida–despite his known involvement in blowing up a
civilian airliner and other bombings and assassination attempts over
more than forty years. Since May, when a Federal judge tossed out
the minor charges of immigration fraud leveled by Alberto Gonzales’s
Justice Department, Posada has been enjoying life in Miami’s
hard-line Cuban exile community. The U.S. media has all but
forgotten about him. His victims, however, remain seared by this
remarkable injustice and so should we. Today, after all, marks the
anniversary of the mid-air destruction of Cubana Airlines flight
455, which took the lives of 73 passengers and crew, including the
Cuban Olympic Fencing team and a group of teenage Guyanese science
students on their way to Cuba to go to medical school. Their
families will commemorate this day of loss, as they have for 31
years, wondering whether Posada and his co-conspirator Orlando
Bosch–who is also living freely in Miami–will ever be brought to
justice. But for those of us in the United States, the case of Luis
Posada Carriles is not only about a long overdue legal reckoning for
the victims of terrorism, it is about the hypocrisy of the purported
leader in the global fight against international terrorism now
harboring a renowned purveyor of terrorist violence. “The United
States cannot tolerate the inherent inhumanity of terrorism as a way
of settling disputes,” declared a 1989 Justice Department ruling
that Orlando Bosch should remain detained or deported after he
illegally returned to the United States from Venezuela. “We must
look on terrorism as a universal evil, even if it is directed toward
those with whom we have no political sympathy.” That principle was
ignored by the administration of George H.W. Bush which, urged on by
politically powerful rightwing Cuban exiles in Florida, set Bosch
free in 1990. Following in his father’s footsteps, George W’s
administration has politicized the Posada case as well, allowing him
to go free and flaunting the credibility of the U.S. war on terror
in the process. Make no mistake, this former CIA asset and
demolition trainer is a resolute and unrepentant advocate of terror.
As early as 1965, declassified CIA intelligence reports cite
Posada’s operations to blow up ships and other targets, financed by
benefactors in Miami. Documents uncovered in his office in Caracas
link Posada to a string of sabotage attacks on consulates and travel
agencies that did business with Cuba in the summer of 1976. Those
same records contained information on the route of Cubana flight
455. Indeed, the part Posada played in the first atrocity of
aviation terrorism in the Western Hemisphere is especially well
corroborated. Declassified FBI reports place him in meetings in
Caracas where the attack on the plane was planned. According to a
secret CIA intelligence report, a high level informant overheard
Posada declaring, “We are going to hit a Cuban airliner and Orlando
has the details” only days before the plane exploded after take off
from Barbados. Confessions by the two Venezuelans who brought the
bomb on board–plastic explosives stuffed into a large tube of
Colgate toothpaste–and who worked for Posada, noted that their
first calls after the airliner plunged into the ocean were to
Posada’s office. “The bus has gone off the cliff and the dogs are
dead,” they reported. Both Posada and Bosch were arrested in
Caracas. Posada was held in Venezuela for nine years for the
aircraft bombing but escaped from prison in 1985. (He then went to
El Salvador to work on the Reagan administration’s illicit contra
resupply operation.) In the spring and summer of 1997, he
orchestrated a bombing campaign against Havana hotels and
discotheques that resulted in the death of an Italian businessman;
“That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time,”
Posada noted in an interview with the New York Times a year later in
which he publicly took responsibility for the attacks. “I sleep like
a baby.” Three years later, at age 73, he was caught in Panama with
34 pounds of C-4 explosives, which he planned to use to blow up an
auditorium where Fidel Castro was scheduled to speak. After serving
only four years of a prison sentence, Posada and three
co-conspirators were inexplicably pardoned and freed; still wanted
in Caracas for the bombing of flight 455, Posada became a fugitive
once again. But in March 2005, he illegally entered the United
States and surfaced in Miami, sufficiently comfortable in the cradle
of the anti-Castro exile community to announce his presence to the
media and actually seek political asylum. If Orlando Bosch could
live freely in Miami, why couldn’t Luis Posada? For two months, the
Bush administration basically pretended that he was not there. But
this is the post 9/11 world. Massive and embarrassing publicity
finally forced Bush’s hand. On May 17, 2005, DHS agents detained
Posada on illegal entry charges, and then indicted for lying to
immigration authorities on how he came to the United States. Yes,
you read that correctly: one of the world’s most infamous terrorists
charged as an illegal immigrant. Using the counter-terrorism
provisions of the Patriot Act, the administration could have
certified Posada as a terrorist danger and detained him
indefinitely. But apparently the Justice Department viewed his brand
of political violence is different than those other terrorism
suspects with Middle Eastern names. The Administration could have
also accepted Venezuela’s formal petition for Posada’s extradition.
