Tompkins County Against War & Occupation

Never let it be said that our alternative media and new modes of communication like blogs, Facebook and Twitter will ever replace the role of the conventional daily paper. It came as a complete surprise that I read in this morning’s Ithaca Journal that Emiliano Acevedo, a recent Ithaca College graduate, just returned with the Venceremos Brigade.

The article Ithacan joins Cuba protest trip, states:

The 23-year-old now hopes to inspire more Ithacans to join him for next year’s trip, and he is planning to start a Cuba solidarity group here.

Please go to the Ithaca Journal website NOW to comment on the story. This kind of opportunity doesn’t happen everyday.

I do hope he does stay around and help build the new momentum locally for increased understanding and bridges between the peoples of the US and Cuba, an end to the US trade, econmonic, and cultural blockade of Cuba, full freedom to travel, and re-nomalization of relations between our two countries. We have mostly focused on Pastors for Peace Caravans, which are also a travel challenge. Having met the brigadistas two years ago and interviewing some of them for a video (which I really should post on this site) I can see that the Venceremos Brigade has a great appeal for young people, and it really deserves more of our attention and support.

I think it would be great to host an event in September with both Dan Burgevin and Emiliano Acevedo as featured participants. Can we couple this with something cultural?

August 13, 2009

>Ithacan joins Cuba protest trip

Fact-finding group defies travel ban

By Stacey Shackford sshackford@gannett.com

ITHACA - Emiliano Acevedo says he wants a revolution; he wants to change the world. And he’s doing it by invoking his right to travel the world and see first-hand the results of earlier revolutions.

The recent Ithaca College graduate recently returned from Cuba, where he took part in what has become an annual act of civil disobedience in protest of the United States’ 47-year-old ban on travel to the Communist country.

On Aug. 3, he and about 140 others flew into Toronto from Cuba, walking back across the United States border at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie.

Questioned and searched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection workers in the past, this year’s contingent passed without incident.

It was the first trip for Acevedo but the 40th for the Venceremos Brigade, formed in 1969 to challenge U.S. policies toward Cuba. Acevedo’s father participated in one of the first trips in 1970, and his sister has also attended several. The 23-year-old now hopes to inspire more Ithacans to join him for next year’s trip, and he is planning to start a Cuba solidarity group here.

The first brigades participated in sugar harvests, and subsequent groups have performed agricultural and construction work in many parts of the island.

They also attend lectures and seminars to learn about Cuban culture, hurricane relief efforts, youth development and environmental programs.

For Acevedo, a 2009 graduate of IC’s Martin Luther King Scholars Program, the most important experience was interacting with the Cuban people as he tried to discover the true effects of Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution of 1959, free of the conflicting opinions and agendas he says were hoisted on him over the years by the U.S. government and left-wing activists.

“The revolution is not perfect in every way. It has its problems, some inherent to socialism, some to the particular flavor that it has taken in Cuba,” he said.

Among them is a planned economy that grows very slowly and does not provide entrepreneurial opportunities for most citizens, and a society just now coming to grips with issues like homophobia and racism, which initially got overlooked in the shared camaraderie of the revolution.