The Belgian political-cultural festival ManiFiesta will hold its 13th edition this weekend in the coastal city of Ostend, where the denunciation of the U.S. blockade against Cuba will find several spaces, according to information released today.
According to the program of the event scheduled for September 9 and 10, in one of its sections, Che presente, the Belgian Coordinating Committee for the Lifting of the Blockade against Cuba will hold a meeting on Saturday to address the impact of the economic, commercial and financial siege applied by Washington against the island for more than six decades.
The consequences of this hostile policy on Cuban society, particularly in sectors such as health and scientific development, its extraterritorial scope and international solidarity are among the topics to be discussed.
Belgian trade unionists and solidarity activists will take part in the forum, as well as members of the delegation from the largest Caribbean island, headed by Deputy Elier Ramirez, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CC PCC) and of the Council of State.
The festival will also host the presentation of the series The War on Cuba, with Oliver Stone and Danny Glover as executive producers, which deals with the effects of the blockade on the population of the Caribbean country.
The audience will also have the opportunity to get a closer look at the island's culture through its traditional music and dance.
In addition to Ramírez, the Cuban delegation to the forum includes Belkys Lay, an official of the CC PCC, Dr. Rolando Pérez, advisor to the president of the biotechnological company Biocubafarma, and journalist Martin Hacthoun, director of Image and Communication of the Prensa Latina news agency.
Hacthoun will present at the forum aspects of the media war faced by the Antillean nation.
On Sunday, there will be meetings on Cuba's actions in the face of climate change and trade union work in that country.
Also scheduled for ManiFiesta are speeches by Cuba's ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, Yaira Jimenez, who, according to diplomatic sources, will express her gratitude for the solidarity with her country in the face of U.S. aggressions, particularly the blockade and its extraterritorial component.
One of the expected moments of the two-day event will be the presentation on Saturday of the president of the Belgian Workers' Party (PTB), Raoul Hedebouw, who in declarations to Prensa Latina at the Peoples' Summit in Brussels in July, condemned Washington's blockade and acknowledged the resistance of the Cuban people.
ManiFiesta is organized by Solidaire, the PTB newspaper, and the network Medicine for the People.