Press Release
Streamed live on the Center for a Free Cuba’s channel and available to view here: https://www.youtube.
Contacts: John Suárez (612) 367-6845 / Janisset Rivero (786) 208-6056
CFC president Manuel Iglesias and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz at the Victims of Communism Memorial Museum on January 13, 2026.
Center for a Free Cuba, January 14, 2026, Washington, DC. The Center for a Free Cuba (CFC), in collaboration with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, held the conference “Cuba: Sixty Years of Terror” to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Tricontinental Conference held from January 3 to 15, 1966, where a network for international subversion and terrorism called the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL) was created, costing many lives, and sowing discord in nations around the world. The conference was held at the Victims of Communism Memorial Museum located at 900 15th St NW, Washington, DC 20005. The gathering began at 8:45am and ended at 1:30pm with four hours broadcast over the live stream..
Colombian Senator María Fernanda Cabal gives the closing remarks.
“In 1966 there were two large delegations from Beijing and Moscow, representing communist imperial powers, and they were not viewed as the enemy. In practice, this so-called “struggle against imperialism” focused on the United States, and other democracies around the world,” observed John Suarez, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba during his presentation.
Suarez continued in his presentation to point out the Tricontinental organizers’ decades-long hypocrisy with regards to China and Russia.
“The Cuban dictatorship and the Tricontinental in 1966 did not condemn China’s occupation of Tibet then its 16th year, the threats by Beijing to seize Taiwan, refusing to recognize their right to self determination, or the Cuban dictatorship in later years call out China’s genocide of the Uyghurs, or the global Belt and Road initiative which exploits developing countries to take control of strategic assets. On the contrary, Havana repeatedly led diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to defend China’s actions.”
“However, when it came to Russian imperialism over the past 60 years, Havana would take it to the next level. In addition to Fidel Castro defending and publicly supporting Moscow’s military invasions and occupations of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979 the Cuban dictatorship would put boots on the ground in Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Ukraine to advance imperial objectives, kidnapping the sovereignty of Ethiopians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Ukrainians. They would aid and abet Moscow’s colonial and neo-colonial ventures in Africa carrying out atrocities that rose to the level of genocide in Ethiopia under the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam during which 17,000 Cuban troops beginning in 1977 assisted Moscow in fortifying the tyrant’s control over Ethiopian domestic opposition carrying out a genocide that claimed up to 317,000 lives.”
Today, while in Havana they prattle on about defending sovereignty and the right of peoples to decide their destiny, thousands of Cuban mercenaries are fighting for Moscow to end the nation of Ukraine and forcibly subject the Ukrainian people to Russian rule in an imperial war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting on May 9, 2024 in Moscow: “We wish you and the Russian Federation success in carrying out the special military operation.”
Mike González, Heritage Foundation; Maibort Petit, Political scientist & journalist; John Suarez, Center for a Free Cuba; Moderator: Ana Leca, Victims of Communism
However, Suarez pointed out in his presentation that it is not only in Europe, and Africa, but also Latin America where sovereignty and the right of peoples to decide their destiny are willfully violated by Havana.
“This includes not respecting the outcome of the July 28, 2024 presidential election in Venezuela, where 67% of Venezuelans voted for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez clearly desiring an end to Chavismo, that was put down with military force by Nicolas Maduro. He was being assisted by tens of thousands of Cuban invaders in the torture and killing of Venezuelans. Maduro presided over the extrajudicial killings of over 19,000 Venezuelans since 2013. He is now in prison in the United States, but thousands of Cuban oppressors, who helped to carry out the killings, remain in Venezuela repressing Venezuelans.”
Vijay Prashad, the executive-director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, in a January 10, 2026, Interview titled “1966 Tricontinental, Cuba, and National Liberation Socialism” claims: “Socialism isn’t about building a socialist society. Socialism is about confronting imperialism in our time.” In the same interview he laments the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Communists don’t have a problem with imperialism, when they practice it, but use the term against democracies, and other non-communist regimes whether merited or not in order to advance their own variant of colonialism, of denying that a just government requires the consent of the governed. Their track record is one of tyranny, and over 100 million victims murdered,” concluded Suarez.
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