Cuban Revolution Today – Revolutionary Continuity and Change

The Cuban Revolution Today: Revolutionary Continuity and Change

Session: Session 6
Room: E325
When: Sunday, March 18th
Time: 12:00pm – 1:50pm

Abstract:

This panel will give Left Forum participants the opportunity to hear official representatives of the revolutionary Cuban government in an open, unrestrained, free discussion and debate. Topics to be addressed will include the new economic policies being currently implemented; Cuba’s internationalist foreign policy; US-Cuban relations under Obama; the Case of the Cuban Five and Cuba’s fight against terrorism; democratic rights and human rights in Cuba; and advances in struggles against racism, for women’s rights, and, notably, LGBT rights. The Chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC, Jorge A. Bolanos Suarez will be the featured panelist in a freewheeling discussion on the Cuban Revolution Today. The panel will be organized by the July 26 Coalition, a Coalition of over 25 groups fighting Washington’s ongoing economic and political war against Cuba.

Panel Topics:
Caribbean Basin
Latin America

Chair:
Ike Nahem -A longtime anti-war, socialist, and labor activist, Ike Nahem is the coordinator of Cuba Solidarity New York and a founder of the July 26 Coalition. Nahem is an Amtrak Locomotive Engineer and member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a division of the Teamsters Union. He participated in a panel on Latin American politics at the 2011 Left Forum.

Speakers:
Nancy Cabrero – President of Casa de las Americas. Long time activist in Latin American solidarity work.

Jorge Bolanos – Since 2007, Chief Jorge Bolanos has served as the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC is a veteran Cuban revolutionary and diplomat. Bolanos graduated in Political Sciences and International Law from the University of Havana and did postgraduate courses in Foreign Relations from the University of London. Chief Bolanos has been a member of the Cuban Foreign Ministry since 1963. He has served as ambassador to Poland, Czechoslovakia, United Kingdom , Brazil and Mexico.

Frank Velgara – is a longtime political activist the in Puerto Rican Independence Movement and U.S. left and solidarity movements. He is a leader of the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, the Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5, and the Socialist Front of Puerto Rico. He is a founder of the July 26th Coalition. Member, Local 1251/District Council 37.