BY JEANNE TUOMEY
SAN FRANCISCO - Crisscrossing three miles of San Francisco city streets, some 400 demonstrators showed their opposition to the U.S. economic war against Cuba and support for that country's sovereign rights on October 14. "Cuba sí, bloqueo no - U.S. out of Guantánamo," led the chants as scores of people came to their windows and balconies to watch, and sometimes wave to, the protesters marching through their neighborhoods. Demonstrators marched from the United Nations Plaza downtown to Jefferson Park. Along the route a number of people in cars also honked their horns in support of the action.
The demonstration in San Francisco, which included a significant number of young people newly active in the fight to defend Cuba, was part of regional protests against U.S. policy called by the National Network on Cuba (NNOC) for October 14 here and in Chicago, and in New York City on October 21. These protests were called in response to an appeal made by an international conference in Havana in November 1994 for worldwide protests in October against Washington's economic war on Cuba.
In welcoming opponents of the U.S. government policy, Renee Saucedo of the Freedom to Travel Campaign reported on the debate in the Senate on legislation that would significantly tighten the U.S. embargo. "Our demonstration is timely in protesting the blockade and the [Helms-Burton] bill and urging Clinton to veto it," said Saucedo as she asked the demonstration participants to sign a huge banner that will be sent to Washington, D.C., in protest of U.S. government policy.
Rallying around four demands directed against Washington - "End the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba," "Lift the U.S. travel ban," "Normalize relations with Cuba," and "Respect Cuba's self-determination" - participants in the October 14 march traveled to San Francisco from around the Western region of the United States and Canada.
A host of speakers addressed the crowd both at the UN Plaza and later at Jefferson Park. Walter Johnson, president of the San Francisco Labor Council, expressed his opposition to the blockade against Cuba. Johnson has long supported exchanges between trade unionists in the United States and those in Cuba to break down the barriers between working people put up by the U.S. government. Other speakers included Holly Fincke, one of the four national coordinators of the NNOC; local leaders of the Cuba solidarity movement; and a number of youth representatives who had recently traveled to Cuba.
Among those participating in the rally was a group of 40 who made the trip down to San Francisco from the Seattle area. Many of them had heard about the demonstration through reportback meetings for those returning from the Cuba Lives International Youth Festival in August.
Marcie Larrson from Fairhaven College in Bellingham, Washington, got interested in Cuba through her experiences working in Argentina last year. "There is a lot of sympathy for Cuba in Argentina, not among the upper classes of course, but among the people there is," Larrson said. "Young people there really support Cuba, and look to it as an example."
Larrson, along with other young people on her campus, is trying to get a Cuba solidarity committee off the ground in Bellingham. "It's only a few people right now," she said, but they are working to get more involved.
Members of the San Francisco-based October 14th Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba leafleted a demonstration of 5,000 at the University of California, Berkeley, October 12.
Susanna Telles, a student at Berkeley High School who walked out of class to join in the demonstration, noticed coalition members passing out fliers about the October 14 action.
"I came for the affirmative action rally, but I want the blockade ended too," Telles said as she took a stack of fliers to distribute.
A group of 25, mostly young people, also made the trip to San Francisco from Salt Lake City, Utah. Among them were more than half a dozen high school students. Contingents also joined the march from Portland, Oregon; Vancouver, British Columbia; and other cities.
Closing the rally, Miguel Nuñez, first secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., expressed his gratitude for the solidarity shown by people here for the struggle of the Cuban people.
After the rally 40 young people met to make plans to build a youth brigade to Cuba in August 1996.
BY NAOMI CRAINE AND CATHY SEDWICK
CHICAGO - "I hadn't thought it was possible to organize this kind of action," said Victor Avis, one of 200 people who rallied at the Federal building here October 14 to protest the U.S. government's policies against Cuba. "Now I see a lot of possibilities," he added, saying he wants to do more to defend Cuba. Avis is a community college student from Minneapolis.
Participants drove from Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and elsewhere, including a number who were attending their first demonstration in defense of Cuba.
Reid Craig, a student at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, explained, "I want to find out more about what's going on in Cuba. This is my first demonstration and my first trip to Chicago."
Several speakers at the rally and a teach-in afterward denounced the Helms-Burton bill. Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of IFCO, told the rally that an executive order by Clinton supposedly easing the travel ban on Cuba "is simply a further act of aggression."
Floyd Davis, a striking member of GCIU Local 13 that organizes the embattled newspaper strikers in Detroit, said, "We have a lot of corporate greed in this country. They want to bust all the unions. They're demanding our unconditional surrender. I'm here to speak out against all of Corporate America."
Gisela Lopez from the Chicago Cuba Coalition, who chaired rally, read greetings from farm activist Larry Ginter and UAW Local 270 president Harold Ruggless, both from Iowa.
Most participants then marched over to a nearby church for lunch and to continue discussion at the teach-in. Others showed up for the teach-in itself.
To a standing ovation, José Ponce, first secretary of the Cuban Interests Section, expressed his gratitude on behalf of the Cuban people for this successful activity organized against the blockade.
