‘Lift the US blockade!’ Cuban leaders say in NY, DC

BY NAOMI CRAINE

NEW YORK — “The U.S. government’s decision to release Gerardo, Ramón and Antonio from prison and establish diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in 55 years was a tremendous victory,” Kenia Serrano, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, told a meeting of well over 200 people in Harlem here Nov. 4. “But we’re still a long way from normal relations. We continue to demand the lifting of the U.S. blockade against Cuba, and compensation for the economic and human damage it has done.

“We call for the return of the illegally held territory at Guantánamo to Cuban sovereignty,” she said, “and of course the closing of the prison” that Washington maintains at its naval base there against the wishes of the Cuban people.

Before there can be normal relations, Washington must “end the ‘regime-change’ programs directed against us,” she noted. “It’s incomprehensible that we have embassies and the declaration of a new beginning, and at the same time they have publicly allocated $20 million in the 2016 budget to undermine, subvert and try to divide us.”

“Cuba Speaks for Itself” is the theme of a two-week tour in the U.S. by Serrano and Leima Martínez, a representative of the institute’s North American division. Their visit, which includes events in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Bay Area, is an opportunity for hundreds of workers, students and others to learn more about the Cuban Revolution and the fight to end Washington’s economic and political war to overturn it.

“The Cuban Revolution was not made in a laboratory. It was made by men and women involved in struggle,” Serrano said. “We are very much aware of things that need to be changed in Cuba; mistakes have been made. But we will decide. We are updating Cuban socialism for more socialism. We’re not restoring capitalism.”

At the New York meeting, chaired by Gail Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, and Malcolm Sacks from the Venceremos Brigade, Serrano and Martínez thanked the many organizations and individuals who were part of the international campaign to win the freedom of the Cuban Five. The Five Cuban revolutionaries — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Guerrero and René González — were imprisoned by Washington in 1998 for their work protecting Cuba from violent attacks by enemies of the revolution based in the U.S. The Barack Obama administration freed the last three of the Five on Dec. 17, 2014, as part of a broader shift in Washington’s tactics aimed at defeating the revolution. Embassies were opened in Washington and Havana earlier this year.

As the U.S. and Cuban governments “discuss steps toward normalizing relations, Cuba’s principles aren’t on the table,” Serrano told the audiences she addressed. “We continue to stand in solidarity with all those fighting imperialism in today’s world. We defend Puerto Rico and its right to independence. We stand with Venezuela against all forms of U.S. aggression.”

‘Proud to be in Harlem’

The New York-New Jersey leg of the tour was organized collaboratively by IFCO, the Venceremos Brigade, the July 26 Coalition, the Center for Cuban Studies and others. The Nov. 4 citywide meeting was held at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, the former Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X often spoke and where he was assassinated in 1965. Earlier that day, Serrano and Martínez spoke with some 50 young people and others at the former Hotel Theresa in Harlem, as well as to students at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“We’re proud to be here,” Serrano said at the citywide meeting. “Fifty-five years ago it was the people of Harlem who welcomed our comrades to their community.”

After downtown hotels in 1960 refused to house the Cuban delegation to the United Nations led by Fidel Castro, Malcolm X invited them to stay at the Hotel Theresa. To laughter and applause, Serrano recalled the slogan, “With hotel or without hotel, you have to listen to Fidel.”

For decades the U.S. rulers arrogantly said, “As long as the Castros are in power we can’t have relations with Cuba,” she noted. “And here we are, in Harlem, with visas!” This was the first time Washington has granted a visa to the president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples.

The fact that “the victories of the last year have been won with Raúl and Fidel at the helm, still guiding the struggle, should not be underestimated,” she said.

The event opened with performances from the Universal Zulu Nation and True School Hip Hop Music, and ended with the presentation of a painting by artist Zulu King Slone, who had worked on the canvas at the front of the room throughout the evening.

Responding to a question about the lies and misinformation that appear so regularly in the U.S. media, Serrano noted that the big-business press “says we’re afraid of the Internet, that we don’t want the social media to enter Cuba. That is a total lie. We’re extending it more and more. But in terms of accessibility we’re in a bad situation.”

She pointed out that Cuba is surrounded by Internet cables that it cannot use because of the U.S. embargo.

“Our priority is the social use of Internet,” she said, throughout the medical and educational systems. The government is investing in “expanding WiFi hot spots and access to the Internet in schools and communities. Our goal is by 2018 we will have the Internet in every classroom — and we are not assuming that the blockade will be lifted by 2018.”

In response to a question about Santeria and African religious practices, Serrano said, “Cuba is a secular country; there’s no state religion. There is complete freedom of religious practice. Sunni and Shia, Catholic and Protestant, Santeria and Jewish — all live and worship side by side, without conflict.”

