Members of European Parliament begin official visit to Cuba

Havana, February 1 (RHC)-- Nine members of the European Parliament and other officials belonging to the group La Izquierda (The Left) began their official visit to Cuba on Monday, touring historic sites of social and cultural interest in the municipality of Ciénaga de Zapata, in the western province of Matanzas. 

The delegation is made up of Members of the European Parliament Martin Schirdewan, co-president of The Left Group; Manu Pineda, Sandra Pereira, Konstatinos Arvanitis, Giorgos Georgiou, Sira Rego, Elena Kountoura, Leila Chaibi and Maria Eugénia Rodriguez Palop, as well as other officials. 

As the first item on their agenda, the MEPs and other members of the delegation toured the headquarters of the Korimakao Artistic Ensemble, and were witness to the cultural and community potential of this project.  Later, in the town of Soplillar, they learned from its residents what life was like there before the triumph of the Revolution (January 1, 1959), in conditions of misery and oblivion by the rulers of the neocolonial Republic. 

They especially commented on the dinner of Fidel Castro (1926-2016) in that place on Christmas Eve with the charcoal workers, on December 24, 1959, an event that ratified the very essence of the Revolution "of the humble, by the humble and for the humble". The exchange with Nemesia Rodríguez Montano, also known as "Flor Carbonera", a living testimony of the barbarity of the mercenary invasion, supported by the United States Government against the Cuban people in April 1961. The historians of the place narrated the dramatic events lived by her and her family. 

In the afternoon, the MEPs developed other activities in that municipality of Matanzas and in the province of Mayabeque.