Cuba to hold solidarity day with the Puerto Rican people

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 15 (ACN) A new day of solidarity with Puerto Rico's independence cause will begin here Monday and will last for a week. A delegation from the Hostosiano National Independence Movement will travel to Havana, the Cuban Friendship Institute (ICAP by its Spanish acronym) reported.

An exhibition will be opened at the ICAP headquarters on the activist Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who was murdered 20 years ago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the municipality of Hormigueros after being surrounded by more than 300 agents, including snipers from the United States.

The event will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1rst International Conference for the Independence of Puerto Rico, held in Cuba at the initiative of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, as well as the 157th anniversary of the Grito de Lares (September 23, 1868), the date of Puerto Rican independence from Spain.

In 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rican territory, establishing a repudiated colonial regime there. The event is also dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the physical disappearance of Puerto Rican leader Juan Mari Bras, founder, along with Fidel Castro, of the Puerto Rican Mission to Cuba, the first and only Puerto Rican embassy, ​​established in 1966.

The program includes floral tributes to Cuban National Hero Jose Marti and to the Father of the Puerto Rican Nation, Ramon Emeterio Betances, in Central and Fraternidad Parks, respectively, and to Filiberto Ojeda Rios at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune.

Besides, there are are planned to the Fidel Castro Center in Havana and the Pedro Albizu Campo School in ode Reyes, Matanzas, while a conference on current affairs in Puerto Rico will be offered at the Cuban Association of the United Nations (ACNU).