The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 67/No. 18           June 2, 2003  
 
 
Protesters in
New York, Washington, D.C.:
‘U.S. hands off Cuba’
(front page)
 
BY SAM MANUEL  
NEW YORK—Hundreds turned out May 17 at rallies here and in Washington, D.C., to condemn the U.S.-orchestrated campaign of threats and provocations against the Cuban Revolution.

The rallies were called by Cuba solidarity and other organizations to counter actions by opponents of the revolution. Rightist Cuban-American groups and others calling themselves the “Coalition for Cuban Freedom” rallied across from Cuba’s Mission to the United Nations here; the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.; as well as in Miami and other cities, to “condemn human rights abuses in Cuba.”

In Washington a picket line organized by the newly formed No War on Cuba Movement drew nearly 100 opponents of Washington’s policies towards Cuba. The coalition was formed in April in response to Washington’s recently stepped-up campaign aimed at overthrowing Cuba’s revolutionary government. They came from as far away as Richmond, Virginia, and Philadelphia. Among them were students from Wilson High School and a number of area university campuses.

The two governments have not had diplomatic relations since Washington broke them off in January 1961, as part of the U.S. rulers’ response to the victory of the 1959 revolution. Cuba’s toilers brought down the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship and rapidly installed a government defending the interests of workers and farmers. When the property interests and prerogatives of the wealthy U.S. families and local capitalists and landlords were affected by democratic measures such as a land reform, Washington adopted the course it has followed for more than 40 years—attempting to overthrow the revolutionary leadership and roll back the gains of Cuba’s working people. Today, each government’s diplomatic personnel operates out of an Interests Section, hosted formally by a third country—Switzerland, in the case of Cuba.

On several occasions opponents of the revolution have been allowed to protest directly in front on the Cuban Interests Section in the U.S. capital. Outnumbered by more than two to one at the May 17 rally, and clearly demoralized by being forced to gather on the side of the street opposite the Cuban Interests Section, the right-wingers folded up their banners and called it quits after about two hours.

As this group departed, Cuban diplomatic personnel came out and applauded and thanked supporters of the revolution.

In New York City the Coalition for Cuban Freedom issued a statement saying the rallies were to protest the arrest of 75 “dissidents” on the island and the execution of three men charged and convicted of the armed high-jacking of a Cuban passenger ferry off the coast of Havana.

Some of the rightist forces that organized the May 17 rally held a meeting May 9 at the St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan to build the anti-Cuba demonstration. Called by a counterrevolutionary group called the Cuban Cultural Center of New York, it was billed as an event showing the supposed breadth of opposition to the Cuban government, including among supporters and critics of the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

The event on “The Crackdown in Cuba” was attended by about 100 people, and chaired by Rafael Pi Román, a newscaster for Channel 13 television and leader of the Cuban Cultural Center.

The speakers were Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch; Francisco de Armas, identified as a representative abroad for the Varela Project; Robert Kent, head of the “Friends of Cuban Libraries;” Paul Berman, a columnist for New Republic magazine and member of the editorial board of Dissent, a social-democratic magazine; and Leo Casey, a member of the United Federation of Teachers and promoter of a letter called “The Democratic Left Speaks Out,” which condemns Cuba for the recent trials of opponents of the revolution and of three armed hijackers.

“Friends of Cuban Libraries” is a U.S. government-promoted campaign that helps channel resources to counterrevolutionary groups in Cuba portraying themselves as “independent librarians.”

Berman spoke mostly about a book he had written in defense of anarchists during the 1960s and 70s who he said were part of the “anticommunist left” and hostile to the Cuban Revolution.

One of the stars of the show was Casey, a right-wing social democrat who was introduced by Pi Román as “my comrade and friend of 40 years.”

In March and April Cuban authorities arrested 75 individuals who were tried and convicted on charges of collaboration with a hostile power—Washington—in its campaign to subvert Cuban sovereignty. The ferry takeover in early April was the seventh hijacking of Cuban planes and boats in seven months. Cuban authorities have stated they foiled another two dozen hijacking attempts recently. These have been encouraged by Washington’s policy of refusing to punish most hijackers while limiting visas to Cubans applying to emigrate legally to the United States, and granting virtually automatic permanent residency to any Cuban reaching the shores of Florida, regardless of the means they use to get there.

A mostly older crowd of just over 200 rightists—including members of Alpha 66 and other groups with a long record of violent attacks on Cuba from U.S. soil with Washington’s complicity—rallied outside the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York. Opponents of the government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez joined them. Together they displayed the U.S., Cuban, and Venezuelan flags and chanted, “Castro, Chávez go to hell!”

