Vol. 72/No. 27      July 7, 2008

In Edinburgh the meeting was hosted by the University of Edinburgh Socialist Society and sponsored by a range of individuals and organizations. In London sponsors included Movimiento Ecuador en Reino Unido (Ecuador Movement in the United Kingdom), Rock Around the Blockade, and the Communist League.

In opening her remarks Trujillo referred to the wide-ranging discussion on the economic and political challenges facing Cuba that has taken place across the island following a speech by Raúl Castro July 26, 2007. In February this year, after being elected head of state by the National Assembly following the retirement of Fidel Castro due to ill health, Raúl Castro reiterated that “the massive support enjoyed by the revolution demands from us that we question everything in order to improve on it.”

The discussion in Cuba today is “not unique,” Trujillo said, contrary to reports in the capitalist media that new economic measures being introduced are due to Fidel Castro’s retirement. She pointed to the decades-long continuity of Cuba’s leadership in initiating political discussion among workers and farmers on shifts and adjustments needed to defend or strengthen the revolution.

“Huge debates” took place among working people, she said, during both the “rectification” process, when the Cuban leadership sought to make a historic correction to the course of the revolution in the mid-1980s, and the economic crisis of the 1990s, known as the Special Period. That crisis was precipitated by the loss of favorable trade relations with Soviet bloc countries.

Trujillo explained that the improved economic situation today has allowed the Cuban government to make certain adjustments, like lifting restrictions on the sale of cell phones, DVD players, and computers. These measures were put in place to limit the emergence of new inequalities during the Special Period and because of limits in Cuba’s infrastructure.

The government has also taken steps to increase agricultural production in the face of rising world food prices. “We have to reintroduce socialist principles of distribution, so that some people would earn more than others according to the contribution they make to society,” Trujillo said.

With increased access to education over the decades, fewer people are willing to work in agriculture, she noted, requiring raising awareness of the need for increasing production.

Transportation is also a priority, she said. A campaign has been launched to recruit 250 drivers for new buses in Havana, with a substantial increase in wages.

In response to a question in Edinburgh about the role of the media, Trujillo said, “We are fighting for the media in Cuba to be more critical.”

Answering a question in London on Cuba’s internationalist missions, Trujillo reported that 35 volunteer health workers from the Henry Reeve Brigade are now in Sichuan province in China helping those hit by the May 12 earthquake. Trujillo noted some 38,000 Cuban internationalists, most of them medical workers, are now serving in 79 countries.

She concluded both talks by urging participants to join a stepped-up campaign of activities September 12 to October 8 to win the release of the Cuban Five, Cuban revolutionaries who have spent a decade behind bars in the United States, framed-up for their activities to defend Cuba from violent attacks by right-wing Cuban-American groups backed by Washington.

“We are pursuing the legal path, but that will be a dead end without a campaign of international pressure and winning over public opinion in the United States,” she explained.

Tony Hunt in Edinburgh contributed to this article.  
 
 
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