Cuban Solidarity Event in Brazil

Porto Alegre, Jun 4. -A statement by Cuba's Council of State secretary Homero Acosta and two lectures are part of the agenda of the first day of the National Convention of Solidarity with Cuba taking place in Brazil on Friday.

Acosta's speech will open the Convention tonight, followed by a concert by Cuban troubadour Vicente Feliu, and his Argentinian colleague Gabo Sequeira will launch the CD "Canciones Confidenciales" (Confidential Songs), based on the book "Poemas Confidenciales" (Confidential Poems) by Antonio Guerrero, one of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned in the United States.

Grupo Trovas musicians Pedro Munhoz, Ze Martins and Leonardo Ribeiro will also participate in the concert.

The National Convention, organized by the Jose Marti Cultural Association in Rio Grande do Sul, will take place at the headquarter of the Porto Alegre Legislative Assembly.

Cuban ambassador to Brazil Carlos Zamora will later deliver a lecture entitled "The blockade and its consequences in the development of the Cuban nation."

The panels "International media campaign on Cuba and its expression in Brazil," attended by psychologist Ruth Ignacio and journalists Marco Aurelio Weissheimer, Mario Augusto Jakobskind, Beto Almeida, Miriam Gontijo and Francis Maia, and "The Cuban Five: when authoritarianism surpasses human rights," with Magaly Llort, mother of Fernando Gonzalez, one of the Five, historian Enrique Serra Padros, and justice promoter Gino Bastos, and a concert by singer and songwriter Raul Ellwanger, are also included in the agenda.

Delegates from at least 12 of 27 Brazilian states are expected to attend the 18th National Convention of Solidarity with Cuba, which will end on June 6, with the approval of the Porto Alegre Charter. (Prensa Latina)