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• States
secretary general of the World Council of Churches
BY RAISA PAGES —Granma International staff
writer—
"THE United States
blockade of Cuba goes beyond the economic,
becoming an unacceptable ethical and humanitarian
situation, which we strongly condemn," affirmed
Reverend Samuel Kobia, secretary general of the
World Council of Churches during a meeting held at
the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center in the
Marianao neighborhood of Havana.
Reverend Kobia
expressed his satisfaction at learning about that
center because of its community work and the fact
that it recognizes the historic significance of
the African presence in Cuba, not just as the top
leader of the WCC, but also because he was born in
that continent, in Kenya.
He announced that
the slogan of the WCC General Assembly, which will
be held next year in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is "A
better world is possible," the same motto of the
Social Forum. During that gathering, thousands of
Christians will unite to denounce the current
neoliberal economic policies.
The meeting in
Havana included the participation of Magaly Llort,
mother of Fernando González; Irma Sehwerert,
mother of René González; Olga Salanueva, wife of
René, and Adriana Pérez, wife of Gerardo
Hernández, who are being held unjustly in various
U.S. prisons for fighting anti-Cuba terrorism.
"The work of
churches in the United States is essential for the
people of that country to demand justice in these
cases," stated Guillermo Kerber, a WCC
representative who accompanied Rev. Kobia on his
visit to Cuba. Kerber explained that visits to the
Five have been denied Christians from U.S.
churches in the states where the Five are
incarcerated.
The Cuban Council
of Churches has joined the cause of the Five out
of solidarity with those who suffer unjust
punishment, which was emphasized by Minister Raúl
Suarez, director of the Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Center.
Magaly Llort
expressed her thanks on behalf of the families of
the Five, for the solidarity and support of the
World Council of Churches, and gave Reverend Kobia
the book Cuba, la historia no contada
(Cuba, the Untold History), which summarizes the
terrorist acts organized by the United States
against Cuban, and also gave him an envelope
containing the ruling by the UN Working Group on
Arbitrary Detentions.
On his next-to-last
day in Cuba, the WCC leader, who represents more
than 400 million Christians in the world, toured
the cardiac center of the William Soler Children’s
Hospital and La Castellana Center for children
with Down’s Syndrome. (Granma
August 5, 2005)
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