January 11, 2021 3

Colleague Albor Ruiz has died in Miami

5 years ago Radio Miami TV

Colleague Albor Ruiz has died in Miami,
notes of dismay from his friends

By: Carlos Rafael Dieguez
January 9, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Enny Pichardo Paz al Alma of this great master,
Albor Ruiz It is with the greatest sadness – and on behalf of friends and family near and far – that we share that our dear friend

Albor Ruiz
died Friday night at 10:27 pm at Homestead Hospital in Florida. His was a life rich with many adventures and deep commitments. She had turned 80 years old in November. 27. Details will follow, but please keep it in your thoughts and prayers. Rest in power dear Albor.

Diego Tejedor Cano
You have just given me a lot of grief. In a short time I could see that he was an exceptional human being. I feel like a brother who is leaving.
Carlos Davila is with Albor Ruiz

My friend Albor Ruiz passed away last night. I first met him in 1968-1969 at the University of Florida, and with all the ups and downs of life, I have remained close friends ever since. He leaves a legacy of great memories to many friends, a long list of opinion pieces in various New York newspapers (including Daily News, where he was a staff writer), and a book of poems: ′ ′ “In Case I Die Tomorrow. The book itself is an appropriate epitaph, but these lines (freely translated by me from the last poem in the book) capture its essence: ′ ′. In case I die tomorrow, I want to write this on the wall of dreams: Know all that I never had a Master, neither in New York, San Juan, Miami, nor Havana.” That independence and intransigence were both irritating and endearing. May his memory live on beyond our lives in the legacy he left us in his writings.
Romy Ar Sa

– I just read that the Cuban journalist Albor Ruiz has died and I have already finished sowing my heart into the ground this week. Albor was one of those people you admire even when you don’t agree with the man halfway. A complete being with a humanism that can be perceived from a long distance. He will always have my genuine respect and admiration. To his family my deepest sympathy.
Grace Berti

Dear Albor Ruiz
I met you in New York, through my co-workers at “Marazul”, the travel agency to Cuba, where you used to visit us and then we all went to have dinner at some bodegón with food from your homeland. All of us Cubans worked on the island, except one Uruguayan and I who remained on the periphery of meetings and conciliations, but very close in the friendship and enormous affection that we developed during those years. A journalist for the Daily News, always advocating for the rights of minorities, you arrived with a book as a gift when you knew I was returning to Argentina and which I still keep in my library: “The mountain is an immense green steppe”.

We met again on Facebook and there I met your poetry. Did you know that you were leaving and that’s why your last book is called “In case I die tomorrow” 
Goodbye, adventurous, brave, coherent, beautiful person!

THE SUN BURNS THE AFTERNOON
The Sun burns the afternoon
beyond my window
and in my memory Havana,
regal in its poverty, it burns.
I ask God to keep her
as if I believed in Him,
always to my memories faithful.
I am who I always was,
what I lived, lives in me
a little bile, a little honey.
A.R.
Ivette Cortes feels disconsolate. 

Albor Ruiz
My dear Friend! I just thought of you this morning upon awakening and although our paths haven’t crossed in many years, I thank God for Facebook. For it has kept us in touch through these many years. So very sad to hear the news of your passing. You were a great force in life and you shared your wisdom and opinions freely and loudly. They were always welcomed to my ears and in my heart. I will miss your news columns and your inspirational, animated comments, especially about politics! I would love to hear your thoughts about what’s going on right now. I am proud to call you my friend and I’m a better person for having known you. Rest In Peace my loving friend!

About this son of Cuba, from the City of Cardenas, Dr Julio Ruiz wrote on his Facebook wall
DEAR FRIENDS ALBOR PASSED AWAY AT 10:27 PM. MY DEEPEST CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY. HE WILL BE REMEMBERED AND HIS ASHES RETURNED TO CUBA. EPD.

My friend and fellow wrestler Albor Ruiz has been admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) since this morning. He had to be operated on five times for a fall with three fractures he had in the nursing home where he lived. He was suffering from a debilitating muscle disease called myositis, an inflammation that weakens muscles. He was trying to transfer from the toilet to a wheelchair, and as he told me, “………” He was already in rehab recovering although according to his sister Enid, the last two days were not going so well. Today he woke up with a lack of oxygen, with difficulty breathing, he had to be intubated and taken to the Homestead Hospital which was the closest hospital. The PCR was negative twice, but he has a pneumonia that covers both lungs. His prognosis is severe.

Albor is one of those exceptional and unique beings, of the very few I have known in my life, Vicente Dopico, his friend, was another. I met him in the 70’s thanks to my friend Andrés Gómez. I got to know his parents when they lived in Miami Beach. He has a sense of humor like many of my generation, a mocker. I am not his oldest friend, but possibly the oldest of them.

