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Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 235 October/November 2013
What lies across the water, Stephen Kimber, Fernwood Publishing 2013, Can$19.95
Stephen Kimber’s remarkable work is both a forensic expose of anti-communist terrorism and the definitive guide to the story of the Cuban Five. With in-depth analysis of the activities and motivations of many key players in US-Cuban relations over the last 50 years and a detective-thriller writing style it is both highly readable and politically explosive.
In September 1998, five Cuban intelligence agents – Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez – were arrested in Miami. The story of the necessity of their presence on US soil, infiltrating terrorist networks amongst the febrile world of Miami’s rightwing Cuban exile groups, reveals a hidden history of CIA-assisted intrigue. Their trial and the conditions of their imprisonment demonstrate the ruthlessness of the imperialist state and the thinness of the veneer of fairness that covers its oppressive ‘justice’ system.
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We live in a world dominated by crisis, imperialist war and exploitation. We are told there is 'no alternative' to cuts, privatisation, hunger and homelessness. In October 2012 Venezuela faced a choice: whether to deepen the Bolivian Revolution that under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, has brought dignity, health, education and hope- or to return to a brutal, unequal neo-liberal society where oil wealth lined the pockets of multinational companies and Venezuelan elite.
The people of Venezuela voted for Chavez, voted to fight for socialism. The Revolutionary Communist Group was on the streets of Caracas throughout the presidential elections. We joined hundreds of thousands as they thronged the city, braving torrential rain or baking sun, to express their support.
The Bolivarian Revolution illustrates what can be achieved when governments and people, working together, put human need before capitalist profits. Despite Chavez's death in March 2013, the process is being built every day by millions of Venezuelans, working to create a society built on collective, socialist organisation and production. In that conscious struggle the spirit of Hugo Chavez lives on.
As the capitalist crisis bites in Britain, Venezuela provides an inspiring example of how the fight against austerity can develop into a fight for socialism. This film takes you on that journey, through the barrios, universities and workplaces to meet the militants, students and workers who are changing their future.
Alongside the achievements of socialist Cuba, Venezuela illustrates that not only is another world possible, but this world is being built today in Latin America
Screenings
MANCHESTER:
Saturday 12 October. Part of an FRFI Dayschool 'Paying to be poor' 10.30-4pm
Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street M21NL
Facebook: Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Manchester
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 07519 427 093
GLASGOW:
Saturday 19 October, 2 – 4pm
Upstairs at The Piper on the Square bar,
57 Cochrane Street, George Square, G1 1HL
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 07734 348 065
DUNDEE:
Sunday 20 October 3-5pm
Room G2 Dundee University Tower
Nethergate DD14HN
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
LONDON FILM PREMIER:
Friday 25 Oct 2013 7:00pm
Bolivar Hall 54 Grafton Way W1T 5DL
East London: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
North London This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
South London: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
NEWCASTLE:
Tuesday 29 October 6.30pm
Barloco 22 Leazes Park Rd NE1 4PG
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 07858 346 276
If you would like to organise a screening of the documentary in your area contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone 0207 837 1688
Documentary will be available free online at www.vivavenezuela.co.uk from 1 November 2013
DVD also available to buy. £3 plus P+P
Send cheques payable to Larkin Publications to FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX together with your postal address.
You can also pay via Paypal: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 234 August/September 2013
In mid-July, the Panamanian government seized the Chong Chon Gang, a North Korean cargo boat travelling from Cuba to the Panama Canal. The Panamanian forces claimed to have been tipped off about a drugs cargo. On board, however, were 10,000 tons of Cuban sugar and 240 metric tons of ‘obsolete defensive armaments’, according to the Cubans’ own statement.
The seizure was greeted with condemnation and sensationalist media headlines about violations of UN sanctions on arms sales to North Korea. The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a public statement listing the contents of the shipment as: two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 aircrafts and 15 MiG engines – ‘all manufactured in the mid-90s – to be repaired and returned to our country’. The statement asserted Cuba’s need to ‘maintain our defence capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty’, and the country’s ‘firm and irrevocable commitment to peace, disarmament – including nuclear disarmament – and respect for international law’. The cruel, punitive US blockade of Cuba has been robustly denounced in the UN General Assembly for two decades and yet nothing is done to lift it – so there is little reason for Cuba to adhere to sanctions against North Korea in any case.
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Cuba began construction of the third of three biotech plants in West Africa this week, as part of a trilateral program funded by Venezuela to battle malaria in the region.
Ahead of a groundbreaking ceremony in the capital of Ghana on Aug. 5, officials of Cuba, Venezuela and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met to discuss feasibility, cost, and investment architecture of the program, ECOWAS said in a press release. Another meeting is planned for Venezuela.
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As an Indiana working-class native, I was deeply moved after Haiti’s devastating earthquake of 2010. I was in Cuba at that time in my forth year of medical school at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).
The school sought out a group of Americans from the 2010 graduating class to incorporate into the “Brigada Medica Cubana.” This is a famous brigade that rushes to the aide of neighboring and developing countries after a disaster.
One of these new doctors and 2010 ELAM graduate, Dr. Gregory Wilkinson, still works as a general practitioner in Haiti, servicing the dilapidated communities from tents. He is completing a family practice residency program.
Wilkinson comes from Oakland, Calif., studied at Merritt Community College, and then sociology at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y. With Jamaican roots, Wilkinson said he is proud and eager to complete the medical school’s scholarship requirement of working in an underserved community, as he is doing in Haiti.
Dr. Wilkinson shared his story with me about how he adapted to his new home.
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25.03.13 Ewan Robertson Venezuelanalysis.com 
Uruguay has requested to join the regional SUCRE currency, a move that will bring it into greater cooperation with the leftist ALBA alliance of Latin American nations.
The SUCRE is the regional currency used by the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) to allow for international transactions between member states without having to use the US dollar.
In effect since 2010, transactions in the virtual currency are conducted between central banks, while exporters are paid and importers charged in local currency. The system is used by Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.