In respone to U.S. threats
Millions pledge to defend Cuba's sovereignty
By Gloria La Riva
Havana, Cuba
More than 1 million Cubans gathered in
Havana's Revolution Square on May 1 for International Workers'
Day and proclaimed this year's theme: "The First for
Socialism."
As early as midnight, a proud and militant people left from
their residences all over Havana province to assemble in the
city. Half of Havana's 2 million were there. Across the
country, almost 6 million more marched in all 14 provinces and
the Isle of Youth.
As the people entered Revolution Square, small Cuban flags
were distributed to all present. This has become a tradition in
recent years. A sea of flags rises in the air as people show
support for speakers' remarks.
In the aftermath of the Iraq war, and faced with increasing
threats by the U.S., the Cuban people show a deep awareness of
the need to mobilize in their defense.
That's why the mass rally was not just a day to honor
workers and their accomplishments. Along with beautiful
cultural performances, the speakers denounced U.S.
imperialism's designs on the world, and pledged that Cuba is
not alone.
Pedro Ross, general secretary of the 3-million-strong Cuban
Workers Federation (CTC), opened the rally. He mentioned the
actions taken by Cuba to defeat counter-revolutionary forces
directed by the U.S., as well as to stop U.S.-backed
hijackings.
"I want to put a vote to you. Are you in agreement with the
measures that the government adopted to defend the integrity
and sovereignty of the nation, and those that may be necessary
to defend the lives of citizens and of socialism? Raise your
flags if you agree."
The giant gathering turned red, white and blue with the
paper Cuban flags as the people proclaimed a resounding
yes.
U.S. incites counter-revolutionaries
At the same time that the U.S. was preparing its attack on
Iraq, James Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, was
inciting counter-revolutionary activity inside Cuba, personally
handing out materials and money to nurture an opposition. The
U.S. government was also encouraging hijackings by refusing to
return to Cuba the criminals and property they had stolen. This
crisis came to a head just as the bombs started falling on
Baghdad.
In this dangerous situation, Cuba arrested and tried 75
people on charges of collaborating with U.S. officials against
the revolution. Then three boat hijackers who had endangered
the lives of many passengers were tried and executed in
April.
This led some governments and prominent individuals to
attack Cuba, but in recent weeks they have been answered by
statements coming from many parts of the world.
Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, U.S. professor Noam
Chomsky and Port uguese writer José Saramago were among
those who immediately signed on to a particularly scurrilous
statement circulated by the U.S. Campaign for Peace and
Democracy.
This was answered by a declaration from well-known Cuban
artists and writers, called a "Message from Havana for Friends
Who are Far Away." It urged those who had signed the anti-Cuba
statements to understand Cuba's embattled situation and
reconsider their position.
The sponsoring Cuban Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC)
made a distinction between those who they consider to be
friends of Cuba, like Galeano and Chomsky, from those who have
long been hostile to the Cuban Revolution, like right-winger
Mario Vargas Llosa. So far, this declaration has been signed by
13,352 Cuban artists, including Silvio Rodríguez, Amaury
Pérez, Omara Portuondo, Pablo Milanés, Miguel
Barnet and others.
At the May Day rally, speakers stressed the urgency of
solidarity with Cuba, among them Rev. Lucius Walker of Pastors
for Peace and German writer Heinz Dieterich Stefan.
Well-known Mexican sociologist Pablo González
Casanova, who has circulated a declaration in Latin America
called "To the Conscience of the World," available at
www.granma.cubaweb.cu, said, "Many statements on the Cuban
situation, although done in good faith, can seem supportive and
yet still magnify issues that the U.S. seeks to justify an
invasion of Cuba.
"That truth obligates all the peoples of the
world--including the people of the United States, whose role in
the survival of humanity is and will be very important--to
think in concrete terms, how we can detain the cowardly
offensive against Cuba, which is an offensive against
humanity."
Galeano and Chomsky also signed González's defense of
Cuba. Several U.S. figures joined in, including Danny Glover,
Harry Belafonte and Ramsey Clark.
Miguel Barnet, noted Cuban author and UNEAC vice-president,
said, "Humanity is experiencing moments of crisis and extreme
danger for the survival of the planet. ... Our obligation, as
intellectuals and artists, is to avoid all possible risks for
our country. We need to be conscious that our main priority is
to defend our homeland.
