BY JANET POST
MIAMI - While the press and media here have featured bellicose statements from Democratic and Republican politicians and from right-wing Cubans, many working people, including Cuban Americans, have responded differently to the downing of two planes from Miami that attempted an illegal flight over Cuban airspace.
The morning after the February 24 event, Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists militants went out on the streets of Miami to defend the Cuban revolution - starting by selling socialist literature at the annual Miami AIDS Walk. The next day Militant supporters visited a community college and a technical school. They found that even when people disagreed with the action taken by the Cuban military the discussions remained civil.
A Black woman student at Miami Dade Community College said, "I would have done the same thing as the Cubans." "You don't go shooting down unarmed people," said another student who disagreed with the actions taken.
On Sunday, February 25, 40 people attended a meeting of the Alliance of Workers in the Cuban Community (ATC), an organization of Cuban Americans opposed to the embargo of Cuba. The flights and provocative actions against Cuba were at the center of the discussion, reported Young Socialists member Edmundo Saballos.
Participants at the meeting expressed their willingness to protest in the streets, if needed, to defend their right to travel to Cuba. One member, who came to the United States in 1979, said, "I think it's terrorism, and besides it's Cuban territory, and they were warned enough before it happened and while it happened. I think it's their fault. If it were the other way around, the U.S. would have done the same. First they threw leaflets, then flares, what would have been next, bombs?"
In a continuing assault on the Cuban government's scenario of the air engagement, Miami WSBN-TV has repeatedly run an interview with a South Florida fisherman who claims to have witnessed the planes being shot down "23 to 25 miles" off the Cuban coast.
Meanwhile another Miami station aired coverage from Cuban television with a map showing the actual location of the downing of the planes and statements by Cuban workers. "We will simply not allow anyone to ever invade our country without our consent. That's the bottom line," said one of the Cubans. "They should have shot down those planes a long time ago. They displayed a lack of respect for a nation's sovereignty. What Cuba did was way overdue."
Workers in Miami are discussing the situation non-stop. One young fueler at Hudson General at the Miami airport commented, "Now Castro shows what he really is, a dictator." A Jamaican worker responded, "I like Castro, he's a militant, and look how he helped South Africa."
A worker at the Aerothrust aerospace plant was concerned about a U.S. military response, saying, "If they bomb Cuba that's the end of my husband's aunt and her house because she lives near a military facility in Cuba."
"They should leave Havana alone. All they are up to is trying to provoke a war between the U.S. and Cuba," commented a United Airlines flight kitchen worker.
"How can anyone defend Cuba for killing those people? If Castro would shoot down those planes, what is he doing to people on the island?" said another.
"What do people expect when these planes go flying into territory where they don't belong? They could easily have crashed into a commercial airline and killed all of its passengers," said a mechanic. At U.S. Air even those workers who echoed the saber-rattling listened to other views. Some workers made comments along the lines of "Castro told them before, so what did they expect?"
One airline cleaner said, "How come they never interview someone like me and others here at U.S. Air who think the Cubans had the right to do what they did?"
Janet Post is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 368 in Miami.