After all, Posada is a naturalized Venezuelan citizen; the crime was
planned in Caracas, and he is a fugitive from justice from
Venezuela. But Bush has his priorities: it is more important to
mollify rightwing Republican Cuban-American voters in Florida who
would view Posada’s extradition as a betrayal and as a victory for
Chavez and Castro, than to turn over a terrorist to the country that
has a legitimate claim to hold him accountable for the first act of
airborne terror in the hemisphere, a devastating crime.
The charade of detaining Posada on immigration violations has not
been lost on the U.S. courts. Indeed, last May a Federal Judge
dismissed the entire illegal entry case against Posada, citing
prosecutorial misconduct and incompetence. Without even a slap on
the wrist, he returned to Miami a free man, limited only in his
movements by the ironic DHS decision to place him on a government
“no fly” list. To date, Bush has made a mockery of his motto that no
nation should harbor terrorists and all nations should take steps to
bring those who commit acts of terrorism to justice. If his
administration will not certify and detain Posada for the
international criminal he is, if his administration will not
extradite Posada to Venezuela because Bush doesn’t like Chavez, the
administration still has one option to redeem itself: the Justice
Department can indict Posada for the hotel bombings in Havana ten
years ago for which he has publicly claimed credit. The known body
of evidence in this case is strong: the FBI has an informant who
witnessed Posada’s meetings in Guatemala where the bombings were
organized, and saw a bag of 23 tubes of plastic explosives in the
offices Posada used. Couriers have told how they were recruited by
Posada associates to transport the explosives in Prell shampoo
bottles and in their shoes. Federal authorities are also in
possession of an August 1997 fax, in Posada’s own handwriting and
signed “Solo”–one of his nom de guerres–stating that “if there is
no publicity, the job is useless” and arranging for funds to be
“sent by Western Union from New Jersey.” Additional evidence was
gathered during a rare FBI trip to Havana late last year and
presumably turned over to a federal grand jury which as been
impaneled in Newark to hear this case. With a new attorney general
designate soon to face confirmation hearings, the Senate Judiciary
Committee has the opportunity to voice its concerns about the way
the Justice Department has allowed a known terrorist to go free.
Retired judge Michael Mukasey, who is known for being tough on
terrorism, should be given every opportunity to disassociate himself
from the political contamination of this case and to commit the
Justice Department to finally holding Posada accountable for his
acts of international violence. Prosecuting Posada matters. It would
put our country on the side of justice for a crime that took place
in Cuba that was inspired politically to hurt the Castro regime.
This, in turn, would send a signal to Cuba and the world that
Washington is serious about deterring acts by terrorists using U.S.
soil as their base of operations. It would end a dramatic and
hypocritical inconsistency in our policy toward terrorism. Moreover,
the families of Posada’s many victims deserve their day in court.
And, who knows. If we take the man known as Latin America’s Osama
bin Laden off our own streets, someone might just help us take
America’s bin Laden off theirs.
