The condemnation of the economic, commercial and financial blockade that the United States has imposed on Cuba for more than six decades was the common denominator of both initiatives, but also the defiant heartbeat of Cuba, which persists in its project of equality and social justice.
After touring the main avenues of this capital, the activists arrived at the Belisario Porras park, in front of the busts of National Hero Jose Marti and General Antonio Maceo, to merge into an embrace of loyalty and commitment with the members of the Cuban embassy here.
The president of the Jose Marti Association of Cuban Residents in Panama, Humberto Perez, described the event as a day to ask for better times for the family, but also to demand that Washington exclude Cuba from the spurious list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
Perez told Prensa Latina that this caravan recalled the two years since this kind of action began in March 2021, always with a growing participation of solidarity movements, unions and social organizations, and local authorities, including police officers.
Cuban Ambassador to Panama Victor Cairo expressed support for the position against the hostile policy and especially for this special Sunday, when his compatriots were holding general elections to choose all 470 lawmakers to the National People’s Power Assembly (Parliament).
Unity and solidarity in the face of any obstacles join hands here in defense of a noble cause and are unstoppable, they make us invincible, he remarked.
The solemn ceremony had a fraternal and sporting extension, according to organizers, when participants in the event arrived at the so-called Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge) to compete in a friendly softball game against players from the Unitary Federation of the Working Class.
Beyond winners or losers, the game, which was also sponsored by the Union of National Education Workers, was another expression of reciprocity with Cuba and its people, who know how to give everything for the benefit of the dispossessed, Lilian Ruiz, from the National Coordinator of Solidarity with Cuba in Panama, said.
In this fight against the Washington’s criminal blockade, according to poet Diana Moran, the young lawyer invoked, Panamanians will be stubborn… “stubborn in sweetness, stubborn in jail, stubborn in death, stubborn and more stubborn in the firm, stubborn, very stubborn.”
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