The Trump administration designated Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a “Troika of Tyranny” and has been ratcheting up pressure on all three countries through economic blockades, creating dissent and covert attacks. This includes manipulating popular opinion in the US to demonize them and build support for intervention. All three countries have in common that they are resisting US domination. Recently, President Trump announced a travel ban to Cuba, which will curtail the possibility of people being able to visit and see for themselves that things are not as they have been told by the media. We speak with Netfa Freeman, who just spent two weeks in Cuba and who has done Cuba solidarity work since the early 1990’s, about the situation there, how the US is interfering and what Cubans are doing to resist.
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Guest:
Netfa Freeman was Director of the Institute’s Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA) from 2000 to 2010 and is now the coordinator for events of the other IPS projects. SALSA provided affordable workshops covering all aspects of grassroots activism.
Netfa holds a B.A. in History from the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and has been a political organizer/activist since 1985. He served as coordinator of the Committee for Political Education at the Pan-African Resource Center (1985-1989) and has worked as a phone-bank fundraiser for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES 1988-1990).
Netfa has been intimately involved with many movements, such as the 1986 International Peace Gathering in response to the U.S. bombing of Libya, the 1997 Advocates Plus Save UDC movement, and the People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project that was organizing DC residents to take their healthcare needs into their own hands. He served for many years as boardmember for Empower DC, as well as on the advisory board of M.O.M.I.E.S. TLC, was U.S. liaison for the Ujamma Youth Farming Project in Gweru, Zimbabwe, and a founding member and a lead organizer in the DC-Havana Sister City Project and the No War On Cuba Movement. He is an organizer in the International Committee for Peace, Justice & Dignity for the People, formerly the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5. Netfa is also a radio co-producer/co-host for Voices With Vision on WPFW 89.3 FM that airs Tuesdays from 9-10am. In 2011 Netfa was a recipient of the Washington Peace Center’s Activists of The Year Awards and has been a workshop facilitator as part of the Educator’s Collective for the Wayside Center for Popular Education, Train the Movement: A Trainers of Color Collaborative, and completed the “Amandla! Black Community Organizing Internship” of BOLD, Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity.
His writings have been published in Black Star News (Ode To Black Women, Zimbabwe: Psychosis of Denial, What Happy Thanksgiving, Zimbabwe Election Deja Vu), Black Commentator (From Negro History Week to Pan-African Historical Context, Zimbabwe: More Than Complicity of Silence, Africa Advocacy & The Zimbabwe Factor), and Black Agenda Report (Zimbabwe And The Battle of Ideas), Pambazuka News, Global Research, and beyond. He also serves often as a commentator on radio and TV outlets.