Carlos Vega, co-president of the National Hostosian Independence Movement (MINH), stated while participating in the tribute 100 Years Since Fidel’s Birth, “For Fidel, solidarity with the struggle for Puerto Rican independence was evident from the moment he arrived at the University of Havana, where he presided over the Committee for the Liberation of Puerto Rico.”
The event, which opened with the national anthems of Puerto Rico and Cuba conducted by Angel M. Rivera at the Casa Soberanista in the Hato Rey neighborhood in this capital, featured speeches by Vega, veteran activist Olga Sanabria, university student Alejandro Saez, lawyer Rafael Anglada Lopez, and leader Julio Muriente Perez.
Poet Juan Camacho, leader of the Committee of Solidarity with Cuba, also spoke at the tribute to Fidel Castro, highlighting his commitment to Puerto Rico.
Anglada Lopez, who was one of the defense attorneys for the five Cuban heroes who were unjustly held in US prisons for several years, remembered that after their arrest, Fidel said they would return to their homeland because “a mother (Cuba) never abandons her children.”
Lopez also emphasized the efforts and secret negotiations, which lasted several years, to exchange four CIA agents for nationalists Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores, and Oscar Collazo.
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