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The martyring of Che Guevara
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@bellsouth.net chocoano05
Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:25 pm (PST)
The San Francisco Chronicle
The martyring of Che Guevara
Robert Scheer
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The 40th anniversary of the death of Che Guevara elicited
considerable media attention, mostly about his iconic image captured
on T-shirts throughout the world. There were the standard snarky
asides that many young people wearing those T-shirts have scant
notion of who Che was, but the journalists reporting the story
seemed equally ignorant. Little was reported about Che’s life and
what led him to shun the comforts of a physician’s lifestyle in
Argentina to fight as a revolutionary in the rugged terrains of
Cuba, the Congo and finally in Bolivia – or why someone who claimed
to be obsessed with helping the world’s poor was executed, gangland
style, on the order of a CIA agent. One exception was the BBC, which
bothered to send a reporter to Florida to interview Felix Rodriguez,
the Cuban-born CIA agent who was part of a team of CIA operatives
and Bolivian soldiers who captured Che. “Mr. Rodriguez ordered the
soldier who pulled the trigger to aim carefully, to remain
consistent with the Bolivian government’s story that Che had been
killed in action in a clash with the Bolivian army,” said the BBC
report. Che’s hands were then cut off and put in formaldehyde to
preserve his fingerprints. In his interview with the BBC, Rodriguez
claimed that the order to kill Che came from the Bolivian
government, and that he went along: “I could have tried to falsify
the command to the troops, and got Che to Panama as the U.S.
government said they wanted,” he recalled, but he didn’t. Clearly,
the U.S. government was not unhappy with Rodriguez’s role in the
bloody affair, for he went on, as he boasts, to train the Nicaraguan
Contras and advise the repressive Argentine military government in
the 1980s. He showed the BBC reporter his CIA medal for exceptional
service along with a picture of him with the first President Bush in
the White House. George H. W. Bush, it should be remembered, had
been the head of the CIA during some of the years that Rodriguez
worked there and was not put off by the man’s past deeds, including
his part in Che’s assassination. So, what’s the big deal? Che was a
Cuban Communist, and it’s a good thing that folks like Bush and
Rodriguez were able to defeat him before he spread his evil message
further – right? False, on every count. First off, he was either an
Argentine Trotskyite or an anarchist but Che was not a Communist in
what we think of as the heavily entrenched, bureaucratized Cuban
mold. Che was restless in post-revolutionary Cuba because his
anarchist temperament caused him to bristle at the emerging
bureaucracy. He was, like Trotsky in his dispute with Stalin,
skeptical that the kind of socialism that truly served the poor
could survive in just one country; hence, he died attempting to
internationalize the struggle. It also turned out that killing Che
was a big mistake, as his message was spread more effectively by his
execution than by his guerrilla activities, which were, after he
left Cuba, quite pathetic. This is the case in Latin America, where
political leaders he helped inspire are faring better than those
coddled by the CIA. Daniel Ortega, whom the CIA worked so doggedly
to overthrow, is the elected president of Nicaragua. Almost all of
Latin America’s leaders are leftists, some more moderate (as in
Brazil), and others as fiery as Che (in Venezuela), but all
determinedly independent of yanqui control. Fortunately, they differ
from Che in preferring the ballot to the gun. But all recognize that
poverty remains the region’s No. 1 problem and that the free-market
model imposed by the United States hardly contains all the answers.
Recall that the U.S. break with the Cuban revolution came before the
Castro’s turn toward the Soviets, and that it was over his
nationalization of American-owned business assets in Cuba ranging
from Mafia-run casinos to the electric power grid. These days, few
politicians in the United States even seem to care about the
subversive Cuban influences in our own backyard that once haunted
them. The embargo on Cuba remains to mollify Florida’s aging Cuban
community, but the prize is Mideast oil, not protecting the peasants
of Bolivia from the likes of Che Guevara. On Monday, Che’s death was
marked, in the Bolivian village where he was killed, by Bolivian
President Evo Morales, who proclaimed his movement “100 percent
Guevarist and socialist,” which hardly registers as a propaganda
success story for those favoring CIA assassinations. They turned a
failed – and flawed – guerrilla fighter into an enduring symbol of
resistance to oppression. Creators Syndicate, Inc. E-mail Robert
Scheer at RScheer@truthdig.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/10/ED36SN7TM.DTL This article appeared on page B – 11 of the
San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Chronicle
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€ ¦© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
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Reach out to the press
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@bellsouth.net chocoano05
Mon Nov 12, 2007 2:53 am (PST)
Login and write your comments in The USA Today’s Blog, Delvis
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/11/revamp-cuba-pol.html#more
Revamp Cuba policy
Delvis Fernandez Levy – San Luis Obispo, Calif.
President Bush recently gave a speech in which he called for strengthening the current embargo policy to help Cubans move toward democracy (“Bush pitches ‘freedom fund’ for Cuba,” News, Oct. 25).
