I met Manolo De Los Santos during a recent trip to Cuba organized by Code Pink, a grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end US funded wars and occupations. The interview took place in the coastal city of Matanzas, one of the sites of the 16th century Euro-American Human Trafficking Trade (termed by European traders and historians as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) at the Matanzas Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Manolo was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. His family moved to the South Bronx, New York when he was five years old. He first visited Cuba in 2006 with the organization, Pastors for Peace. Pastors for Peace is a project of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO.) IFCO’s mission is to support the disenfranchised to fight human and civil rights injustices and to end US aggressive policies towards Cuba. The organization seeks to promote peace between the peoples of the US and Cuba. Manolo’s focus at the Matanzas Evangelical Seminary is the study of liberation theology.
This interview takes place during the historic negotiations between to re-establish diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: Americans have heard about the negotiations between the US and Cuba regarding the US Embargo. From your perspective, what are the politics of the embargo and do you think there is a chance for a successful completion?
Manolo De Los Santo: The politics of the embargo or blockage as the people of Cuba refer to it, is perfectly stated in 1961 by the US government; the blockade is a policy to deprive and to starve the Cuban people into submission so that they will overthrow their own government. So, (the US government) has sought through all means to make sure that Cubans do not have complete access to different material goods, everything as basic as medicines, food, technology that would allow Cuba to continue to develop itself in other ways.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: What do you do in Cuba?
Manolo De Los Santo: I’m here in Cuba, first of all studying. I’m a student of theology at the Evangelical Seminary in Matanzas. I am also here as a staff person for IFCO (Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization) Pastors for Peace working as a liaison between IFCO and the US medical students studying at the Latin American School of Medicine, which has been an amazing opportunity for hundreds of young people from the US, from communities of color, poor communities, to actually be able to study medicine for free here in Cuba.
“We have a responsibility, as people of color worldwide to defend all of the advances that Cuba has made.”
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: Is Cuba, at this point, even more than perhaps Nicaragua, the front line state against US imperialism and, if that’s true, what does that mean to you?
Manolo De Los Santo: For a long time, Cuba was the front line. It was the sole country, in many ways, challenging US hegemony in Latin America and around the world. But, I think that times have changed precisely because of Cuba’s role. Now we see in Latin America many progressive governments that try to uplift their own people, like what Cuba has done, for the last 55 years. [These governments] are making sure that health care is recognized as a human right, that the right to eat every day is a human right, that education is a human right so times have changed since 1959 (the date of the Cuban revolution) thanks to Cuba’s role in the world.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: One of the things that I have been so pleased to see in Cuba is the number of people that I would identify, from a US perspective as Black or African. We have a progressive government about 90 miles from the coast of Florida. How can African-Americans contribute to the promotion and protection of Cuba?
Manolo De Los Santo: Cuba has secured these rights for black people, however… there is still much work to do. We have a responsibility, as people of color worldwide to defend all of the advances that Cuba has made. Cuba is a country that has stuck its neck out for Black liberation struggles around the world, not to mention the liberation struggles in Angola and many of countries and the strong role Cuba played in the liberation of South Africa in freeing Nelson Mandela. One must acknowledge what is currently happening, that Cuba was the first country to step up to fight the Ebola virus. When most countries, only committed money (and we don’t know where this money goes), Cuba actually put up the lives of its doctors to stop the virus. It’s amazing how Cuba has offered scholarships to young black people from all over the African continent and all across the America’s to come study here and become professionals. For example, Cuba has educated more Blacks from Honduras than were educated in their own country. This is an example of the support and strong interest Cuba has in the upliftment of African people across the world.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: On a personal level, how does the US blockade against Cuba affect your daily life?
Manolo De Los Santos: It affects me personally, coming from the US. I feel somehow responsible for this policy of the United States government – I see that this policy needs to be changed. Because the blockade, really is the worst form of terrorism; it uses hunger as a political tool against a group of innocent people. The blockade is an act of genocide against a group of people – that’s what we’re talking about. Being in Cuba, I get to witness this day to day. The US blockage limits access to food and other items, such as transportation, in ways that are precisely linked to the role of the United States government and its evil policies.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: A number of people on the left in the US question the motive behind the US interest in negotiating with the government of Cuba. After all, the US has tried to assassinate the former president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, at least eight times. The question that many on the US left are asking is whether the US government is using the guise of a new US/Cuba relationship as a Trojan horse to carry out its real intentions of overthrowing the government. Perhaps, has the US government decided to use carrot instead of a stick?
