By Leni Villagomez Reeves on February 5, 2022
photo: Bill Hackwell
Alicia Jrapko, a first-line fighter for a better, more just and equitable world, died on January 11 of this year after a long illness during which she continued to work as much as possible anyway. As leader of International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five in the United States, she managed to get trade unionists, religious leaders, congressional representatives, jurists, intellectuals, actors and artists to join the successful campaign for the release of these Cuban anti-terrorist fighters, who were political prisoners unjustly incarcerated for monitoring the activity of terrorists in the US against Cuba. Her Cuba solidarity work was first explored through IFCO Pastors for Peace – the Caravans to Cuba – working with the Rev. Lucius Walker to organize humanitarian aid in solidarity with Cuba. “We knew that the humanitarian aid we were taking to Cuba was symbolic, but we wanted to show that the U.S. government could not block solidarity between peoples. And we wanted to show that Cuba was not alone,” she said.
Alicia was a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba for ten years, coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity for the Peoples in the US, and founder and co-editor of Resumen Latinoamericano in English. Alicia was also the co-chair of the Nobel Committee for Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigade last year, even while very ill.
Alicia Jrapko was born in Argentina in 1953. In 1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla led a right-wing military coup in that country, supported by the US, that overthrew the civilian elected government. US Secretary of State Kissinger met with coup leaders shortly after they took power and advised them to destroy their opponents quickly before there was time for protests over violations of human rights to occur in the US. They did not need this advice; this was one of the bloodiest military dictatorships of the last century. An estimated 30,000 people were murdered or disappeared. Approximately 500 of these were pregnant women who were killed only after giving birth and whose babies were given to families who were part of the regime. They were students and union leaders, journalists and all those who struggled for the people, all victims of the coup. Three of Alicia’s classmates were among them. She was able to flee the country, empty-handed, first to Mexico, and then to the US.
There are so many people living in exile after violent right-wing takeovers of their country. Jewish, German and other European refugees, including Spanish exiles who were scattered throughout the world, fleeing from Hitler and from Franco’s fascist terror. In 1973, one of my fellow students, here on a student visa, awakened to find that Chile, her country, had been taken over by the Pinochet coup and had she been in Chile she might have easlily been one of the thousands tortured and killed.
The overthrow of civilian government in Argentina, the coup against the elected government of Guatemala in 1954, the overthrow of the Zelaya government in Honduras in 2009, and the two coups overthrowing the elected governments of Aristide in Haiti are just some of the interventions by the US government to make sure they have compliant governments in the Latin American countries. These ultra-right wing regimes took power with the aid or with the complicity of the US government, essentially always under the guise of fighting communism, a label applied to any government or movement that is to the left of complete domination by the rich and powerful. And the US has always been resistant to accepting the refugees and exiles from the international disasters that we promote.
Alicia was one of these refugees and she came here and became a leader in the culture of global international solidarity, working against neoliberalism and neocolonialism and for peace, justice and dignity of all peoples.
Alicia Jrapko ¡presente!
Here are ways to learn more and be part of the work toward a better future:
https://resumen-english.org
http://nnoc.info
https://www.facebook.com/TheInternationalCommittee/
Leni Villagomez Reeves is a physician and long time social activist living in the Fresno California area
This article originally appeared in the Community Alliance a local newspaper in Fresno California and a voice of the progressive movement since 1996