US–Cuba Détente: Promise and Peril

PDA (Progressive Democrats of America – San Francisco) presents a free public forum: US–CUBA DÉTENTE:
Promise and Peril

Change is coming to Cuba: Diplomatic relations with the US have formally been restored and there is renewed pressure by North American and foreign companies to pursue investment opportunities on the island. However, the US embargo remains in place and individual travel is still restricted. Additionally, the US must agree to close Guantanamo if normal relations between the two countries are to be established.

Can social and economic change come to Cuba without compromising its revolutionary heritage? What role can US progressives play in supporting the island’s transition to a more economically advanced and politically open system?

Featured speaker BILL HACKWELL is a widely published and exhibited social documentary photographer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of his work focuses on social change in the struggle against oppression in the U.S. and abroad. He has worked as the photographer for a number of non-profit and humanitarian aid groups working in many parts of the world.

The program will include a panel discussion by several Bay Area activists who recently toured Cuba with CodePink-Women for Peace. Last November, the CodePink tour was part of a delegation to Guantanamo that protested the US Naval base and prison camp. They also visited Caimanera, a small town that abuts the base, and learned how the local economy could be vastly improved if that land, located on a critical part of the bay, were returned to Cuba.