Dear comrades and friends,
With deep sorrow and on behalf of her family, we communicate that our dear companion, sister and friend Alicia Jrapko, departed this January 11 in the evening hours, after fighting a cruel
disease for more than two years. In spite of the hard treatment she never stopped working as much as she could. If there was one thing Alicia regretted, it was not being able to continue contributing, loving and living with the energy that always characterized her.
Alicia was a great Argentine revolutionary, the daughter of workers who from a very young age took up the struggles of a generation that dreamed of building an Argentina with social justice for the people. Alicia said in an interview…in Latin America a great admiration was forged for Cuba, for Fidel, Raul, Che and so many other revolutionaries. In Argentina we wanted the same thing, but it was not achieved and a great part of my generation lost their best children.
Alicia was born on January 1, 1953 in Merlo, Buenos Aires province, grew up and was educated in Córdoba, where she studied journalism. Argentina’s military dictatorship imposed in 1976 unleashed a fierce repression against all popular militants. Thirty thousand were detained-disappeared, among them many of Alicia’s classmates. She was unable to finish her degree, and with the clothes she wore, in the same year ’76 she had to go into exile.
Each of Alicia’s three children bears the middle names of her disappeared classmates: Gabriela Emma, Eileen Mabel and Juan Alberto.
For several years she lived in exile in Mexico, then she settled in the United States, the most difficult and at the same time the most necessary country to support the causes of Latin America and fight against imperialism. It was difficult to understand the aggression, lies and attacks against Cuba by the media and the government.
Alicia was committed to the struggles of U.S. workers and in the early 1990s to Cuba solidarity work through IFCO-Pastors for Peace, where she worked closely with Rev. Lucius Walker as his West Coast coordinator, helped organize and promote scholarships for African American and Latino students to attend the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) free of charge to become doctors in their communities.
Her solidarity work brought her closer to Cuba every day; she became a spokesperson for many caravans of Pastors who traveled thousands of miles across the United States to counter the lies of the U.S. government against the island, while collecting humanitarian aid as a symbol of solidarity with the Cuban people.
“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. The experience of traveling to Cuba on the Pastors for Peace caravans changed my life forever and brought me closer to Cuba and its people,” she said in an interview.
In 2000 Alicia was at the forefront of the battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba with his father, but her fundamental work is in the struggle for the release of the Five Cuban Patriots, unjustly imprisoned for monitoring the activity of terrorists in the United States against Cuba.
Alicia assumed with determination and unequaled courage the leadership of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Five in the United States, and managed to get trade unionists, religious leaders, congressmen, jurists, intellectuals, actors and artists to join the campaign for the release of Cuban anti-terrorists Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Ramon Labañino Salazar, Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert.
From 2002 until his release in 2014, regardless of the risks and the enormous distances, together with his partner in struggle and dreams, Bill Hackwell, he visited Gerardo Hernandez more than 100 times in two maximum security federal prisons, and was the constant and affectionate support of family visits.
Alicia’s enormous work and political commitment transcended before the Cuban people who conferred her several distinctions, among them the Felix Elmuza Medal awarded by the Union of Journalists of Cuba, the Shield of the city of Holguin and the Medal of Friendship awarded by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba through the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples -ICAP-, for her immense work during the long years of struggle for the freedom of the Five.
Alicia strongly supported the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, the legacy of Hugo Chavez and President Nicolas Maduro.
Pages would not be enough to describe the enormous work that this courageous woman did with extraordinary modesty, simplicity, dignity and fidelity, with all her energies put at the service of human betterment throughout her precious life.
Since 2011 Alicia has been the co-chair of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC). She was coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity of the Peoples in the United States and founder and co-editor of Resumen Latinoamericano in English. She created the U.S. chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity and was a member of its General Secretariat. In her last project, despite being ill, Alicia was co-chair of the Nobel Committee of the Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Brigade, as another effort in her tireless fight against the criminal blockade of Cuba.
Her name, Alicia, means truth. That truth was carried as a banner by our dear Ali throughout her life, the truth of the people against injustice, the truth, honesty, dignity and modesty of true revolutionaries, capable of giving their all, without any other ambition or personal motive. Alicia’s leadership style attracted people to her and the struggles she led, always with her big smile and sincerity, earning the respect of all.
She honored us with her friendship and affection, with her enormous courage. And she leaves us all in this infinite sadness, but with her example of life, struggle, nobility, dignity and hope.
All our love goes to Gabriela, Eileen and Juanito, her beloved children, her dear life partner Bill Hackwell, her six grandchildren, the youngest Che Simón, born this January 5th, whom she could not see or hold in her arms, but from whom she heard an audio of his cry for the future with a big smile; to her dear brother in Argentina, family, friends and colleagues in the United States.
We will never forget you, soul mate, dearest sister and mother.
Hasta Siempre Ali Querida!
You will always be present!
Until Victory Always!
Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo and Graciela Ramirez on January 12, 2022 from Havana