In his talk Ponce described how workers and farmers in Cuba are organizing to face the serious economic challenges there, triggered by the collapse of aid and trade at preferential prices with the former Soviet bloc countries.
"There were people who thought in 1989 that the revolution was over," he said. "We have proved them wrong."
The discussion that followed covered a wide range of
questions.
"Why is it that Cubans in the United States speak so
badly of their country?" asked David Ochoa, a meatpacker in
Perry, Iowa, originally from Guatemala, who came to Chicago
with his wife.
"It depends which Cubans you talk to," Ponce replied. "There are Cubans here today who think highly of the revolution. There are others who lost all their wealth, because the revolution took it from them. They are tiny minority."
Armando, an activist in the Chicago Cuba Coalition who came from Cuba in 1980 with the Mariel boatlift, explained, "In 1980, of 100,000 Cubans who came there was not one case of tuberculosis. In my neighborhood in Chicago, 10 people died last year from tuberculosis."
Stephen Bloodworth from Peoria contributed to this article.
BY TONY HUNT
LONDON - "Clinton, Major, Hands off Cuba!" "Cuba Sí, Bloqueo No!" and "U.S. out of Guantánamo!" were among the slogans posted on placards and chanted by a noisy, colorful demonstration of 1,000 people through central London October 14. The action, organized by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC), called for an end to Washington's economic blockade.
"Great success" was how Mark Holding, political events officer of the CSC, described the protest - the first-ever national demonstration in the United Kingdom in defense of Cuba's sovereignty.
Among the marchers, who were joined by another 200 people at Trafalgar Square for a rally, were contingents from local CSC groups from most major cities and other parts of the country. Many of these groups have only begun organizing in the last year or two.
Also marching with their banners were members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) 1107 branch at the Ford car plant in Dagenham, and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members from Tower Colliery in South Wales. A Cuban flag was draped around the miners' banner. NUM president Arthur Scargill addressed the closing rally along with John McFaden of the public employees union, Unison. TGWU general secretary Bill Morris and three other national union leaders sent messages of support.
Hundreds of young people joined the protest. Chris Southworth, 25, who had never been on a demonstration before, was helping to lead the chanting. "I'm here to take a stand against the United States and what it is doing to Cuba. We get so much disinformation," he said.
Speakers from several organizations addressed the marchers at the beginning of the demonstration. Opening the rally at the end of the march, Ken Gill, chair of the CSC, condemned "35 years of bullying and blackmail" and announced a year of protest activity by his organization. He demanded that London vote against Washington's sanctions against Cuba in the United Nations next month. A giant postcard to British prime minister John Major, with this message, was signed by platform speakers and march participants.
Peter Middleton brought greetings from the Wolfe Tone Society - an Irish republican organization in Britain. He compared Cuba's fight to the struggle for "peace, justice, and freedom in Ireland." On October 12, Cuban student leader Kenia Serrano had addressed London supporters of Saoirse, the campaign to free Irish political prisoners.
Serrano has been on a month-long speaking tour of the United Kingdom, sponsored by the CSC, and was the last speaker at the Trafalgar Square rally. Washington, she said, is denying the Cuban people "our right to self- determination.... Nineteen fifty-nine has to be remembered as the year that Cuba gained its independence, when the dream came true for the first time in history. Now we say we are the owners of our country."
BY Catharina Tirsen
STOCKHOLM - "Cuba is not like the picture we get in the mass media here," said Hans Goran Franck from the Social Democratic Party, speaking at a demonstration of 1,000 here October 14. "If it were like that, we would not have seen more than 1,000 young people from almost 70 countries assemble at a youth festival in Havana in August. They went to offer solidarity to the people of Cuba."
The demonstration, initiated by the Sweden-Cuba Friendship Association after a call for international actions at a solidarity conference in Havana last November, had been built for several months and gained the support of more than 50 organizations. People came in buses from as far away as Malmo in the south of Sweden.
"Solidarity has always been associated with Cuba, which has offered solidarity all over the world," said Hans Andersson, member of parliament from the Left Party.
Eva Bjorklund, president of the Sweden-Cuba Friendship Association, wound up the rally before the march, pointing to the different solidarity actions in Chicago, San Francisco, and London taking place the same day.
Slogans like "Cuba, Cuba Solidarity," "U.S. Out of Guantánamo," and "End the blockade against Cuba" echoed on the streets of central Stockholm during the busy shopping hours of Saturday afternoon, as the march wound toward the U.S. embassy.
At the end of the demonstration more than 100 participants responded to the call to join a Solidarity Forum to discuss future work in defense of Cuba. Martín Mora, the Cuban ambassador to Sweden, spoke and answered questions for over an hour. Music and food were interspersed with presentations, including on an upcoming tour of Union of Young Communists leader Jonathan Quirós, whose arrival in Sweden has been delayed by tightened visa conditions imposed on Cubans visiting Europe. Participants also heard information on a container to be shipped by boat to Cuba, as well as presentations by two participants at the recent Cuba Lives youth festival.