- Details
- Written by RATB
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 284, October/November 2021
US President Joe Biden made it an election promise to ‘promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights’ (Americas Quarterly, 4 March 2021). But instead of reversing the 243 new sanctions inflicted on Cuba by the Trump administration, Biden’s government has:
- added new sanctions and renewed old ones;
- continued multimillion-dollar funding for regime change in Cuba;
- announced plans for a pirate Wi-Fi network across Cuba to host more imperialist propaganda.
- Details
- Written by RATB
The monthly caravan protests against the US blockade of Cuba continued this month, showing the world's opposition to the genocidal US blockade. This month, activists from Rock Around the Blockade and the Revolutionary Communist Group joined with organisations around the world to decry imperialist attacks on Cuba and show that there are people all around the world who support socialist Cuba.. Get in touch if you'd like to participate in the activities next month! Here are some photos and videos from around the country:
- Details
- Written by RATB
First published on www.frfi.org.uk
The assault by sections of the British left on socialist Cuba has continued unabated over the past period. Like their partner in crime, US imperialism, they sense the possibility of victory in their long campaign against the Cuban state. To bolster the credibility of its reactionary position that Cuba is capitalist, and that the Cuban state should be smashed, Socialist Worker has published an online document from ComunistasCuba.org, an obscure Cuban group (12 August 2021). What is evident from even the most cursory examination of the article is that it has nothing to do with communism. Instead, its purpose is to enable supposedly socialist forces opposed to Cuban socialism to give a radical, pseudo-Marxist gloss their position and to obscure its essence: an alliance with imperialism. ComunistasCuba is lending itself to the offensive against Cuban socialism.
- Details
- Written by RATB
The monthly caravan protests against the US blockade of Cuba continued this month, showing the world's opposition to the genocidal US blockade. This month, activists from Rock Around the Blockade and the Revolutionary Communist Group stood up to imperialist warfare and propaganda against socialist Cuba, with some choosing to focus on Cuba's environmental achievements. Get in touch if you'd like to participate in the activities next month! Here are some photos and videos from around the country:
London
Supporters in London joined in with Cubanos en UK to host a demonstration against the blockade.
- Details
- Written by RATB
Rock Around The Blockade supporters have raised a donation of £1,000 for the Cubanos En UK medical supplies fund. This money will be used to purchase medical supplies to assist the Cuban people in vaccinating their whole population against Covid-19. In particular, funds will help to complete the drive to administer Cuban-developed and approved vaccines Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus, the first Covid-19 vaccines specifically approved for 3- to 11-year-olds in the world.
- Details
- Written by RATB
It has been half a year since the monthly caravan protests against the US blockade of Cuba began. This month, activists from Rock Around the Blockade and the Revolutionary Communist Group stood up to imperialist warfare and propaganda against socialist Cuba. Get in touch if you'd like to participate in the activities next month! Here are some photos and videos from around the country:
- Details
- Written by RATB
The RCG and our campaign Rock around the Blockade heeded the call by the Cuban Communist Party to take to the streets in defence of the Cuban Revolution and mobilised across Britain to this end, countering the British imperialist media’s false narrative.
On 12 July we gathered outside the Cuban Embassy in London in support of the revolutionaries assembling across Cuba. A small number of reactionary Cubans harassed comrades outside the Embassy; their anti-revolutionary character was clear from their vandalising of a revolutionary M-26-7 flag. We stood our ground outside the Embassy until the reactionaries had given up and gone home after being drowned out by our speeches and chants of ‘yo soy Fidel’.
On 17 July comrades in Edinburgh protested outside the US Consulate demanding an end to the genocidal US blockade.
On the 24 and 25 July, RCG branches and FRFI supporters groups across the country took part in a national weekend of action in celebration of the 26 July 1953 Moncada Barrack attack, which sparked the revolutionary struggle in Cuba, and coinciding with the monthly caravanas demanding an end to the blockade. In Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Birmingham we held lively street events demonstrating the relevance of Cuban socialism for us in Britain, and in London we held a demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
‘Our government has let over 120,000 people die from coronavirus and is now pursuing the murderous policy of herd immunity, with support from the Labour Party, for the sake of getting the economy going. Deaths per million of the population are eight times higher in Britain than in Cuba. While under the US’ economic, commercial and financial embargo, Cuba has produced five unique vaccines and have, from the beginning, adopted a zero-Covid approach. This is what is possible with a planned economy, revolutionary consciousness and a system run by the people, for the people. What is that system called? Socialism!’ declared a speaker in Liverpool.
'To combat the reactionary media, my friends and I organised a day of solidarity with socialist Cuba in our schools by getting students to wear green in support of revolutionary Cuba. Many of us started discussions on the devastating impacts of the US blockade, the process of building socialism in Cuba and why we need to defend socialist Cuba from imperialist aggression. The day was a huge success, with swarms of green sweeping through our schools’ doors. Students flew the Cuban and M-26-7 flags with pride, accompanied by an understanding of the importance of using the example of Cuba to show the need for socialism here in Britain.'
Destinie Sanchez, London
Viva Cuba socialista! Join us in building an anti-imperialist, communist movement, inspired by revolutionary Cuba, on the streets of Britain!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 283, August/September 2021
- Details
- Written by RATB
On Sunday 11 July, anti-government protests took place simultaneously in dozens of locations throughout Cuba. In several places, including San Antonio on the outskirts of Havana, and in Matanzas, where Covid-19 cases have surged, protests turned violent, with windows smashed, shops looted, cars overturned, rocks thrown and people assaulted. Many of those involved were venting frustration at their daily difficulties, resulting from shortages of basic goods and the restrictions imposed in the context of Covid-19. However, behind these seemingly spontaneous outbursts lies a lucratively funded, long-run US strategy to foster opposition to the Cuban government. HELEN YAFFE reports from Havana.
- Details
- Written by RATB
First published on www.frfi.org.uk
‘Right to live without a blockade: the impact of US sanctions on the Cuban population and women’s lives,’ Oxfam, May 2021
The US blockade against Cuba, according to the most recent annual report submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, cost Cuba the equivalent of $5,570.3m between April 2019 and March 2020, up $1.2bn from the previous year. The Cuban government estimates that over six decades, the US blockade has cost its economy a total of $144,413.4bn. On 23 June, as it has done every year since 1992, 184 members of the UN General Assembly voted for a resolution calling for an end to the blockade; only the US and Israel voted against. During the Trump presidency, the US imposed 243 new sanctions, actions and measures on Cuba, 55 of these during the Covid-19 pandemic.