I came to the United States from Cuba as a penniless 17-year-old during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s tenure. Fifty years later, after 10 U.S. presidents, I wonder why Bush insists on continuing a failed policy toward my native country. Isn’t it time to develop a policy of engagement with Cuba as we have with Vietnam, China and even North Korea? Isn’t it in the United States’ best interests to allow for the reunification of families and to permit Americans to travel to Cuba without restrictions? Americans are, after all, the best ambassadors for spreading democracy and American ideals.
——————————————————
The Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, Inc. (CAAEF) is a non profit organization for the development of mutually beneficial engagements between Cubans and Americans that promote understanding and human compassion. Visit our website http://www.cubamer.org for news, opinions, and Cuba related events.
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Dec. 29, 2007, 11:52PM
Protecting Cuba’s vast resources
Ecologists fear that after embargo, natural treasures would be exploited
By CORNELIA DEAN
New York Times
Cuba is a priceless ecological resource. That is why many scientists are worried about what will become of it after Fidel Castro and his associates leave power and, as is anticipated, the U.S. government relaxes or ends its embargo.
The island, at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, has mountains, forests, swamps, coasts and marine areas rich in plants and animals.
And since the imposition of the embargo in 1962, and with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s economy has stagnated.
Cuba has not been free of development. But it has an abundance of landscapes that elsewhere in the region have been ripped up, paved over, poisoned or otherwise destroyed since the Cuban revolution. Once the embargo ends, the island could face a flood of investors eager to exploit those landscapes.
Sheltering resources
Conservationists, environmental lawyers and other experts, from Cuba and elsewhere, met last month in Cancun, Mexico, to discuss the island’s resources and how to protect them.
Cuba has done “what we should have done — identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside,” said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School who attended the conference.
In the late 1990s, Houck was involved in an effort to advise Cuban officials writing environmental laws.
But, he said, “an invasion of U.S. consumerism, a U.S.-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer” when the embargo ends.
By some estimates, tourism in Cuba is increasing 10 percent annually. At a minimum, Orlando Rey Santos, the Cuban lawyer who led the law-writing effort, said, “we can guess that tourism is going to increase in a very fast way” when the embargo ends.
Natural habitat
Cuba offers crucial habitat for birds, like Bicknell’s thrush, whose summer home is in the mountains of New England and Canada. It has the most biologically diverse populations of freshwater fish in the region. Its relatively large underwater coastal shelves are crucial for numerous marine species, said Ken Lindeman, a marine biologist at Florida Institute of Technology.
Like corals elsewhere, those in Cuba are suffering as global warming raises ocean temperatures. But they have largely escaped damage from pollution, boat traffic and destructive fishing practices.
Diving in them “is like going back in time 50 years,” said David Guggenheim, an ecologist on the advisory board of the Harte Research Institute.
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L’unico Italiano che partecipò alla rivoluzione cubana negli anni ’50
al fianco di Che Guevara e Fidel Castro
“E’con immenso dolore che apprendo della morte di Gino Donè Paro,
grande partigiano e rivoluzionario. Il mio abbraccio va alla nipote
Silvana e a tutti quelli che hanno avuto la fortuna in questi anni di
incontrare Gino.
Il suo impegno per la libertà e contro le ingiustizie lo hanno portato
a lottare in una vita avventurosa, prima partigiano in veneto a
lottare contro il fascismo in Italia, poi al fianco di Che Guevara.”
Gino Donè Paro è è stato l’unico italiano a salire sul Granma, la nave
che sbarco i ribelli a Cuba negli anni Cinquanta.
Di due anni più anziano di Fidel Castro Ruz, l’italiano Gino Donè Paro
nacque il 18 maggio 1924 nel Comune di Monastier a Treviso.
Frequentò le scuole professionali, e poi a 20 anni divenne partigiano
combattente nella laguna veneziana e nel padovano. Finita la guerra,
emigrò nel continente americano e si fermò a Cuba dopo essere passato
per il Canada. Nel 1951 lavorò all’Avana come tecnico carpentiere alla
costruzione della Grande Plaza Civica della capitale ribattezzata
successivamente “Plaza de la Revoluciòn”.
Qui, nel 1952, Gino si fidanzò con Norma Turino Guerra, una giovane
cubana rivoluzionaria abitante nell’antica città di Trinidad amica di
Aleida March, futura seconda moglie di “Che” Guevara con la quale
entreranno due anni dopo nel nuovissimo movimento rivoluzionario
castrista. “Gino è stato una testimonianza di impegno contro le
ingiustizie e per la libertà”.
I funerali si svolgeranno giovedì 27 marzo presso la Sala Cimiteriale
di Spinea (VE).
Addio grande compagno! Ciao Ginetto, Hasta La Vittoria Sempre!
Mirco
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L’intervista concessa al settimanale cubano Escambray
Israel Hernández Álvarez
Gino Donè Paro partecipò alla spedizione alla fine del 1956 alla
spedizione del Granma: 81 uomini che sbarcarono nella costa sud
orientale di Cuba con la promessa di essere liberi o martiri. Dopo
molti anni di incertezza scopriamo la sua enigmatica vita
(18 settembre 2007) A 82 anni, Gino Donè conserva le caratteristiche
di guerrigliero antifascista che gli permisero sopravvivere, in due
occasioni, alle inclemenze dei campi di concentramento. Per questi
motivi continua ad essere sfiduciato, parco ed energico.
Fortunatamente scappò della prima prigione e dalla seconda fu liberato
dall’Armata Rossa.
Alla metà del secolo scorso un’intensa persecuzione lo obbligò a
vagare per il mondo. Così arriva a Cuba prima del 1950, a bordo di una
nave che attracca a Manzanillo. La lettura di brani sulla Guerra
d’Indipendenza, scritti da Martí, e l’attrazione per la vegetazione lo
spingono a provare sorte nella Maggiore delle Antille.
Immediatamente viaggia all’Avana dove trova lavoro come falegname
ebanista, poi partecipa alla costruzione di edifici viciniori
all’allora Piazza Civica, oggi Plaza del la Revolución. Dopo pochi
anni è contrattato da una società di lavori stradali per Circuito Sur.
TRINIDAD, SEMPRE PRESENTE
Conosce Trinidad più di 50 anni fa, mentre lavora nella strada che
unisce la città a Cienfuegos. D’allora prova un sentimento molto
intimo che lo fa ritornare alla vecchia villa. L’ultima volta, per un
documentario realizzato dagli studi televisivi del Comitato Centrale
del PCC (Mundo Latino), insieme a produttori italiani amici di Cuba.
Approfittiamo dell’occasione per conversare con lui.
“Qui ho avuto l’amore della mia vita, Norma Albertina Turiño Guerra,
una donna molto bella ed intelligente. E’ stata mia moglie ”. Gli
occhi s’inumidiscono, la voce è spezzata. Una domanda lo richiama al
presente:
Come si arruola nel Granma?
«Lo devo al mio spirito ed a norma. Lei e la sua famiglia erano
antibatistiani e molto rivoluzionari. Uno dei suoi fratelli, Carlos,
arrivò ad essere capo del (movimento ndt) 26 di Luglio a Trinidad. Mi
legai a lui nelle attività dell’organizzazione, perché ho sempre
lottato contro le ingiustizie, gli abusi e maltrattamenti».
Per la sua capacità per difendere le cause nobili non gli risultò
difficile capire la realtà cubana, nel mezzo della tirannia di Batista
né identificarsi con i veri patrioti.
«Quando vidi sui giornali le foto dei giovani assassinati per il fatti
del Moncada m’indignai, provai per loro ammirazione, mi fecero
ricordare i giorni del fascismo italiano».
«Era Carlos chi doveva andare in Messico, ma per problemi di saluti ed
altre cause non gli fu possibile, allora parlò con Faustino Pérez e
gli disse che io aveva esperienza militare e potevo essere utile.
Realizzate le dovute consulte la proposta fu approvata. Mi unii a quei
ragazzi per convinzione».
