Contramaestre’s attitude before the Helms-Burton Act
The activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, last May, has provoked an avalanche of demonstrations against it in the different sectors of society in the Contramaestre municipality of the province of Santiago de Cuba.
Immediately after the activation of the mentioned law on May 2, the Contramaestrian people began to express an indignation and rejection to the evil decision of Donald Trump, worsening the US economic and financial blockade against the island.
Ninth-graders from Rodolfo Rodríguez Benítez Secondary School expressed their rejection against the Helms-Burton Act, during their graduation ceremony.
Contramaestre News published “the blockade officially implemented by the United States in 1962 has reached its most ruthless moment by activating Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which had been postponed by the presidents since Clinton, who signed the law in 1996, until the arrival of Donald Trump.”
A unanimous exclamation of No to Helms Burton!, combatants and officers of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) in Contramaestre expressed during the ceremony of promotion to the highest grade and recognition for the 58th anniversary of the institution, recently carried out in one of the units of the municipal jurisdiction.
In Baire, a town belonging to the municipality of Contramaestre, in eastern Cuba, students and teachers of the Willy Valcárcel Mixed Center say No to the Helms Burton Act and against the U.S. blockade.
Contramaestre in the voices of its people, puts forward its reasons with vehemence against the so-called Stick Act or Helms Burton. This is a policy whose tentacles of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba try to suffocate the island.
Contramaestre confronts Title III of the Helms Burton Act, with arguments of a Revolution that advances in spite of the pressures of the United States government.
José Leardo Rodríguez Marí (Papín), retiree from America Libre Sugar Mill in Contramaestre expressed: “They (US sanctions) do have a bad effect because they persecute the companies that work with Cuba, they persecute the whole world, but we are adapted to the blockade since 60 years ago…”
Cuba is shielded from this new aggressive attempt by the United States. Law 80 reaffirms Cuban dignity and sovereignty, signed in 1996, which declared the Helms Burton Act null and void on the Island, as well as the protection for investors offered by the Foreign Investment Law approved in 2014 and the recently proclaimed Magna Carta, which sustains our independence.
The Contramaestrian disabled reject the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, and and they say they will defend the Revolution with their hands, with their teeth, because it has given them everything.
“We defend the Cuban Revolution; we are aware of this and we say no to this blockade (imposed by the United States on Cuba)…And we say that we don’t understand each other, that we are going to defend what is ours with our teeth, with our hands. We say that this Revolution is not going to be taken away from us by anyone.”
Durrutí Reyes, professor at the Contramaestre University Complex, argues that the Helms Burton Act is an illegal and extraterritorial resource that seeks to affect our economy and create uncertainty in those who currently trade with Cuba.
This is a selection of different moments the Contramaestrian people express their rejection towards the Helms-Burton Act and the whole US blockade against Cuba.
Written by Jorge Lora
