Cuba: 2021 turned out well in terms of international solidarity

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 5 (ACN) The year 2021 witnessed a sustained increase in solidarity and expressions of friendship from countless friends around the world who showed support for the Revolution and proved that Cuba is not alone, said Victor Gaute, vice president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).

In a meeting with the press, ICAP referred to its positive results in 2021 despite COVID-19 and the reinforced fifty-plus-year-old U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade as part of a genocidal policy intended to harm our people but unable to prevent governments and individuals from all over the world from helping Cuba with financial and material donations, including medical, technological and food supplies, Gaute said.

He also remarked that Cuba is renowned for its actions in solidarity with other countries where brigades of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Situations of Disasters and Serious Epidemics have contributed to fight the pandemic, even in Europe.
Nowadays, there are 1,653 Cuba Friendship Associations in 155 countries of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, including 111 new ones, in addition to 75 solidarity organizations of people from 64 nations who graduated from Cuban schools.

In 2021, according to ICAP Communications director Tamara Velázquez, the Cuba Solidarity Movement, which gathers organizations, Cuban residents and former students, political parties and parliamentarians, friendly personalities and sister governments, intellectuals, etc., stepped up their denunciation of the intensified U.S. blockade through letters, articles, statements and other initiatives.

Leima Martinez Freire, director of ICAP’s Asia and Oceania Division, referred to an initiative of the Brisbane Solidarity Movement in support of Cuba called "From Australia to Cuba with love"—which began on January 1 and will last until April 15—to organize a collective trip spanning 14,886 kilometers (approximate distance from Canberra to Havana) based on walks, marathons, bicycle and motorcycle tours, and even dance, she said.