«Fidel m’impressionò, ebbi fiducia in lui. Al principio pensò di
utilizzarmi come istruttore nell’addestramento del gruppo. La mia
condizione di straniero, inoltre, facilitò che fossi come una specie
di staffetta del Movimento. Feci alcuni viaggi tra il Messico e
L’avana, portavo documenti, articoli scritti da Fidel che sarebbe
stati pubblicati dalla stampa. Portato i fondi raccolti per il “26”,
per poter affrontare le spese in Messico».
Insieme a Gino ed al Che, altri due stranieri erano presente
nell’elenco della spedizione: il dominicano Ramón Mejías del Castillo
(Pichirilo), ferito il 12 agosto 1965 a seguito dell’invasione
nordamericana nel suo paese e morto pochi giorni dopo, ed il messicano
Alfonso Guillén Zelaya, morto il 22 aprile 1994.
Grazie alle rilevanti qualità ed al distinto comportamento viene
promosso al grado di tenente ed inserito tra i partecipanti della
spedizione del Battello della Libertà, come capo di squadra nel
plotone di Raúl.
“Non avevamo mostrine, i gradi erano nominativi. La cosa più
importante è che tutti eravamo uno solo. Mi sentii sempre come un
cubano; l’unica cosa che mi distingueva era il linguaggio. In quei
prima dello sbarco stabilii una relazione con il Che, era un uomo
molto educato, intelligente. M’identificai in lui, avevamo molte cose
in comune».
ALEGRÍA DE PIO E L’ENIGMA
Il combattimento di Alegría de Pio disintegrò il gruppo. Alcuni
persero la vita, altri caddero prigionieri e poi furono assassinati.
La maggioranza prese direzioni differenti, secondo le circostanze. Un
piccolo nucleo riuscì ad unirsi dopo pochi giorni per riorganizzare la
lotta nella Sierra Maestra. Gino racconta le sue esperienze:
«Dopo il combattimenti rimasi al comando di 14 uomini, persi nel
monte. Per non richiamare l’attenzione ci dividemmo in due gruppi. Il
capitano Smith con sette uomini, ed io ugualmente. Camminammo molto,
passando fame e sete. Alcuni decisero d’andare all’Avana o in altri
luoghi in cerca dei compagni del (movimento) “26” . Io volli andare a
Las Villas. Alcuni contadini della zona mi aiutarono ad uscire di lì».
Aleida March, attiva lottatrice della clandestinità, lo riceve a
Santa Clara. Con lei partecipò ad un’azione che, fortunatamente, non
arrivò alla fine. Mentre un gruppo della resistenza avrebbe tagliato
la corrente elettrica, Aleida e Gino avrebbero lanciato una granata
contro l’edificio del governo di Santa Clara dove erano riuniti
numerosi sbirri.
«Quando eravamo pronti per portare a termine l’azione, tornò la luce e
vedemmo dei bambini all’interno della struttura, per fortuna non
successe nulla: non mi sarei mai perdonato di aver ammazzato delle
creature innocenti».
Alcune settimane lasciò Cuba diretto in Messico, ma la sua vita era in
pericolo. Girò allora per vari paesi come il Venezuela, la Grecia e il
Vietnam. Grazie alla sua esperienza come marinaio lavorò sulle navi.
«Volevo ritornare a Cuba, e ritornai alla fine del 1958 al porto di
Cienfuegos. Immediatamente mi diressi a Trinidad; sapevo che numerosi
delatori mi conoscevano e potevano denunciarmi. Decisi di entrare in
contatto con il Che che era nell’Escambray. Gli inviai un messaggio
con un ragazzo. Non ho mai saputo se lo ricevette».
«Fui ad un villaggio chiamato Jíquima de Alfonso, dove il mio suocero
aveva una coltivazione di tabacco. Lì mi nascosi alcuni giorni. Seppi
che i soldati di Batista mi stavano cercando».
«Quando seppi che le guardi erano in zona, una notte appesi l’amaca
all’entrata della fattoria dove dormivo, per far credere che ero lì.
Mi nascosi nelle sterpaie ad aspettare. C’era la luna piena e potevo
notare se veniva qualcuno. Come all’una arrivarono tre uomini della
Guardia Rurale a cavallo e subito dopo in un jeep arrivò il sergente
Perdomo. Ascoltai quando dissero che ero lì. Il sergente disse:
“Portatemi a quest’italianetto figlio di puttana per ammazzarlo”».
