Otorgado por “Visual Artists Guild”, de cuya dirigencia es parte desde hace cinco años, al cumplirse 32 años de la masacre comunista en la Plaza de Tianammen

}Mensaje de la Presidenta de “Visual Artists Guild” al citar los méritos del patriota cubanoamericano Fernando Marquet, en el acto celebrado el domingo 30 de mayo

EN LOS ANGELES, Ca.

It is my honor to introduce Mr. Fernando Marquet, our fellow Board Member of Visual Artists Guild.

Fernando was born in Havana, Cuba in August 1942.  In July 1960 his family, disillusion with the promise of democracy and social justice, left Castro’s dictatorship. 

In the US Fernando joined the Christian Democratic Movement in denouncing the Marxist-Leninist of the Castro regime. 

At the age of 18, he joined a group of 1200 Cuban exiles trained under US sponsorship with the aim to liberate Cuba. 

He participated in the April, 1961 efforts at the Battle of the Bay of Pigs.  After four days of fighting, without continued supplies and munitions and overwhelmed by a force eight times their size, the Freedom Fighters were taken prisoners and later sentenced to 30 years of hard labor.

 With his fellow Freedom Fighters, Fernando was shipped to the Isles of Pines prison where hundreds more of political prisoners were already there.

After a year and a half of captivity, on December 24, 1962 all 1113 Freedom Fighters were ransomed by the US government with $53 millions worth of medical and food supplies donated by companies all over the United States.  At the last minute, Castro demanded an additional $2.9 millions in cash which the prisoners’ family committee and President Kennedy’s brother Robert Kennedy frantically fundraised on that day to satisfy Castro’s demand.

In the US, Fernando followed similar paths as other immigrants. He became a successful entrepreneur in the airline related business, married his wife Miriam for 36 years now and retired.

Even as he experienced defeat, Fernando has been an activist in helping in the efforts to bringing freedom, human rights and democracy to his homeland.  Fernando has been recognized many times for his work in bringing freedoms to the prisoners in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

With the Black Spring of March, 2003 when 75 dissidents mostly independent journalists, writers and intellectuals were sentenced to 8 years, Fernando organized meetings, protests, conferences in advocating for their release until they were all released from prison in April 2011.

In 2015, Fernando facilitated Visual Artists Guild in inviting the Ladies in White, to come to Los Angeles from Cuba to attend our annual Tiananmen Commemoration and be honored to accept our award.

 Since then, Fernando has been a most valued Board member of Visual Artists Guild.  In addition to supporting actions of Visual Artists Guild, he has spearheaded a number of events including conferences and art exhibition highlighting the plights of artists and dissidents in Cuba.

For his life time dedication to the goal of human rights and democracy, Visual Artists Guild hereby present Mr. Fernando Marquet with the Spirit of Tiananmen Award.