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Fidel’s homeland is not only Cuba,
but the planet Earth
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Conviction of participants in the colloquium
organized in Havana by the Guayasamín Foundation for
the 80th birthday of the leader of the Cuban
Revolution
BY ORFILIO PELAEZ, JOEL MAYOR LORAN AND PEDRO DE LA
HOZ —Granma daily staff writers —
FOR Argentine Hebe de Bonafini,
one of the emblematic Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
“he is the greatest, wisest, most integral and
sincere man whom I have ever met,” while the popular
Italian communicator Gianni Mina worked it out: “The
collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe began 17
years ago, and Cuba, under the leadership of the
Comandante, is still on its feet and moving
forwards.” And from the south of Our America, the
words of the venerable Volodia Teitelboim made
themselves felt: “Fidel’s homeland is not only Cuba,
but the planet Earth.”
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Margaret Alba, general
secretary of the Congress Party of India,
observes the graphic exhibition on Fidel Castro
in the vestibule of the International Convention
Center.
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Voices like these, diverse and
however coinciding in sound and reasoned arguments
and profound convictions, dialogued yesterday in
Havana’s International Convention Center during the
first session of the colloquium Memory and
Future: Cuba and Fidel, organized by the Oswaldo
Guayasamín Foundation to pay tribute to the leader
of the Revolution on the occasion of his 80th
birthday.
The younger generations of the
continent also expressed themselves. Luther
Castillo, a Honduran graduate from the Latin America
School of Medicine, stressed that 115 years since
the founding of the Autonomous University of
Honduras, hardly any black doctors have graduated,
while in Cuba the total is now 18 from his country’s
Garifuna community.
Participants from 80 countries
held simultaneous sessions in three rooms in order
to cover the solidarity of the Cuban Revolution;
achievements in popular participation, social
justice, science, health, education and sports; and
culture and the mass media.
Mozambican writer and historic
leader Marcelino dos Santos recalled that the
liberation of the peoples of Africa is fertilized by
the generously spilled blood of the Cuban people.
From Bolivarian Venezuela,
Francisco Sesto, minister of culture, highlighted
that the combination of a humanist vision with a
firmness of principles can be seen in the person of
Fidel, and poet and politico Tarek William Saab
described the Cuban leader as a continuer of the
Venezuelan liberator Bolívar.
After recounting her experience
in promoting literacy programs drawn up on the
island, Argentine Claudia Camba drew applause by
saying: “The best tribute to Fidel is for all of us
to go out to sow his dreams everywhere, and to make
them real.”
Translated by Granma
International
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