Serrano and Martínez spoke the next day to some 50 people at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey, many of them nursing students. Martínez described Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine, which offers scholarships to youth from around the world, on condition they return and practice medicine in working-class communities. She works with the North American students there. “The first day in the program you are interacting with patients,” she said. “You learn to treat them with respect.”

One participant asked what will be the impact of expanded U.S. investment in Cuba.

“People can’t just come to Cuba with a suitcase of dollars and invest in whatever they want,” Serrano said. “We decide the priorities. We decide if we need it or not.”

That evening the ICAP leaders attended a reception at the Cuban Art Space hosted by the Center for Cuban Studies. Discussion ranged from Cuba’s policies toward expanded tourism to efforts by Cuban artists to involve young workers in artistic and educational activity, opportunities made possible by the socialist revolution.

Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Serrano and Martínez’s visit to Washington coincided with a two-day meeting of the National Network on Cuba, where representatives of more than 30 solidarity groups from across the country met to discuss work to end the U.S. travel ban and all other pieces of Washington’s economic war on the people of Cuba.

Over 200 people turned out Nov. 7 at the University of District of the Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law to hear Serrano and Martínez. The meeting was sponsored by the D.C. Metro Coalition in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and the NNOC.

Elementary school students from the Maryland International Day School opened the event with a performance that included music, dancing and the poetry of Cuban national hero José Martí.

Katherine Broderick, dean of the law school, welcomed the Cuban guests, saying she was proud theirs is the first law school in the U.S. to start an exchange program with the University of Havana law school. UDC Black Law Students Association Vice President Shakira Hansley and Elizabeth Limones, president of the UDC Latino Law Students Association, also brought greetings.

Kamau Benjamin and Omari Musa from the local coalition co-chaired, along with Banbose Shango of the NNOC.

Musa read from a message of solidarity from Regina Stinson, a leader of Wives of Steel in western Pennsylvania, which organizes solidarity with 2,200 United Steelworkers members who have been locked out by Allegheny Technologies Inc. since Aug. 15.

“Education is key to getting the word out about Cuba and the situation in regards to the embargo,” Stinson said. “I look forward to learning more about this situation and being a voice in this fight as well!”

Gail Walker explained the fight being waged against an IRS investigation of IFCO and a decision that, unless reversed, would revoke IFCO’s tax-exempt status. IFCO is currently organizing its 27th annual caravan transporting aid to Cuba.

During the discussion period law student Alexander Vasquez asked, “What measures will the Cuban government take to prevent a return to capitalism and the kind of inequalities that exist here in this country?”

“The economic guidelines adopted by the Cuban people after extensive public debate include as one of the first provisions that we won’t allow the accumulation of capital in a few hands,” Serrano replied. “We say you can work hard and have more income, but you can’t exploit other people. And those who earn more will pay more taxes,” she added to applause.

Cuban Revolution’s internationalism

Unstinting internationalism has been a hallmark of the Cuban Revolution from the beginning. “Many people know what Cuba did in Angola,” said Paul Pumphrey of the Friends of the Congo. “Cuban volunteers in Angola helped defeat repeated invasions by apartheid South Africa’s military forces between 1975 and 1991.

“Fewer know that long before that Cuba came to the defense of freedom fighters in the Congo after the murder of Patrice Lumumba,” he said. Lumumba was the leader of the independence struggle there in 1961.

“Thank you for the work that Cuba does in Africa, specifically your recent work around Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea,” said Sylvie Bello, of the immigrant advocacy organization Cameroon-American Council, to applause. Cuba sent the largest contingent of volunteer doctors and health care workers of any country to combat the epidemic.

A photographic display — “Cuba and Africa (1961-2015): Repaying Our Debt to Humanity” — prepared by Pathfinder Press was part of the public meetings in both Washington and New York.

The tour has given an indication of openings today to win new forces to learn from and defend the Cuban Revolution. “I liked the part about how in Cuba having money doesn’t give you the right to exploit other people,” Isaish Beamon told the Militant after the Washington meeting. “The meeting broadened my politics.” Beamon is a fired Walmart worker and organizer for Making Change at Walmart.

Cynthia Murray, a founder of OUR Walmart, which fights for higher pay, better conditions and full-time hours at the giant retailer where she works, also attended. Before the meeting she gave Serrano a bright green “OUR Walmart” T-shirt and bracelet that said “RESPECT.”

Shaking Serrano’s hand after the meeting, James Nobles, a sanitation worker who drove to the meeting from Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, told her, “I know Cuba will keep fighting, but I want you to know, we’ve got your back.”

Arlene Rubinstein in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.

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