MONTREAL — “As a labor union, we must support the Cuban people,” said Chantal Ide, general secretary of the Montreal Metropolitan Council of the National Trade Unions Confederation (CSN), at a conference to support Cuba at the union’s offices here March 13. Some 45 people participated.
Organized with the support of the Quebec-Cuba Solidarity Roundtable, the meeting protested the devastating oil embargo imposed on Cuba by Washington since the beginning of the year and its escalating threats against Cuba’s socialist revolution.
In her remarks, Ide was particularly critical of the Canadian government, which “has only weakly condemned the new U.S. sanctions against Cuba.” She pointed out that at the same time unions are under attack in Quebec, pointing to a series of anti-union and anti-working-class laws passed by the provincial government. “We must build connections between these two struggles.”
Colette Lavergne, spokesperson for the Roundtable, described the solidarity campaigns with Cuba the organization has led since its founding in 2002. She invited conference participants to join their efforts to send medical aid to Cuba.
Jennie-Laure Sully of Solidarity Quebec-Haiti highlighted the importance of the medical aid Cuba provides to the Haitian people, and reported her organization had raised 7,000 Canadian dollars ($5,100) to send generators to Cuba in response to the current energy crisis.
Susana Malmierca Benitez, Cuba’s consul general in Montreal, described the impact of the oil blockade on life in Cuba. Many schools are being taught remotely, surgeries have been disrupted, transportation has been significantly affected and productivity is declining.
She confirmed that discussions were underway between the Cuban and U.S. governments. “Our government is transparent. Our principles will never be compromised,” she said.
Andres Fontecilla, a member of the Quebec Solidaire party in the Quebec National Assembly, emphasized the “absolute necessity of solidarity with Cuba.” Alexandre Boulerice, a member of the New Democratic Party in the federal Parliament in Ottawa, sent a video message of solidarity with the Cuban people.
Returning from a three-week solidarity trip to Havana as part of a reporting team for the Militant, Katy LeRougetel described the spirit of resistance and struggle among the Cuban working people she met. She also invited conference participants to join a leafleting effort to get out the truth about Cuba organized by the Quebec-Cuba Roundtable March 16 at a busy Montreal metro station.
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SEATTLE — Over 25 people rallied outside the busy Pike Place Market here March 15 demanding an end to the U.S. oil blockade against Cuba. Sponsored by the Seattle Cuba Friendship Committee, protesters from the Democratic Socialists of America, Socialist Workers Party, Workers World Party and others got a positive response from people there.
“We have a lot to learn from the Cuban Revolution,” Jennifer Villanueva, representing the DSA in Seattle, told this Militant correspondent before the rally. “My hope is for people to have an open heart and an open mind, especially when we’re struggling in our own country, to know that there are solutions.”
Villanueva also spoke at the rally, explaining, “My father-in-law is 95 years old and lives in Havana. He has asthma and only has to walk a short distance to his doctor where the treatment is free.”
Jacob Perasso, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Congress in the 9th District, read an excerpt from a statement by the National Nurses United calling on the administration and Congress to end the blockade and allow full delivery of oil resources and aid to Cuba.
“Depriving the Cuban people of essential resources needed to sustain life and health is an unconscionable violation of human rights,” NNU President Mary Turner said Feb. 27. “As nurses, we will not be silent when our nation’s policies cause immense suffering for any people, whether at home or abroad.”
“It is long past time for a complete reversal in the regime-change policies of the U.S. in Cuba,” Perasso quoted from the NNU statement. “The Cuban people — not politicians in Washington — ought to decide their own leaders and their own future.”
Perasso explained that every U.S. president since Cuban workers and peasants took power in 1959, Democrat and Republican alike, has tried to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.
“Workers, unionists and others in the U.S. have an interest in demanding, ‘U.S. hands off Cuba! End Washington’s oil blockade and economic war!’” he added.
“The U.S. rulers have underestimated Cuban working people many times. The example of the Cuban Revolution is something working people in the United States and around the world can emulate.”
Jim McMahan, from Workers World Party, also spoke.
— Barry Fatland