Cuban leader sends solidarity message to U.S. movement

Ricardo Alarcon

The following message was sent from Havana to the May 20 rallies in support of Cuba and Venezuela by Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba.

Dear sisters and brothers:

On behalf of the revolutionary Government of Cuba and the Cuban people, I salute the organizers and all participants at the May 20 Hands off Venezuela and Cuba rally.

We appreciate your solidarity in our struggle for independence and justice in the face of the imperialist aggression that our people have been resisting heroically and successfully for over 47 years. In spite of the economic blockade, our people have advanced dramatically in building a new and better society, and cooperating closely with our brothers and sisters in Venezuela, we are helping many others in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia to improve their lives. We strongly believe that free and universal health care and education, a decent job and housing are inalienable rights that belong to everybody including the millions deprived of those rights in the United States.

We urge all of you to join us in demanding an end to the criminal and hypocritical policy of the Bush administration that continues to promote terrorism against the Cuban people, as illustrated by their protection of such cold-blooded killers as Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles and maintaining unjustly incarcerated Five Cuban heroes who were detained almost eight years ago precisely for their efforts against those very same terrorist groups that operate with impunity and with the official protection of the U.S. authorities.

We call upon all of you to join in the international campaign against U.S. sponsored terrorism— from Sept. 12, when the Cuban Five will have been deprived of their freedom for eight years, to Oct. 6, which will mark the 30th anniversary of the destruction of a Cubana civilian airplane and the assassination of all 73 persons on board. We should also commemorate next Sept. 21—the 30th anniversary of the killing in Washington, D.C., of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit.

Orlando Bosch was involved in the plot to murder Letelier and Moffit, as is clearly reflected in recently declassified U.S. official documents, but Bosch has never been questioned by the FBI and is living in Miami, still actively pursuing his criminal endeavors.

Luis Posada Carriles is a fugitive of the Venezuelan justice from which he escaped with the help of the Reagan-Bush White House 20 years ago. The U.S. government knows very well that he and Bosch masterminded the destruction of our airplane in 1976. The U.S. has an obligation to extradite Posada to Venezuela to continue his trial for that heinous crime or has the obligation to prosecute him in the U.S. for the same crime. There is no legal alternative according to international conventions against terrorism that were signed and ratified by the U.S. But Mr. Posada has been for more than a year under U.S. official protection and so far he has not been extradited or accused.

The detention of Gerardo, Ramon, Antonio, Fernando and Rene was determined to be arbitrary and illegal by a unanimous decision of a five-member panel of United Nations human rights experts. Their convictions were reversed also by a unanimous decision of three judges of the Atlanta Court of Appeals. Those decisions were announced in May 2005 and August 2005, but the five Cubans are still in prison, subjected to cruel and unusual treatment, with severe violations of their human rights including the denial of visas to the wives of Gerardo and Rene, who have not been permitted to enter the U.S. to visit them.

The five Cubans must be liberated immediately. Posada Carriles and Bosch must be prosecuted and punished as confessed and very well documented terrorists.

The cynical “war on terrorism” of Bush has to be unmasked, denounced and defeated.

The aggression against the Iraqi people has to be stopped forthwith. The exploitation and discrimination against immigrant workers, the war on poor people, must end.

The threats against Venezuela and the interventionist attempts against other peoples in Latin America have to be condemned and rejected.

Let’s fight together to build bridges of friendship, peace and cooperation between the peoples of the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean. Let’s struggle united, shoulder to shoulder, toward a new and better world, a world of justice and freedom for all.

Long live the American people. Long live the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. In solidarity, let’s fight together until victory forever.