India & Cuba enjoy a ‘beautiful’ solidarity: Che’s daughter

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Daughter of socialist revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Aleida Guevara on her visit to Bengaluru on Thursday, said that despite the geographical distance between India and Cuba, there had been a “beautiful” solidarity between the two nations.

Aleida Guevara’s visit to Karnataka was arranged by Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and other affiliated organisations. Her comments came at an event at the Bharat Scouts and Guides building here.

She also attended CITU’s 17th annual All India conference. Aleida, a Cuba-based paediatrician and activist, said that solidarity between different peoples stood out because of the selflessness of the gesture. “I’m very touched by the hospitality I’ve been shown here in India,” she said.

“Despite the geographical distance between India and Cuba, there is solidarity, which is a beautiful sentiment. This is because when you express solidarity with someone, you give them what they want without worrying about what you want. In doing so, we grow as humans,” Guevara said.

“To achieve unity, we need something important, which is respect for each one of us. We can have different ideologies, or we can achieve an objective in a different manner. But we must learn to respect our differences. And to learn from these differences to change our existence,” she added.

She also told the audience about the plight of her tiny island nation, She said that nearly all of Cuba’s reserves had been exhausted because of the pandemic and that the sanctions imposed on the country had made matters worse. "Today Cuba suffers from economic problems due to two years of the pandemic.

The government has exhausted all its resources for the people. The US has tightened the blockade against Cuba. This has created an extraordinary problem among the people. This year, many Cubans left the country. This is painful for us, but it is the reality,” she said.

“We have to work for this. We have to produce more food for our population and that is why we need a lot of solidarity from people across the world so that Cuba can keep resisting. We need to unite the force and strength in all parts of the world,” Aleida further said adding that despite these difficulties, the Cuban government had delivered five different vaccines to people free of cost