«Morsi l’erba per la rabbia. Se avessi avuto un’arma in quel momento
Camminai fino all’alba lunga la ferrovia per arrivare a Trinidad.
Dissi a norma che andavo via dal paese perché la dittatura mi sta
cercando in ogni luogo, gli proposi di venire con me, ma mi spiegò che
non poteva abbandonare la sua famiglia, né i compagni del movimento.
La capii. Salpai da Nuevitas, nella stessa nave che mi portò dal
Messico ed arrivai negli Stati Uniti».
Negli USA Gino comincia una nuova vita. Lavora come tassista, pittore,
decoratore, ecc. e si sposa con un’altra donna. Il trionfo della
rivoluzione cubana lo sorprende a New York. L’allegria fu tanta che
dice ad un amico cubano (chiamato José Pérez), che lavorata all’Hotel
Waldorf Astoria, di mettere una bandiera cubana nell’ultimo piano.
“Quel giorno fu il più saporito della mia vita”. All’inizio della
Rivoluzione sollecitò l’ingresso a Cuba, negato perché esisteva una
legge che privava di residenza chi permaneva più di un anno all’estero.
Dopo molto tempo, Gino stabilisce un contatto con alcuni compagni di
lotta. Nel 1995 tornò a Cuba, della quale, come dice, non si è mai
potuto dimenticare. «Amo l’Italia dice – ma sono figlio adottivo di
Cuba. Mi sento sempre come uno di voi. Seguo ammirando e rispettando
il Comandante in Capo; a Fidel, come indica il suo nome, fedeltà».
(Traduzione Granma Int.)
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Cuba: Educating physicians for the U.S.
After six years of study, 17 U.S. students graduated last month from the Latin American School of Medicine. Residency training in the United States will prepare them for practice in underserved areas, an obligation assumed by each of the school’s 1,400 to 1,500 graduates each year.
Students enrolled at the school begun in 1999 come from 29 countries, over 100 of them from the U.S. “We have studied medicine with a humanitarian approach, explained Kenya Bingham of Alameda, Calif., quoted on ifconews.org. “Health care is not seen as a business in Cuba,” she added. Student Jose De Leon from Oakland, Calif. savored no-cost medical education; he avoids debt that for most stateside medical graduates exceeds $250,000.
http://pww.org/article/view/16691/
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Lo scrittore argentino Alberto Granato che fu compagno di viaggio del rivoluzionario Ernesto “Che” Guevara, è morto questa mattina nella sua residenza de L’Avana a 88 anni di età.
Come hanno confermato i suoi parenti a Radio Nazionale Venezuela, Granado è morto nel sonno.
Alberto è nato a Hernando nella centrale provincia di Cordova, in Argentina, l’ 8 agosto 1922 e dopo aver compiuto 30 anni, lo scrittore decise di partire dalla sua Argentina natale per dedicarsi a viaggiare per tutta l’America latina in compagnia del suo amico Ernesto Guevara.
Già il celebre viaggio per il Sud-America incominciò nel dicembre del 1951, a bordo de “La Poderosa”, una motocicletta Norton dell’anno ’39, e nove mesi dopo si separarono in Venezuela, quando il Che ritornò a Buenos Aires per terminare i suoi esami universitari.
Granado che era già biochimico, rimase in Venezuela e lavorò nel lebbrosario di Capo Bianco situato a La Guaira, nello stato di Vargas, fino a che partì nel 1955 per l’Europa.
Nel 1960, dopo il trionfo della Rivoluzione Cubana, si ritrovò col suo amico Ernesto Guevara, maggiore dell’Esercito Ribelle, ed un anno più tardi si trasferì definitivamente a Cuba.
Nel 1978 pubblicò il suo libro “Col Che per il Sud-America”, nel quale raccontò il vissuto del suo viaggio vicino a Guevara per il continente nel quale il Che, come Granado, si formò la coscienza rivoluzionaria.
Tra 2002 e il 2003, Alberto Granato fu consulente del film I diari della motocicletta, del brasiliano Walter Salles che narrò al grande schermo il famoso viaggio dei due amici argentini.
