00:00The Grand Mar Rebelde International Festival continues on its third and final day in Havana.
00:04Let's go with our correspondent Melinda Los Santos for all the details.
00:09Hello studios, I greet you here from Havana, Cuba.
00:13Once again, this is the third day of the Grand Mar Rebelde Festival.
00:18We've been bringing a little bit of everything that's happening here,
00:22the debates on journalism, on a revolutionary journalism,
00:26everything that Cuba has learned from its experience
00:30and everything that people around the world have also learned.
00:34And particularly in this festival that's been a call for participants of over 30 countries
00:41to come here, not only to celebrate those 60 years of Grand Mar and Havana Rebelde,
00:46but also to discuss on the present challenges of a very complex geopolitical situation
00:53and the role that journalism is playing in that context.
00:57And for that, we are now welcoming Brenda Lopez.
01:00She is the co-founder of Hands Off Cuba in the U.S.
01:04Hello, Brenda. Thank you for joining us.
01:06Thank you for having me.
01:07It's a pleasure to have you, actually.
01:09And you're coming from L.A., right?
01:11So tell us a little bit what's it been like to come here in Cuba
01:16from the experience of everything that's going on over there.
01:19Yeah, so it's always a pleasure to be here in Cuba.
01:23Our main thing is every May Day we bring delegations to Cuba to experience what it is.
01:29That's the cultures, the people, you know, a little bit of everything.
01:34But the biggest thing is for them to experience something outside of what we are used to.
01:39In the U.S., as you might know, our medias are very influenced by money
01:44and by people in power, and in that regard, there's a lot of stuff that is left out.
01:49And one of those things in particular is Cuba.
01:52And so that's where our committee comes in
01:54and trying to educate the public on not only what Cuba has to offer,
01:58but what our government is doing to Cuba with these 246 sanctions
02:03and this state list of terrorism.
02:05So what better thing than bringing people to Cuba for them to see it themselves,
02:10the impact that these sanctions have,
02:12and the impact that us not knowing what Cuba has to offer also has on us.
02:17Exactly.
02:17And everything that has to do with the movement of solidarity with Cuba
02:23from the U.S. itself knows a lot about the narratives
02:27that are trying to be imposed in Western media
02:30and how hard it is, but how important to build counter-narratives.
02:35Spreading the information from alternative outlets,
02:39building our own sources and our own platforms as well.
02:43And I assume that in this context, where you have in the U.S.
02:47an even more aggressive stance against migration,
02:51against Latin America as a region as a whole,
02:54and also military escalation in the Caribbean,
02:57this must be much more important.
02:59How are you living that situation?
03:02And what do you think is the role of media outlets or social organizations
03:06in that context from within the U.S.?
03:09Yeah, so I think it's super important from within the U.S.
03:12for us ourselves to kill that misinformation,
03:16you know, not just saying like, oh, these people say this,
03:18but for us ourselves to say our narrative,
03:22because a lot of times the people who are suffering the consequences
03:25of the actions of our politicians are the people who don't get a voice.
03:29And so in this regard, I think independent journalism is super important
03:33in offering people a different narrative than they hear all the time.
03:37One of the things that we've been discussing with different participants here
03:42in the festival, many coming from the U.S.,
03:46has to do with how the people really feel about, for example,
03:50the military escalation in the Caribbean.
03:52We know that the U.S., the people in the U.S.,
03:55are fighting their own struggles in terms of the difficulties in economic,
03:59in inflation, in access to health care, for example.
04:03And it's really the possibility of forging that solidarity among the peoples
04:10to understand that there is a common cause with the peoples of Latin America.
04:15How are you dealing with that over there?
04:17What do you perceive with the people when you talk to them about Latin America,
04:21about Cuba, especially in L.A., where there are so many migrants
04:26and also their sons and daughters?
04:28How do you feel that perception of a possible unity
04:32between the working class?
04:35Well, I think the protests that we just had yesterday
04:39and all over the U.S. says a great deal of where people are standing.
04:43They see that our politicians are not for the people, they're for profit.
04:48And in that regard, once we also bring in the narrative Cuba and Venezuela,
04:53within our context, people start to question it.
04:55Like, wow, our country just doesn't do that to other people.
04:59It does it to us.
05:00And these no-king protests that have been happening monthly and growing each month,
05:05like with the ones yesterday being the big ones yet,
05:08Washington, D.C. was covered for miles, you know.
05:13I think that speaks volume as to how uncontent people are with the current situation.
05:20And when people are uncontent, they start to look for something different than what they always hear.
05:25And I think this is a perfect opportunity for committees like ours and independent journalists
05:30to come in and fill in those gaps, you know, and give people a different narrative and context
05:36where they can learn and then hopefully support us.
05:39And I actually want to bring up a campaign we're about to start from our committee
05:43when we come back on Tuesday.
05:45We're having a report back in Miami.
05:47We're actually going to launch a campaign to pressure the Olympic Committee
05:51to give visas to Cuban athletes, well, to participate first in the pre-Olympics
05:56so then they can qualify for the Olympics.
05:58And I think something like that is really something international
06:02that brings some people together because, you know, that's beyond politics.
06:06It's like even something cultural like sports is being affected
06:10by our legislations and our government, you know.
06:15Exactly.
06:15And also points out to how the U.S. has been manipulating the visas in a political way.
06:20We've seen that in the U.N. with such a terrible effect of, for example,
06:25the Palestinian delegation not being able to voice their own experience
06:29at such an important time.
06:31Thank you so much, Brenda.
06:32We will continue to look for those campaigns, continue to spread the word,
06:36and the solidarity and everything that you've been saying about, well,
06:40what people are discontent, they look for different alternatives.
06:44And we are here exchanging experiences in order to learn from each other.
06:49So thank you for being here with Tell Us of English.
06:51Thank you so much.
06:52It's wonderful connecting and it's been a wonderful experience
06:55to connect internationally on how we can work together to break those narratives.
06:59We'll definitely continue to do so.
07:02So a little bit of what is happening here.
07:04We've been saying this festival is about understanding and also continuing to question,
07:10continue to make up new answers to what journalism needs today in a context of geopolitical wars,
07:18in a context of aggression against our region,
07:21but also the great power that lies in solidarity,
07:24the great power that lies in just exchanging our experiences.
07:28This continues to happen here in Havana, Cuba.
07:31We'll be back for more now.
07:33We go back to studios.
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