Vol. 74/No. 26      July 12, 2010

June 19, 2010

Dear Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando, and René,

The 350 delegates and guests here in Oberlin, Ohio, who today conclude the Forty-sixth Constitutional Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, send you our warmest revolutionary greetings. The convention registered concerted steps the party is taking to respond to a small but growing vanguard of working people who are more and more open to thinking about the character of the crisis capitalism has entered and what is to be done. The fight for your freedom has been an integral part of these deliberations throughout the last three days.

From the prisons in which you have been held hostage by the U.S. government for nearly twelve years, your unbreakable proletarian spirit sets an example for working people and youth worldwide. That courage, dignity, and determination is a daily reminder to the U.S. rulers of why they hate and fear the Cuban Revolution. They recognize in you the millions of workers and farmers in Cuba who—fifty years after taking power and opening the socialist revolution in the Americas—continue to repel imperialism's unremitting demand for surrender.

Today, working people in Cuba, the United States, and elsewhere are living with the very initial consequences of what is on course to become the greatest worldwide catastrophe of capitalism that history has yet seen. Faced with that stark reality, the challenges and stakes in fighting to defend and advance the Cuban Revolution have never been greater.

The impact of your resistance, and of the expanding international campaign for your release, was registered last October in the words of the U.S. federal prosecutor who cited the need to try to quiet the international "noise and contentiousness" that surround your unjust imprisonments. The draconian sentences imposed on Antonio, Ramón, and Fernando have been reduced. Every hour that is won steels our resolve to increase the "noise and contentiousness" until the day when each and every one of you is free to continue to fight from outside the walls and bars of the world's last—and declining—empire.

Comradely,
Jack Barnes
National Secretary

For the delegates and guests, Forty sixth Constitutional Convention of the Socialist Workers Party
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party conducts forty-sixth constitutional convention
Socialist Workers announce 2010 candidates
SWP candidates in 2010
Socialist Workers Party National Committee: Elected at 46th Convention
Gerardo Hernández files appeal for a new trial  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home