Per coloro che avessero perduto l’intervista con Alberto Granado, suggeriamo di visitare: INCONTRO A ROMA CON ALBERTO GRANADO
Un amico è per sempre
Alberto Granado Jimenèz nasce a Cordova in Argentina, l’8 Agosto del 1922. Laureato in Biochimica, Farmacia e Scienze Naturali, è il testimone diretto degli anni giovanili di Ernesto Che Guevara, suo grande amico, con il quale intraprese molte esperienze; la più celebre fu il viaggio in motocicletta alla “Scoperta dell’America Latina”. Alberto (Petiso) a 20 anni allenatore d’una squadra di rugby:“Estudiantes”, conobbe così Ernesto Guevara (Fùser – Fùribondo Serna) e fu l’inizio di una grande affettuosa amicizia tra i due, Mial che significa Mi Alberto e il (Pelao) Ernesto. Nel 1943 Alberto Granado fu recluso per aver partecipato ad una manifestazione di protesta di studenti e professori, contro le misure repressive adottate dal Governo argentino. Dal 1950 lavorò nel lebbrosario Josè J.Puente a San Francesco del Chanar, sviluppando studi scientifici rispetto alle suscettibilità immunologiche dei lebbrosi. Il 4 Gennaio 1952, il sogno di conoscere l’America Latina, si avverò. Iniziarono il viaggio con la “Poderosa II” una vecchia Norton 500: “Mial” e il “Pelao” partirono da Cordova, per Cile, Perù, Colombia e dopo 8 mesi arrivarono in Venezuela e a Caracas, dove si salutarono. Alberto Granado si stabilì a Caracas, divenne docente universitario, ebbe un suo laboratorio nella Facoltà di Biochimica, e nel 1955 si sposò con Delia ed ebbero poi tre figli. Dopo 8 anni, incontrerà nuovamente Ernesto, divenuto il ”Che”, il 24 giugno del 1960, nel Banco Centrale dell’Avana a Cuba, dopo il trionfo della Rivoluzione guidata da Fidel Castro, che aveva visto protagonista il suo amico del cuore, Ernesto Che Guevara (Fùser), che svolgeva in quel momento l’incarico di Presidente del Banco Nacional de Cuba. Il 23 marzo del 1961 Alberto Granado decise di lasciare il suo prestigioso incarico universitario, gli agi di una vita economicamente sicura e si trasferì con la famiglia a Cuba, dove fondò la Scuola di Medicina a Santiago. Seguirono innumerevoli incarichi medico-scientifici a lui affidati dal Governo Rivoluzionario cubano, e dal 1994, terminato il lavoro scientifico, il suo campo di lotta divenne quello politico, respingendo le falsità diffuse dalla stampa delle multinazionali e principalmente da quelle nordamericane, su Cuba, diffondendo un’immagine vera e sincera della Rivoluzione e del suo operato. Granado ha viaggiato sino a pochi mesi fa in molti paesi, curando poco se stesso, ed ha parlato del Che, della rivoluzione, di socialismo e sempre poco di sè, perchè era modesto e con un carattere squisito. Conosceva molto bene l’Italia ed aveva offerto centinaia di conferenze e incontri in molte città. Tra le ultime foto quelle scattate a Venezia nel Circolo d’Amicizia Italia Cuba… Era molto orgoglioso dei suoi figli (Alberto dirige la Casa d’Africa a L’Avana) tra le su debolezze la pasta con il pesto alla genovese. Ci stanno arrivando decine di messaggi di ricordo, affetto e condoglianze da tutti gli italiani che lo hanno conosciuto.
SiporCuba porge tutte le sue condoglianze a Delia e alla famiglia tutta
Fidel e Raúl Castro hanno inviato corone di fiori ad Alberto Granado
Le corone di fiori del leader della Rivoluzione Cubana, Fidel Castro, e del presidente Raúl Castro hanno reso omaggio al grande rivoluzionario Alberto Granado, ha informato il Telegiornale della Televisione Nazionale. Rispettando la sua volontà il corpo di Granado, molto a 88 anni di età, in questa città, sarà cremato e le sue ceneri saranno sparse in Cuba, Argentina e in Venezuela.
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