Cuban revolutionaries speak to workers across UK

González and Hernández: Join campaign to end US economic war, return Guantánamo to Cuba

BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN

LONDON — “Our victory is your victory. You were on the right side of history.” Up and down the country, thousands heard this message from Gerardo Hernández and René González, two of the Cuban Five, thanking working people here for support in the fight against their imprisonment in the U.S.

“We are not naive — imperialism hasn’t ceased being imperialism,” they said, explaining how the U.S. rulers have turned to different methods to try to achieve their decades-long goal of overturning the socialist revolution in Cuba. At event after event, they urged participants to campaign for Washington to end its economic war against Cuba and to return Guantánamo, which it occupies and uses as a U.S. naval base and prison camp.

Along with Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, Hernández and René González were framed up by the U.S. “justice” system for their work monitoring counterrevolutionaries in Florida who have carried out violent attacks against the Cuban Revolution and its supporters. The last of the Five won their release after more than 16 years in prison and returned to Cuba on Dec. 17, 2014 — a victory for the Cuban Revolution and those who fought worldwide to win their freedom.

During their July 9-17 tour, Hernández and González spoke at two annual union-organized festivals that drew thousands: the Durham Miners’ Gala in northeast England and the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival, hosted by the Trades Union Congress. The latter commemorates the 1834 railroading of six agricultural laborers for trade union activity and the massive working-class campaign that won their freedom.

Hernández and González also addressed the Unite union’s policy conference in Brighton, and spoke to public meetings numbering hundreds in London and Manchester, England; Cardiff, Wales; and Glasgow, Scotland. The tour was organized by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, with backing from a number of trade unions, and included a meeting with members of Parliament. Cuban Ambassador Teresita Vicente and other embassy representatives were present at each event. Adriana Pérez, wife of Hernández, and Olga Salanueva and Irma González, wife and daughter of René González, spoke at various meetings.

“I was supposed to have died in prison twice and then serve another 15 years,” Hernández repeatedly joked. “But they didn’t take into account people like you. When people ask me what I think about them stealing years of our lives, I say that we stole a lot more back!”

“We’ve discovered the real U.K. through your solidarity,” added René González, who the British government had twice previously denied a visa. He and Hernández spoke warmly of the continuous river of letters they’d received from the U.K. while in prison.

“I could see the respect they have gained by what they have done,” commented Adam Herring, a young factory worker, after the meeting of 300 in Manchester.

Many people at these events were learning about the case of the Cuban Five for the first time and snatched up Cuba Solidarity Campaign literature. Participants also bought more than 200 copies of “It’s the Poor Who Face the Savagery of the US ‘Justice’ System”: The Cuban Five Talk About Their Lives Within the US Working Class — a book-length interview with the Five published by Pathfinder Press.

Cuba’s internationalism in Angola

Bakers union member Hubert Mbongo Mpasi learned about the Cardiff meeting when he was on strike in June over low pay at the RF Brookes food plant in nearby Newport. From the floor at the meeting, he saluted the contribution of Cuba to the struggle in Angola, “which consolidated independence for Angola, won independence for Namibia and without which Nelson Mandela would have died in prison.”

“Angola was the greatest experience of our lives,” Hernández told the Manchester meeting during a lively question-and-answer session. He, René González and Fernando González were among the 425,000 Cuban volunteers who went to Angola to repel two invasions by the apartheid regime in South Africa.

“That experience prepared us for our time in prison” the Cuban leader explained. “It made us more solid in our principles.” He recounted how fellow prisoners, especially African-Americans, had rallied round the Five when they learned about Cuba’s internationalist mission in Angola.

René González told the gathering how much he appreciated being in Manchester, the birthplace of the modern working class and the class struggle written about by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. “The hatred of the Five, the hatred of the Cuban Revolution is part of that same class struggle,” he said.

Solidarity vs. values of capitalism

“Only the working class can forge the society humanity needs,” González told the Tolpuddle Festival. He contrasted the solidarity and internationalism of the Cuban Revolution with the terrorist action that had just taken place in Nice, France, and the broader values of capitalism. “Capitalism emphasizes egoistic tendencies. The only antidote is solidarity and socialism.”

The imperialists have tried everything possible to destroy the socialist revolution in Cuba, González said in response to a question, and are now targeting the government of Venezuela. “Ruling families in Venezuela have been controlling that country for years. They don’t want to lose that control.” At a side meeting during the Unite union conference, the two Cuban leaders were joined on the platform by Rocío Maneiro, Venezuela’s ambassador to London, and by Luis Primo of the Venezuelan National Union of Workers.

“I liked the way they spoke about the battle to win youth in Cuba,” said Jonny Forbes, a young factory worker at the Manchester meeting.

“This is a big challenge,” Hernández had said in answer to a question. “Youth today don’t have Giróns in which to participate,” he said, referring to the massive mobilization of working people in Cuba that defeated the U.S.-organized mercenary invasion at Girón Beach in the Bay of Pigs in 1961. “But we have a lot in our favor,” the heritage of the Cuban revolutionary struggle over decades. Young people are drawn into and engaged in the political process, he said, including international solidarity, through which they’re developing their consciousness.

Speaking from the floor at the Manchester meeting, Garry Gallagher spoke of his experience as a bakery worker on strike at Hovis in 2013, fighting to win permanent status for agency workers. “When you’re in struggle you break down barriers,” Gallagher said. “I can relate to how you know inside that you’re right. And you are right in what you’re fighting for.”

Tony Hunt and Ólöf Andra Proppé contributed to this article.

Related articles:
Vancouver meeting discusses struggles of Chinese overseas
Shared history of China and Cuba began in 1800s

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home