"It is a matter now of closing ranks against the dark forces
of fascism that destroy human beings, that oppress and alienate
them.
"The world will not permit our people to be massacred, or
Havana to go up in flames some day like Baghdad, or our
heritage to be ransacked, our educational, cultural and
scientific works leveled .... That is why to slander Cuba
today, to turn one's back, is an act of injustice and
irresponsible."
Claudia Cambia, Argentinian organizer for the Cuban Five
political prisoners in the U.S., condemned the imperialist
media's mercenary role.
"The media campaign launched against Cuba in these last
weeks is indignant, dirty, disgusting ....
"Why don't they inform the public about the terrible
violation of human rights that the five Cuban heroes are
constantly subjected to in U.S. prisons? Why don't they write
about the solitary confinement, the isolation. ... Why not?
"It's simply because one doesn't talk about the untouchable
empire. They can imprison innocent people and torture them,
they can massacre peoples, invade nations, carry out terrorist
acts, they can have weapons of mass destruction with the
certainty that they will not be condemned in the media, nor the
United Nations or Organization of American States.
"But be careful, because we the people did condemn them when
we came out throughout the world to repudiate the genocide and
double standard of the U.S. government. And it will be the
people who will put a brake on the empire and their
emperor...."
'Never has the world witnessed such an unequal
fight'
As Cuban President Fidel Castro walked from the assembled
crowd to the podium below a contemplative statue of José
Martí, the crowd erupted into cheers and chants for the
Cuban leader. His talk began with a vow that Cuba would never
bow to the demands from 90 miles to the north.
"Our heroic people have struggled for 44 years from this
small Caribbean island just a few miles away from the most
formidable imperial power ever known by humankind. In so doing,
they have written an unprecedented chapter in history. Never
has the world witnessed such an unequal fight.
"Some may have believed that the rise of the empire to the
status of sole superpower, with a military and technological
might that has no counterweight anywhere in the world, would
frighten or dishearten the Cuban people ....
"On a day like today, this glorious International Workers'
Day, which commemorates the death of the five martyrs of
Chicago, I declare, on behalf of the 1 million Cubans gathered
here, that we will face up to any threats, we will not yield to
any pressures, and that we are prepared to defend our homeland
and our revolution with ideas and with weapons to our last drop
of blood."
President Castro reviewed the feats of the revolution and
its people, beginning with the 1959 overthrow of the
U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, with its 80,000
soldiers and police. He spoke of the literacy campaign, the
72-hour defeat of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban
people's bravery during the precipitous 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis.
He talked of the impressive educational levels Cuba has
achieved. "It has the highest school retention rate-over 99
percent between kindergarten and ninth grade--of all the
nations in the hemisphere. Its elementary school students rank
first worldwide in the knowledge of their mother language and
mathematics."
Saying, "In no other people has the spirit of international
solidarity become so deeply rooted," President Castro gave a
sweeping overview of Cuba's internationalist missions in
support of liberation struggles from Algeria, Republic of
Congo, Guinea and Angola to Vietnam and Grenada.
Lastly, he warned that if the U.S. were to attack Cuba, "The
aggressors would not merely be facing an army, but rather
thousands of armies that would constantly reproduce themselves
and make the enemy pay such a high cost in casualties that it
would far exceed the cost in lives of its sons and daughters
that the American people would be willing to pay for the
adventures and ideas of President Bush. Today, he enjoys
majority support, but it is dropping, and tomorrow it could be
reduced to zero.
"The American people, the millions of highly cultivated
individuals who reason and think ... will show that you cannot
fool all of the people, and perhaps not even part of the
people, all of the time. One day they will put a straitjacket
on those who need it before they manage to annihilate life on
the planet. ...
"We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed
in a war. We do not want countless numbers of lives of people
who could be friends to be lost in an armed conflict. But never
has a people had such sacred things to defend, or such profound
convictions to fight for, to such a degree that they would
rather be obliterated from the face of the Earth than abandon
the noble and generous work for which so many generations of
Cubans have paid the high cost of the lives of many of their
finest sons and daughters.
"We are sustained by the deepest conviction that ideas are
worth more than weapons, no matter how sophisticated and
powerful those weapons may be.
"Let us say like Che Guevara when he bid us farewell:
"Hasta la Victoria Siempre!"
Reprinted from the May 15, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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