My generation is a generation politicized by all our experiences of the 60’s, and although we are grown up, which sometimes we don’t realize, we haven’t changed that much in sixty years, except for the aches and pains.

I am not religious, but neither am I an atheist, agnostic is the word, as a doctor I am clear about where we come from and where we are going, without fear.

For those who have met him virtually through these FB pages, I can attest that FB does not do him justice.

In his will he asks that if he should die, his ashes be buried in Cuba. In the past, other comrades in struggle are buried in the pantheon of the exiled revolutionary patriots at the entrance to the Colon Cemetery. José Marti’s parents also lie there. We will try to fulfill their wishes
May God protect you.

Rafael Hernandez
Thank you, Julio. Death is a close presence, which accompanies us every day and can be expected in peace with oneself, especially when one has chosen a way to live and fight. It has always impressed me, in the midst of so much human misery, how you have remained true to yourselves, even in the moments when you did not have the understanding of this side. A tight hug for my Dawn on your journey.

Cuban journalist Albor Ruiz has passed away

5 years ago Juventud Rebelde,

JuvReb

Cuban writer and journalist Albor Ruiz has passed away

He worked hard from the United States to achieve the Dialogue of 1978, a space that marked the beginning of an irreversible process of rapprochement between Cuba and its emigrants

Author:

Web Editor | digital@juventudrebelde.cu

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

He had, in the words of the Progreso Semanal editorial, “a life rich in many adventures and deep commitments” with the Homeland. Author: Internet Published: 09/01/2021 | 05:10 PM

his Friday night, January 8, Albor Ruiz Salazar died of severe pneumonia at Homestead Hospital in Florida.

He left Cuba at the age of 20 on November 20, 1961. He studied Political Science and Philosophy in Florida. He was a columnist for the Daily News and El Diario La Prensa in New York, writing about issues related to the Latino community in the United States, while he lived in that city, and more recently, for AL DÍA News Media. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in the U.S. But his most prolific work was in defense of the land of his birth and his people. Albor Ruiz, who turned 80 years old on Nov. 27, had, according to the Progreso Semanal editorial, “a life rich with many adventures and deep commitments” to the Homeland.

He played an outstanding role in organizing the movement of young Cubans who gathered around Areito. He was one of those who worked hard from the United States to achieve the Dialogue of 1978, a space that marked the beginning of an irreversible process of rapprochement between Cuba and its emigration. In this regard, Albor himself said: “Returning to Cuba was to remove a huge, gigantic weight that had been crushing me all along. It was a brutal change. Even more so when, without realizing it, the kind of propaganda that they make in the United States about Cuba is getting through to you, even though you know it is a lie, and you do not agree. But when I arrived and saw that, despite the tremendous problems, people were going to the movies, eating ice cream, having parties in the blocks with the children, the old people, the Chinese, the blacks, etc. For me it was a tremendous relief, I don’t really know how to explain it. I felt that these were my people.

As a result of that love and deep commitment to Cuba, he published his book of poems “In case I die tomorrow.

“Back to the Soil, Cuban Land 
I am a foreigner and she calls me
Everyone knows that Cuba claims me
In case I die tomorrow”

(excerpt from the poem “Por Si Muero Mañana”, by Albor Ruiz)

Please accept our condolences to his family and friends.

Sixty-two years of building “heresy”

5 years ago Juventud Rebelde, ,

JuvReb

Sixty-two years of building “heresy”

Exactly five years, five months and five days after the actions of July 26, 1953, the Revolution finally came to power

Published: Thursday 07 January 2021 | 08:06:05 pm.
Author:

Elier Ramírez Cañedo | digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

A cry for freedom that inaugurated a new stage of the struggle for independence in our country. Author: Alejandro Azcuy Published: 07/01/2021 | 07:06 pm

Exactly five years, five months and five days after the actions of July 26, 1953, a cry for freedom that inaugurated a new stage of the struggle for independence in our country, the Revolution finally came to power. This time the Mambises did enter Santiago de Cuba. The victory on this occasion, unlike what happened in 1898, could not be usurped, as the passage to the conspiracies and external interferences through the mobilization of the people was closed.
 
The road had been hard, difficult and full of obstacles. The heroic bearded men led by Fidel had not only faced a bloody tyranny, well-armed and supported by American imperialism, but also the pessimism, defeatism, prejudices and dogmas of the time, which subjectively hindered the revolutionary thrust.
 
Faith in Fidel’s victory ended up radiating to a whole nation. Pride in being Cuban was recovered, as well as confidence that it was possible to build a collective destiny in a sovereign and independent way, that Cuba could aspire to be something more than a cork island in the concert of nations of the world.
 
Thus, the historically impossible was transformed into an infinite possibility. Those who had been labeled as crazy dreamers turned out to be the sanest representatives of the people’s interests. The supposed historical and geographical fatalism, the geopolitical theories that pointed out the impossibility of a true Revolution in Cuba, were buried.
 
But on that dawn of January 1, 1959, not only were the ideals of justice and emancipation of a generation consummated, but also those of those heroes and martyrs who had been fighting and dying in unequal competition in the face of colonialist and imperialist oppression since the 19th century. Four and a half centuries of domination were coming to an end from that moment. The construction of a new heresy was being undertaken.
 
“The homeland that was in the texts,” wrote Cintio Vitier, “in the glimpses of the poets, in the passion of the founders, suddenly incarnated with a terrible, overwhelming beauty on January 1, 1959. We had it before our eyes, alive in immediate and incredible men who had realized in the mountains and plains what was prophesied, what was a dream of so many heroes, the obsession of so many lonely people”.
 
The triumph of the Cuban Revolution had, in turn, a profound impact beyond its borders. It marked an important turning point in the scenario of international relations and the history of Latin America and the Caribbean. By the same geographical point where the United States had begun to successfully build its imperialist domination in the Western Hemisphere since the late 19th century -consolidated after the end of World War II-, a significant counterhegemonic gap was opening up. Its example inspired and still inspires other peoples of the continent eager to shake off the yoke of the American Rome.
 
A small country would then personify in real life the well-known story of the biblical texts of little David defeating the giant Goliath with his sling. Never did the Goliath of the north imagine such a challenge at the very gates of his empire, much less that it would survive for a long time the onslaught of his power.
 
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. Again and again they have bitten the dust of defeat. Yes, they have caused harm, death and pain, but they have not been able to break the unity and will to struggle of the Cuban people, which is rooted in a deep cultural root of resistance and emancipation.
 
Fidel’s words on that January 8, 1959, when he spoke to the people from the former barracks of Columbia, today’s Ciudad Libertad, served as a warning, when he said: “The tyranny has been overthrown, the joy is immense and yet there is still much to be done. Let us not deceive ourselves into believing that from now on everything will be easy, perhaps from now on everything will be more difficult”.
 
The Revolution would not move in calm waters, but in turbulent waters against the tide of powerful winds and overcoming all kinds of obstacles. And so it will be while imperialism exists, let us strive to build a world different and superior to the existing one and to repair any injustice, otherwise, we would have to stop using the word Revolution.
 
The year that has ended will be remembered as one of the most difficult in Cuba’s recent history. We have had to face at the same time the terrible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic together with the consequences of another pandemic – in this case on the political level. Sixty 60 years ago it sought to create hunger and despair among the Cuban people and with it the overthrow of the Revolution. I am referring to the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba, the strengthening of which has reached unsuspected limits, wrapped up in a whole propaganda machine of manipulation, hatred and perversity. Without a doubt, we are witnessing the last throats of the Trumpist Movement and the anti-Cuban lobby, in their desperation to destroy the Cuban project. The exasperation and stridency that we see in our enemies is a reflection of their deep frustrations in the face of the record of accumulated failures.
 
Those who wished for the so-called biological solution, that after Fidel’s physical departure the Revolution would succumb, have proven in practice their deep ignorance of the Cuban reality. The Revolution is still on. Fidel is multiplying in a people willing to continue making history in defense of the most cherished ideals of justice, for Cuba and the world. We are led by our beloved Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the most loyal of all Cubans. As an excellent helmsman, Raúl continues to take us to a safe port, along with the genuine, creative and brilliant continuity, that which carries the people’s heartbeat in its chest, and which we see represented in our President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
 
For those who insistently seek a generational fracture in our country, destiny will continue to reserve a space in the ranks of those who have made mistakes when reading the essences of this nation. It is true that all generations belong to a historical time, but there are indestructible spiritual links that unite all generations in a single generation.
 
The young revolutionaries of today feel indissolubly linked to the generations of Martí, Gómez, Maceo, Villena, Pablo, Mella, Guiteras, José Antonio, Abel, Frank, Almeida, Vilma, Melba, Haydée, Ramiro, Fidel, Raúl and so many others who have given their lives to the cause of freedom and social justice. This is the generation of historical creation and to which also belong the young people who write the revolutionary epic of this time. They sustain this country on all fronts and make us proud with their continuous achievements.
 
This 2021 will be a year full of challenges and challenges, but also of new learnings and triumphs for our people. It will also be the year in which we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Literacy Campaign, of the declaration of the socialist character of the Revolution, of the victory of Playa Girón and of the historic words of Fidel to the intellectuals, as well as the 95th birthday of the Commander in Chief. And there will be an event of special significance such as the 8th Congress of our Cuban Communist Party.
 
The epic of this rebellious, humanist and anti-imperialist Island will continue to be written day after day, featuring truly glorious pages, so that Cuba may live.