Eastern Guantanamo Citizens Demonstrate against US Anti-Cuba Policy

 

Havana, Feb 26 (ACN) Over 50 thousand citizens in the easternmost Cuban province of Guantanamo gathered Wednesday at the local Mariana Grajales plaza to condemn the long-standing US policy of sanctions against Cuba.

Demonstrators strongly demanded the lifting of the over-60-year US economic commercial and financial blockade of the island nation and the end of the illegal occupation of portion of their territory by the US Guantanamo Naval Base.

The demonstration was attended by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and other provincial government and top Communist Party officials.

Guantanamo’s provincial Communist Party first secretary, Yoel Perez, denounced the occupation of the 117.6-square-kilometer area in Guantanamo Bay by the US military enclave since 1901 and recalled the provocations and covert operations launched from the naval base over the years.
Perez also condemned the current use of the military facility as a detention center for migrants sent there from US territory. The US administration will be held accountable for any incident in that enclave, he warned.

The Communist leader blamed the US blockade for the current shortage of fuels, medicines and technologies on the island, as well as for the difficulties to repair the island’s national power system, amidst long and constant blackouts.

He called on the people to focus on economic and social priorities to defend the socialist project and guarantee the continuation of the Cuban Revolution.

Members of the new generations of Cubans also spoke out their minds during the demonstration.

Ana Laura Campello, a member of the Antonio Maceo border patrol brigade, stressed the resilience of the Cuban youth in the face of US sanctions.

The Anti-imperialist demonstration denounced the US blockade fully imposed on Cuba in 1962 and also vindicated Guantanamo as a symbol of resistance in the face of a foreign military enclave, which has defied, for the past 122 years, the will of the Cuban people to enjoy a land free of foreign interference.