Supporters of the Cuban Revolution are getting out the word about the 15th May Day Brigade to Cuba, April 27 to May 10, and they’re finding interest.
“Most of what I had heard about Cuba was negative,” Brandon Freer, a 21-year-old restaurant worker from Cohoes, New York, told Socialist Workers Party member Jacob Perasso.
Freer was referring to the unrelenting lies by successive administrations, aimed at bolstering the U.S. rulers’ six-decades-long attempt to overturn Cuba’s socialist revolution. But since a friend went on vacation to Cuba, Freer said, and after talking with Perasso, he was now “interested in learning how a post-revolutionary government works.”
Freer and other young people spoke with SWP members at the party’s hall in Albany, Jan. 5, just after participating in a protest against U.S. airstrikes that killed Qassem Soleimani, who was commanding the Iranian rulers’ military intervention in Iraq. A number of those at the protest expressed interest in joining the brigade.
It is organized by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and includes voluntary work in the fields alongside Cuban workers and farmers and the opportunity to join them at the May Day march in Havana. Hundreds of thousands of workers will participate in that action to express their determination to defend their revolution — demonstrating why it has withstood Washington’s economic war and threats by 12 U.S. administrations.
Based in a camp outside Havana, brigade members will visit the provinces of Artemisa and Pinar del Río. Visits to factories and meetings to hear representatives from the revolution’s mass organizations are also scheduled, along with trips to universities, health care centers, museums and cultural venues.
The brigade is an opportunity to meet and work with Cuban working people and discuss the lessons of one of the 20th century’s most outstanding revolutions. Participants from some 20 countries on the brigade also get the chance to share experiences about politics in the countries they come from and discuss how to build opposition to the U.S. embargo of Cuba when they return.
Despite new travel restrictions by Washington, the National Network on Cuba — which organizes U.S. participation in the brigade — says the trip meets all legal guidelines. Travel arrangements are being handled through Marazul Tours.
Total cost, not including airfare to Cuba, is $725. All room, board and travel in Cuba is covered. ICAP has extended the deadline for brigade registration until April 15. For an application and more information, contact www.nnoc.info or email ICanGoToCuba@nnoc.info.