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Vermonter's View of Cuba - Photo Exhibition 06/16/2023

From the organizer:

This exhibition celebrates Vermonters’ images of Cuba. Hosted in the Pickering Room of the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT. The Four Cuban Photographers photography show was at The Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT.

For more information : Barbara Shatara, Fletcher Free Library (802) 863-3403 or Diane Gayer, GreenTARA Space, North Hero, VT 05474, www.greentaraspace.org

Four Cuban Photographers - Photo Exhibition 06/11/2023

From CAFExchange:

A cultural exchange between the people of Cuba and those of Vermont. Please join us for this multi-day exhibition of four Cuban photographers. This is not an exhibition of tourist photos of Cuba, but rather a presentation of the Cuban artists and their explorations of environment, people, and society. Photographesrs: Tomás Inda Barrera, Alfredo Sarabia Fajardo, Nadieshda Inda González, Yadira Ismael Sotomayor.

VICII: Cuba Today! 03/22/2023

From VICII: 

Join us for a discussion on the state of the “rebellious island” and the six decades prolonged US “blockage”. This program features Vermonters who just returned from an educational trip to Cuba.

Hosted by Sandy Baird, CAFS President Armando Villaseca, Burlington High School Special Educator Alan Reichard, and some other participants of this edifying voyage to the "rebellious" Island.

From February 26th to March 5th, 2023, The Vermont-based Cuban American Friendship Society led a dozen teachers and one student from the Green Mountain State on an Educational Trip to Cuba. The teachers and members of CAFS made face-to-face connections with the people of Cuba and visited Cuban schools. The exchange was conducted in Havana and gave the visitors a glimpse of the struggling island in light of the six decades of prolonged U.S. "blockage" of Cuba and the enduring Cuban revolution.

The Cuban American Friendship Society (CAFS) is a local non-profit which was founded by Sandy Baird over 30 years ago to help break down the barriers between our two countries by hosting people-to-people exchanges as well as professional, cultural, and athletic trips to Cuba. The Cuban American Friendship Society has helped hundreds of Vermonters travel to the island nation to visit schools, medical facilities, organic farms, sports facilities—as well as to see how much we have in common even as our current administration reverts back to Cold War tactics.

For more information: vicii.org

VICII: War By Other Means - Embargoes, Sanctions, Blockades, The Case of Cuba and the Helms Burton Act of 1996 06/08/2022

From VICII:

When Fidel Castro entered Havana on New Years Day 1959 to proclaim the Cuban Revolution, the United States saw Red: the nightmare of an ally of the Soviet Union and Socialist state 90-miles from our shores. To rid the hemisphere of this menace the USA has employed both hot wars—invasions and violent attacks—and war by other means—economic embargoes, blockades, and sanctions. In 1996 at at a time when Cuba was devastated by the collapse of the main trade partner of Cuba, the Soviet Union, President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act which strengthened the blockade of trade with Cuba in an attempt to destroy Cuba by impoverishing our neighbors the Cuban people.

In May of 2022 a group of Vermonters led by Sandy Baird are invited to the University of Havana Law School to join a seminar to become informed about the Helms Burton Act and to see firsthand the harm the blockade has caused the island.

For more information: vicii.org

VICII: Always Cuba 02/16/2022

From VICII:

"In 1959, Fidel Castro marched into Havana and became the new leader of the Island nation. Fulgencio Batista the President of the Republic of Cuba and close ally of the United States fled the country taking most of the assets of Cuba with him.

In the middle of the Cold War against the Soviet Union the United States reacted to the Cuban Revolution with trepidation: would Cuba be an ally of Russia the enemy of the United States? Would the island nation so formerly friendly to US capitalism and organized crime become an outpost of Communism 90 miles from Florida?
 
When Fidel Castro announced his Socialism and drifted toward the Soviet Union the powerful neighbor to the North saw "Red" and began its Cold and Hot War policy against Cuba: regime change by any means. At first the USA adopted a hot war against the Island in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961; when that invasion failed to topple Fidel Castro and when Cuba sought defensive assistance from the Soviet Union, the Cuban Missile Crisis between the USA and Russia almost triggered a Nuclear War bringing the leaders of the US, the USSR and Cuba to the horrifying realization that a war which could destroy the world and all its inhabitants was not one which any power would win. While that crisis was averted with the Soviet Union, Washington did not give up in its dreams of regime change. Washington then turned to acts of war by other means against Havana. In 1962 the USA established a trade and travel embargo (termed the Bloqueo by the Cubans) against the Cubans prohibiting most travel and trade with the Island in cruel attempts to destroy the economy of Cuba and the lives of the Cuban people.

In one of the longest blockades in history, 60 years later those acts of war are still in existence. While the people of Cuba are the people most hurt by these sanctions, the United States continues its cruelty toward a poor nation full of people of color in the vain hope of destroying socialism in what Washington has always considered its back yard."

For more information: vicii.org

VICII: Cuba Today - An Update on Our Friends and Neighbors 11/22/2021

Sandy Baird and Kurt Mehta lead a discussion on Cuba's past, present and potential futures.

From VICII:

Kurt Mehta, a lawyer who has visited Cuba and studied the island extensively, and Sandy Baird, from the Cuban American Friendship Society and a person who fell in love with Cuba decades ago, lead this community discussion on Zoom.
 
Cuba has always been under the watchful eye of the United States. In the earliest days of Spanish and English colonialism, the southern part of the States, which would become the Confederacy desired Cuba to increase the power of the slaveocracy; when the American Revolution succeeded in independence from the 13 British colonies, the new republic began an imperial climb to control all of Latin America and the Caribbean. After the Cuban War of Independence and the Spanish American War was won by the United States, Cuba was restricted in its independence by the Platt Amendment and by the occupation of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for a US naval base and now a US prison for alleged terrorists. When Fidel Castro established a Socialist government in Cuba the United States saw “red” and determined on a policy of embargoes, blockades and “regime change” for Havana.
 
Under President Barack Obama the United States offered a carrot rather than a stick to Cuba. But the stick was returned under President Trump and now sanctions and restrictions on remunerations to Cuban families and on travel continue to attempt to cripple the island nation. Although Cuba is seeking a recovery of its economy and society after the crushing Covid pandemic, the United States seeks once again to undermine their neighbor only 90 miles away.
 

What's Going On?: Cuba Today 08/10/2021

Sandy Baird is joined by Kurt Mehta and Graham Clarke to discuss current events in Cuba.

Education and Enrichment for Everyone: Cuba - A New Cold War? 10/18/2019

Armando Vilaseca, President, Cuban American Friendship Society

Part of the Education and Enrichment for Everyone series in South Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit EEEVermont.org.

Sandy Baird Commentary: In Love With Cuba 02/02/2017

Community activist and lawyer Sandy Baird offers commentary on falling in love with Cuba.

Sandy Baird Commentary: The Demise of Burlington College 10/31/2016

Community activist and lawyer Sandy Baird offers commentary on the 'The Demise of Burlington College.'

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