Manolo De Los Santos: All of that could be possible. At this point, the issue is not what the true interests are of the US in the current negotiations. More importantly, we have to up-lift inside the US the willingness of the people of Cuba and its government to negotiate on a basis of equality without giving up its independence and sovereignty. Cuba is willing to negotiate and about many issues. The only thing Cuba will not put on the table is its independence and sovereignty – everything else we can talk about. So we don’t know how far the US will go but we know that if the talks fail, it will not be because of a lack of willingness on behalf of the Cuban people. More than anybody else, the Cuban people have sought to dialogue with the people of the US and the government of the US. Remember always, that it was not Cuba that placed a blockade against the people of the United States. Remember, it was not Cuba who has launched terrorist attacks from its shores against the people of the United States. So in the negotiations process, the United States has to take responsibility for overcoming its history on policies that have strongly and negatively affected the people of Cuba.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: There are a number of Black Cubans in the United States who are currently on a speaking tour accusing Cuba of being a racist country, perhaps, more racist than the United States. In the context of the Black Lives Matters movement and black folks being murdered throughout the United States – what is your perspective on racism in Cuba?
Manolo De Los Santos: First, we would be wrong in saying that racism does not exist in Cuba. Of course, it exists. Cuba, as nation is a product of 500 years of European colonialism. Cuba is the product of the forced enslavement of black people. So, of course we are still dealing with racism in this country. But we can never come to the point of comparison between which one is worse or better. We would be falling into the master’s game. More than anything, we have to discuss how Cuba is committed to overcoming issues of institutionalized racism. Cuba has overcome a lot of the elements of segregation and what Cuba has been struggling for, in these last 55 years of revolution is to change the mindset of its own people, not through imposition and not through force but constant dialogue. The dialogue on race has not always been as strong and as hopeful as we would like for it to be but it exists and it is happening in this country. I would ask the Black people in the United States who talk about racism in Cuba to answer the following questions: where are the hundreds or thousands of young black men in Cuba who have been killed by the Cuban police? Where are the policies that limit the access of Black people to the university? Where are the policies in Cuba, from the Cuban government, to limit the access of Black people to health care? You don’t see this. Therefore, I think Cuba has won half the battle in making sure that the people have access to these human rights.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: According to a number of investigative reports, unarmed African-Americans are killed by police every 48 hours. Are you receiving information, in Cuba, about the Black Lives Matter movement and if so, what is the reaction by Cubans to this information?
Manolo De Los Santos: Every evening on the news, this story is one of the top stories. We hear about our brothers and sisters being killed and assassinated on a regular basis. The reaction is that we feel sympathy and solidarity with those people in the United States. We are one people, divided by a blockade. We are one people. We have led vigils to express solidarity with the people of the United States.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: What has surprised you the most about living in Cuba?
Manolo De Los Santos: I feel loved by the Cuban people because of their sympathy, with their hospitality their solidarity. They are not a closed minded people. They have opened their homes and hearts to me. I have felt like another Cuban living here.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: So do you self-identify as Cuban now?
Manolo De Los Santos: In many ways, yes.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: At the end of my interviews, I ask my guests what is the endgame? What is the takeaway? What do you want the readers of Black Agenda Report to do after reading this article?
Manolo De Los Santos: The blockade will continue, the travel ban will continue until the day the American people, across the country take a firm decision to oppose it. That is why we need more people to actually talk and send messages to our people in Congress demanding that this policy (the blockade) must end because it is hurting our brothers and sisters in Cuba. We must send messages to President Obama and continue to push him to take even more actions in favor of ending the blockade policy. And, more importantly, people need to come to Cuba to see it for themselves. Don’t believe what the US media tells you. Come and look at this country with your own eyes. Come with your own conclusions. This is a country that will open itself to you. There are no limitations. There is no fear. The Cuban people will talk and share with you.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo: Thank you!
Black Code Alert – Chicago: Guardian newspaper reports Chicago Police Secretly Detain, Abuse Americans at Domestic ‘Black Site that “Chicago police have operated a secret prison-like compound where they detain, interrogate, and torture U.S. citizens in what lawyers call a domestic equivalent to a CIA “black site”… A “nondescript warehouse” on Chicago’s west side, known as Homan Square, is in fact a secret facility used by special police units to hold people without entering them into official booking databases… At Homan Square, according to the report, detainees are beaten, shackled for prolonged periods of time, and denied access to attorneys and other constitutional rights. Some of those held at the site have been as young as 15 years old. At least individual was “found unresponsive in an ‘interview room’ and later pronounced dead.”