Malcolm X used to say that struggle is the only language the oppressors will listen to. Cuban foreign minister Roberto Robaina reminded friends and enemies alike of the correctness of this stance in his March 6 speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
Washington, Robaina pointed out, is to blame for the repeated incursions and terrorist acts by U.S.-based counterrevolutionaries in Cuban territory over the years. By shooting down two belligerent U.S. planes that invaded its airspace, Cuba not only defended its sovereignty but strengthened the hand of working people everywhere. Fighters in Cuba showed that the lords of Washington and Wall Street cannot act with impunity. By standing up to imperialism, they helped counter the U.S. rulers' preparations for war in the Caribbean.
The U.S. government's latest measures against Cuba, including passage of the embargo-tightening Helms-Burton bill, are taken from weakness, not strength. Robaina noted that reactionary forces today "are raging in frustration at the efforts and the results Cuba is achieving in its economic recovery, in the strengthening of its democratic institutions and dignity, in the consolidation of the socialism its people chose for the present and the future." Workers and farmers there have weathered the past six years of economic crisis and have emerged more steeled and self-confident.
What the adoption of the Helms-Burton bill and the threatening U.S. military moves do show is the bipartisan nature of Washington's 37-year-long war against Cuba. The Clinton administration declares that it disapproves of the provocations by Cuban-American rightists and warns it may revoke the licenses of Brothers to the Rescue pilots who violated Cuban airspace. But instead, it responds by mobilizing a naval armada off Cuban shores. It is prominent Democrats like Clinton, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright who are spearheading the anti-Cuba campaign.
The Clinton administration's policies are not set by a handful of right-wing Cuban-American businessmen in Miami, nor are these policies primarily a product of electoral maneuvers. They are set by the ruling class of billionaire families. The Cuban revolution has been a mortal political threat to their class interests from the moment Cuban workers and farmers overthrew the U.S.-backed tyranny, armed themselves, nationalized the land, uprooted racist discrimination, expanded women's rights, and expropriated the factories and mines from local and foreign exploiters.
Working-class fighters in Cuba are defending their trench well. Those in the United States and around the world can follow their lead by attacking Washington's criminal policies. We must keep up the demonstrations at federal buildings, public forums, and other activities to protest the U.S. provocations. At the same time, patriots of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial should get these papers into the hands of as many people as possible, along with selling Pathfinder books, with a special push on Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' Against Cuba Doesn't End.
Through these combined efforts, more workers in the United States and other countries can be drawn to emulate the Cuban revolution by joining the fight for a socialist world.