Aleida Guevara asserts that Trump "is the product of a people's desperation."

Guía de Isora (Tenerife) Feb 2 (EFE).- Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara, considers that the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States "is the result of the desperation of a people," and that it represents "undoubtedly a danger," even though it "does not keep her up at night."

Hours before participating in a talk as part of the "Exchange of Glances: Latin American Left" series, at the MiradasDoc International Documentary Festival in Guía de Isora (Tenerife), Aleida Guevara commented in an interview with Efe on how she sees her country after the death of Fidel Castro, and her impressions on what the arrival of Trump at the White House could mean.

Guevara believes that the United States "no longer knows what to do," and that Trump "is the consequence" of that situation because his predecessor, the Democrat Barack Obama, "also did not solve the real problems of the people," as "he said things and they were not done, like closing Guantánamo."

However, in the case of her country, Che Guevara's daughter does not believe that Fidel Castro's death has opened "any uncertainty" about the future of Cuba. "We are fine, we continue forward," she says.

"We would have liked Fidel to never have died, but this is a physiological matter, he was a normal man, and of course, there is a sense of loss," he adds.

Aleida Guevara acknowledges that with Obama, "there was a rapprochement" between the US and Cuba, as "the opening of the embassies was important," but she also maintains that "there is no normal relationship with a country that economically blocks you; it is impossible."

The Cuban doctor also wonders how they can have "a normal relationship" with a country "that has usurped" a part of their territory, like Guantánamo, and "has not returned it".

"We demand to be left alone and to have our own social development. It is a matter of the people's decision and not of imposition, it is what we have defended all these years," emphasizes the youngest of Che's two daughters and his second wife, Aleida March.

Guevara works at the William Soler Children's Hospital in Havana, and collaborates with the Che Guevara Studies Center.

She argues that Cuba "never wanted to stop having relations with the USA" - "we did not impose the blockade, they did" -, unlike what happened with Israel, with which the Castro government did break ties "out of respect for the Palestinian people," she claims.

It also emphasizes that Cuba "was an exploited and humiliated people" as a Spanish colony for centuries and had to earn "sovereignty through blood." "We had not finished defeating the Spanish army when the US entered and took control. We were a neocolony for over 50 years," maintains Aleida Guevara.

The doctor believes that the conflict with Washington lies in the fact that Latin America has always been "the backyard of the U.S.," which has "used the resources of its countries as it pleased."

"When a country takes control of its resources for the people, the US government gets upset because it loses wealth," and "that's the issue," says Guevara, who has practiced medicine in Angola, Ecuador, and Nicaragua and is a member of the PCC.

Regarding the graffiti that made reference to Fidel Castro after his death, which led to the detention and subsequent release of its author, "El Sexto," Guevara understands that "it is not acceptable for anyone to paint on the streets without authorization."

"If that person wants to paint something in their house, they have every right to do so, but not on public property without permission," he clarifies.

In this line, he adds that "the Cuban people will not accept a graffiti that degrades the leader of the revolution, because it is a lack of respect."

Regarding the form of government in Cuba, he argues that "it is the people who determine the basis of the government," because if they "wanted different types of people to be there, they would choose them, starting from the grassroots." "Why don't they propose it? It is the people who choose," he states.

Regarding the situation in Venezuela, and as the author of the book "Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America," Aleida Guevara believes that "they are still following the same path" with President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelan oil "now goes to schools, hospitals, homes", provides "free" services, and before, it went, from his point of view, "to the families that the US sustained."

Che Guevara's daughter argues that Venezuela is "sowing solidarity," although she acknowledges that it has "serious supply problems," which she attributes to maneuvers to "destabilize the revolutionary process."

Venezuela "has not been given time to mature as a process," he opines, since "the United States has been on top of it from the beginning," as it "promised not to allow another Cuba in Latin America" and "Venezuela slipped out of their hands, it was a disaster for them, it had a lot of oil within their reach."

Guevara considers that the Latin American left is "always growing," although "there are moments of setback, as in Argentina or Brazil," but "the movement continues to advance in Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador..." "We are talking about resistance," he adds.

Finally, the removal of Dilma Roussef as the president of Brazil is, according to Aleida Guevara, "a lack of respect for what you call democracy." "How does the civilized world allow this coup d'état?, What freedom of expression are we talking about?" she questions.