Saturday 2-6 pm, Haigh Building, Maryland Street, Liverpool
Sunday 2-6pm Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester


‘Orlando Borrego is so identified with me that all that is missing is for him to get asthma and we would be the same person’ – Che Guevara, Bolivia 1967


This Saturday Liverpool will host a meeting at which Che Guevara’s closest comrade from Cuba, Orlando Borrego, will speak. On Sunday it will be Manchester’s turn. The events are part of a speaking tour of Britain organised by the campaign group Rock Around the Blockade. The tour comes at a crucial time for Cuban socialism as the people give their decisive and defiant answer to the oft-asked question ‘what happens when Fidel goes?’

Orlando Borrego, now aged 71, joined Che Guevara’s guerrilla army column in the Escambray Mountains becoming a first lieutenant. Che then asked Borrego to work with him in the Ministry of Industries from 1959 to 1964. Borrego became First Vice Minister and Che’s immediate deputy. He was also Cuba’s first Minister for the Sugar Industry. Today, Borrego frequently travels to Venezuela to give seminars to the National Assembly, economists and policy makers on Che’s approach to economic development. He remains an adviser to the Cuban Transport Ministry.


For further information contact Liverpool Rock around the Blockade organiser Robert Claridge on 07956 458 331 or at:  thecubansarecoming.liverpool@gmail.com or Manchester organiser Louis Brehony on 07940 988 203 or  ratb@riseup.net

‘In the last few years I have discovered Che the thinker, the reflecter, Che the critical thinker, Che the transformer of the economic system, Che of the stage of industrialisation of Cuba…all of which Borrego has been elaborating upon with an expertise and loyalty to the thought of Che..’
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez