BY RUSSELL PICKERING
SYDNEY — With song, prose and reflection, 100 supporters of the Cuban Revolution jammed into the Newtown Edge Theatre here on April 21 to commemorate the 40th annivesary of the Cuban people's defeat of the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.
Peter Ross, a lecturer at the department of Spanish and Latin American studies at the University of NSW, opened the event, explaining the background to the US's attempt to reconquer Cuba and showing historical video footage.
Chilean musician Herman Florez celebrated Cuban revolutionary culture in song, while Oscar Fernandez recited revolutionary leader Che Guevara's poem "Canto a la Fidel" and Denis Kevans read his 1962 "Battle for Cuba".
Special guest speaker Cuban consul Cecilia Fernandez Dominguez then spoke of the significance of Bay of Pigs victory and its enduring example of dignity to the Third World.
Thanking the people of Australia for their support for the Cuban revolution, she cried "Viva solidarity. Viva the heroes of the Bay of Pigs".