Photos by Granma (Top); AP/Javier Galeano (middle); Militant/Martín Koppel(bottom)

HAVANA, January 31—More than 1 million people marched along the seafront boulevard here January 24, past the U.S. Interests Section, in a massive protest against the latest hostile actions by the U.S. government against Cuba (pictured above). Since January 16, the U.S. diplomatic offices have been lit up at night by a streaming electronic “billboard” that flashes provocative messages (pictured upper right behind news conference with Cuban president Fidel Castro).

Local residents expressed their outrage to the Militant that the U.S. government had the gall to inaugurate the five-foot-high ticker on January 16, Martin Luther King Day, with quotes from the civil rights leader. The quotes from King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, along with others from Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, are presented as if these world figures, who are well known in Cuba, are calling on the Cuban people to resist an illegitimate and repressive government. The ticker also flashes “news headlines” under the pretext of providing Cubans with information that is allegedly censored here.

At the demonstration, Cuban president Fidel Castro promised a response to Washington’s “perverse violation of [Cuba’s] dignity and sovereignty.” Since then, construction workers have been busy enlarging the Anti-Imperialist Tribune, an open-air stage and assembly area in front of the U.S. Interests Section that has been used since 2000 for rallies to express solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles around the world and to oppose Washington’s more than 45-year-long economic war and ceaseless efforts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Workers have been erecting a series of tall flagpoles in front of the U.S. diplomatic building (bottom). The expanded tribune is scheduled to be inaugurated in the next few days.

—MARTÍN KOPPEL