At one point the cops moved the barricades surrounding the rightists allowing the group greater proximity to the Cuban Mission. Encouraged by the move, the protesters began to vigorously chant and shout obscenities. In response, the staff of the Cuban Mission opened windows to the building and piped out Cuban music over loudspeakers, drowning out the rightists.

Nearly 300 people took part in the rally with the theme “Washington’s Hands Off Cuba!” just a block away that lasted nearly six hours. It was called by Casa de las Americas, Cuba Solidarity New York, and other organizations in New York. Participants cheered when it was announced that a few dozen delegates attending the meeting of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC) had taken a break from their gathering to join the action. The NNOC is an umbrella group with dozens of affiliates across the United States that carry out work to broaden opposition to Washington’s policies towards Cuba.

“It’s important to understand that the U.S. government is trying to create a crisis regarding Cuba,” said Ignacio Meneses, a coordinator of the NNOC. “They want to use this crisis as a pretext to go to war with Cuba,” he added.  
 
Campaign to free Cuban Five
Leonard Weinglass—attorney for Gerardo Hernández, one of five Cuban revolutionaries serving draconian sentences in U.S. jails after being convicted on frame-up charges brought by the U.S. government—also spoke. “This is a case where the government has admitted the defendants have committed no acts of violence, taken no secret or classified documents, and no national security interests have been compromised.”

A large banner with pictures of the five—Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labańino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González—was held behind the speakers. These five Cuban patriots were on an internationalist mission to gather information on ultrarightist groups with a record of violent attacks on Cuba carried out from southern Florida with Washington’s complicity. They were arrested by FBI agents in 1998. Each was charged with “conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent.” Other charges included “conspiracy to commit espionage” and, in one case, “conspiracy to commit murder.” They were tried and convicted in a federal court in Miami in June 2001, given sentences from 15 years to double-life in prison, and were locked up in five federal penitentiaries spread out across the country.

Weinglass called on those present to redouble efforts to get out the facts about the case and to win support for releasing the five men. “We know that winning public support is very important when you have to go before the courts,” Weinglass said.

“The plans of the U.S. government to announce new measures to tighten the embargo and other attacks on Cuba do not represent a new policy,” said Martín Koppel of the Socialist Workers Party. “The attacks are part of Washington’s 44-year campaign of slander, economic sabotage, and counterrevolutionary terror against Cuba. We must organize to demand the repeal of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, an end to the travel ban and the economic embargo, that Washington get out of Guantánamo, and the freedom of the five framed-up Cuban revolutionaries.” Cuba is different from Iraq, Koppel stated. Washington is not about to launch an invasion of Cuba, he continued, because of the military readiness, political consciousness, and mobilization of Cuban working people. The U.S. rulers are aware that if they send in their Marines they would suffer enormous casualties, which they cannot assume the American people will accept. “That’s what has stayed their hand.”

“We are here most importantly to show our support for the people in that building,” said Lucius Walker, a leader of Pastors for Peace. “The people in that building,” he said, pointing to the Cuban Mission, “are responsible for taking the gains of the Cuban Revolution, especially its health care, throughout the world.” Walker introduced several U.S. students who came with him to the rally, who will be going to Cuba to study medicine. The Latin American School of Medicine in Havana provides fully funded scholarships for medical students, mostly from the Americas, including the United States. Walker also called on those present to lobby for a new bill in Congress “aimed at ending the travel ban.”

As the rightists’ action broke up, the cops allowed them to walk by the site of the pro-Cuba rally. The potential for confrontation was diffused, however, as participants in the latter largely refused to be provoked.  
 
Evening public forum
That evening nearly 200 people attended a public forum featuring Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, at the headquarters of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, which organizes hospital workers.

Rodríguez reviewed in detail the most recent actions by Washington against the Cuban Revolution. “We will not retreat from our principles, and our work to build a more just system, a socialist society,” Rodríguez said. “Without socialism there can be no revolution, and without revolution there can be no independent and sovereign Cuba.”

The meeting, which focused on the campaign to free the Cuban Five, was part of the weekend activities of the NNOC conference. Other speakers included Leonard Weinglass, who explained the process of legal appeals of their convictions and sentences the five have begun; historian Jane Franklin, who outlined some of the history of Washington’s decades-long aggression against Cuba; and Brian Becker, of the International Action Center.

Róger Calero was also introduced from the audience and spoke briefly thanking participants for their support in his effort to stop the U.S. government from deporting him (see Róger Calero wins back green card, passport).  
 
 
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