Vol. 81/No. 8 February 27, 2017
Interest builds in joining May Day brigade to Cuba
The brigade, sponsored by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), will run from April 24 through May 8. Highlights include marching with hundreds of thousands of Cubans celebrating the revolution May 1 and joining in an International Meeting in Solidarity with Cuba the next day. The cost is $512 plus air fare to Cuba.
Ian McShea, a 25-year-old construction worker from Philadelphia, said he plans to go “to learn for myself so I can better defend the revolution.”
“I’ve been reading a couple of books about the Cuban Revolution,” McShea told the Militant. These include Pathfinder’s new book Cuba and Angola: The War for Freedom and Cuba and the Coming American Revolution.
“I first heard about the May Day trip at a meeting of the Cuba group here,” said Samir Qaisar from Chicago, “and from attending Militant Labor Forums.”
“I want to know more about how the Cubans won their national liberation,” he said, “and how Fidel Castro led the revolution and built the Cuban Communist Party. Right now I’m studying The First and Second Declarations of Havana, and Che Guevara’s Socialism and Man in Cuba.”
The brigade starts with doing agricultural work for several mornings alongside Cubans, discussing politics with other brigade members from around the world, and touring Havana, Santa Clara, schools and medical facilities.
After the May Day events in Havana, participants have two options. One is to travel to the provinces of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara and learn about the history of the revolution there.
The other, at an additional cost, is to attend the May 4-6 Fifth Seminar for Peace and for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Guantánamo. This town abuts the Guantánamo naval base, illegally occupied by the U.S. Navy since 1903, and, since 2002, home of Washington’s notorious military prison.
The May Day brigade is dedicated to Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Castro, the central leader of the July 26th Movement, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista government in the 1959 revolution, died last November. Guevara was killed 50 years ago by the CIA and Bolivian military while helping lead a guerrilla struggle against the dictatorship there.
Since 1959, every Democratic and Republican administration in Washington has worked to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. After the Barack Obama administration re-established diplomatic relations with the island in 2015, Washington continued its crippling economic embargo and occupation of Guantánamo.
The Chicago Cuba Coalition is organizing arrangements for U.S. brigade participants. For more information, contact the coalition at (312) 952-2618 or email: ICanGoToCuba@gmail.com.
Related articles:
Havana book fair pays tribute to Fidel Castro’s leadership, example
Cuba’s internationalism was born with revolution
Castro: ‘Ours is a more just society and we believe in it’
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