BY LAURA GARZA
Marching in picket lines, holding press conferences, appearing on radio and TV shows in dozens of cities throughout the United States and in other countries - opponents of U.S. government attacks on Cuba made their voices heard as Washington stepped up its campaign of lies and aggression against the Caribbean island nation.
Judy Asman, a journalism student at American University, joined 50 people in an emergency picket line on March 1 in front of the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., to protest new sanctions on Cuba decreed by President Bill Clinton. The downing of two aircraft flown by members of the right-wing group Brothers to the Rescue after repeated violations of Cuban airspace has been used by Washington to impose harsher sanctions against the Cuban people. "I am against this inhumane version of an embargo," said Asman. The ABC TV affiliate from Miami covered the event, as did the local NBC news station.
"Brothers to the Rescue, know your place! Respect Cuban airspace!" chanted 50 people picketing the downtown federal building in Los Angeles February 28. A front-page article in the Spanish-language daily La Opinión reported on the event the next day.
In Houston about 25 protested at the federal building, getting prominent coverage in the news.
The next day in New York 200 joined a picket line to call for an end to the U.S. embargo, freedom to travel, and to defend Cuba's sovereignty. Xiomara Reyes, a student from Borough of Manhattan Community College, learned about the event that day at a Young Socialists literature table and joined the crowd in front of the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
Pickets were also held at federal buildings in Manhattan and in downtown Brooklyn in subsequent days, drawing discussions from passersby and media coverage. The picket lines in Brooklyn were covered by TV channels 9 and 5 on March 2 and 4.
A San Francisco protest drew a lively crowd of 200 on March 1, including about two dozen youth from local high schools and colleges, many participating in their first protest.
Two dozen joined an informational picket line and press conference in downtown Pittsburgh at the federal building the same day. A wide array of media attended the event. The previous night two members of the Pittsburgh Cuba Coalition spoke out against the Clinton administration measures on the "Cullen/Devlin Show" on WQEX TV.
About 15 demonstrators in Minneapolis appeared outside a Democratic Party fund raising event featuring Hillary Clinton to protest the latest moves against Cuba made by the current administration.
The Iowa Network on Cuba held a February 26 press conference at the federal building in Des Moines, Iowa, to denounce Washington's threats against Cuba. Channel 5 news featured the press conference as one of its lead stories that evening.
One participant, John Torgerson, a professor from Drake University, is organizing 18 of his students to travel to Cuba later this year and had already been interviewed by several local television and radio shows due to his notoriety on the subject. A picket line of about a dozen was also held at the federal building in downtown Des Moines on March 3.
A successful Militant Labor Forum titled "U.S. Hands Off Cuba! End the Embargo" was held in Miami March 1, drawing more than 40 people, despite efforts to have it called off. It was covered on three TV stations and on Cuban television.
"The U.S. government has said that the Brothers to the Rescue planes were downed over international waters," said Andrés Gómez, director of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, a Miami- based organization of Cubans who support the Cuban revolution. "But how many times have they lied before? Do you remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? In fact, it was put out by the United States to win acceptance for the war in Vietnam - to get Senate approval and to fool U.S. public opinion." Gómez blasted the current attempt to pass the Helms-Burton bill enacting further sanctions against Cuba.
Seth Galinsky, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the United Transportation Union, also spoke. Iván Rosero, a Young Socialists member, encouraged people to help publicize the upcoming U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange, a project sponsored by the National Network on Cuba through which young people will be traveling to the Caribbean island in July.
Miami police tried to convince organizers to cancel the event, claiming they would not provide security after threats by right-wing Cubans to disrupt it. In at least two cases, the cops tried to convince leaders in the Haitian community to speak out publicly against the forum and related activities, without success.
Since forum organizers refused to back down or be intimidated by harassing phone calls and anonymous threats, the city ended up stationing motorcycle cops, squad cars, and even a helicopter flying overhead shining its spotlight on the Pathfinder Bookstore in the Little Haiti neighborhood where the event was held.
Three anti-Castro protesters - with a dozen police watching nearby - stood quietly across the street from the forum. Several Haitian workers helped forum volunteers keep an eye on things outside the bookstore to make sure there would be no attempt to disrupt the meeting.
Forum in Washington, D.C.
"We have to defend our sovereignty, and that's for sure!
We warned them very clearly that they should not get into our
airspace - that they would be shot down. But they were looking
for trouble," said José Ponce, first secretary of the Cuban
Interests Section in Washington, D.C. Ponce was addressing an
emergency forum entitled "Hands Off Cuba - Stop the
Provocations" in Washington March 1.
About 80 people jammed a meeting room in the Washington Peace Center to hear the Cuban official, who was introduced by Brian Adams of the D.C. Hands Off Cuba Coalition.
"Most of the aggression against us has come from the United States in the form of planes and vessels that were supposed to be civilian - dropping leaflets, arms, and infiltrators" to attack the revolution, he said. "These are the same people who have dropped explosives in Cuba. The very same people in the very same planes."
Following Ponce's brief speech, there was an extensive question and answer period.
"What other options were explored?" asked one person, skeptical of the Cuban actions.
Ponce responded that he had heard a lot of talk about "options," including whether the Cuban planes should have "tilted" at the interlopers. "We did more than that," he explained. "We told them they could not come into our airspace and they came anyway! In plain Spanish we told them. If you come here you have to face the consequences."
"Over 36 years the situation has been the same," added Rafael Noriega of the Cuban Interests Section, who accompanied Ponce. "During the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the U.S. government first claimed `we are not involved.' But we realize that in the same way, they are involved today, directly or indirectly."
"The very first violation of Cuban airspace was on Feb. 2, 1959," Ponce pointed out, just one month after the revolution that toppled U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Actions were also held in New Haven, Connecticut; Chicago; Morgantown, West Virginia; Greensboro, North Carolina; Newark, New Jersey; and Atlanta. In dozens of cities activists planned further actions in front of federal buildings on March 6 to protest the U.S. embargo, the Helms-Burton bill, and to call for the release of some 400 computers confiscated by the U.S. government from Pastors for Peace. Members of Pastors for Peace are on a fast to protest the government action in blocking material destined for hospitals in Cuba.
Protests around the world
Response to Washington's hostile actions was worldwide. In
Toronto 100 people demonstrated in front of the U.S. consulate
to condemn the stepped-up campaign of economic and military
threats against the Cuban revolution. There was also a picket
line in front of the U.S. embassy in Ottawa on March 2.
In Montreal 60 people demonstrated March 2 in front of the U.S. consulate. A second protest was set March 6 in front of offices of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution asking the ICAO, whose headquarters are in Montreal, to investigate the incident around the downing of the two planes by Cuba's air force and report back to the Security Council.
In Vancouver, a Militant Labor Forum held March 1 became an organizing meeting for a protest on Wednesday, March 6, in front of the U.S. consulate.
In Sydney, Australia, a protest was also planned in front of the U.S. consulate for March 6. The Cuba Friendship Society in Auckland, New Zealand, held an emergency picket March 2 near the offices of the U.S. consulate with 30 people. The picket was reported on one of the national television channels, TV3.
Brian Williams and Greg Rosenberg in Washington, D.C.; John Evenhuis in Los Angeles; Aaron Ruby in Houston; Abby Tilsner in New York; Joe Swanson in San Francisco; Cecelia Moriarity in Pittsburgh; Jon Hillson in Minneapolis; Shirley Peña in Des Moines, Iowa; Seth Galinsky and Ernie Mailhot in Miami; and Patricia O'Beirne in Montreal contributed to this article.