Demonstrations against the U.S. rulers’ mounting assaults on Cuba are needed as Washington seeks pretexts for military intervention, including filing frame-up charges against Cuban revolutionary leader Raúl Castro.
Defense of Cuba’s sovereignty is an elemental defense of the national rights of all peoples against interference by Washington and other imperialist powers. Widely sponsored protests should condemn the U.S. rulers’ most recent war moves and demand an end to their decadeslong economic and political assault against Cuba.
The Justice Department’s May 20 indictment of Raúl Castro for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals 30 years ago is aimed at laying the basis for further incursions by Washington under the banner of defending its “national security.” Five Cuban jet pilots are also charged.
The case is entirely based on the slander that Castro ordered the shooting down of two planes flown by members of Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue over international waters. The Cuban government has long exposed these claims, showing the planes’ pilots had frequently and deliberately violated Cuban airspace to drop flyers on the island and ignored repeated warnings to cease their attacks on Cuba’s sovereignty.
José Basulto, the head of that counterrevolutionary outfit, was a former CIA operative and combatant in the Washington-organized Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The following year he fired a cannon from an offshore boat at a Cuban hotel.
Recent unsubstantiated and anonymous allegations “leaked” to government-favored U.S. media claim Cuba is acquiring hundreds of drones to target Guantánamo and cities in the U.S.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe says Cuba must make “fundamental changes.” What he means is the Cuban people must renounce their sovereign decision to make a socialist revolution and open up the country, once again, to the exploitation of its resources, land and labor by U.S. capital.
The U.S. rulers’ dog-eat-dog drive for profits lies behind both their war moves abroad and their unending assault on workers’ wages and conditions at home.
Cuba is a special target. Working people there threw off Washington’s imperialist domination over six decades ago. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement they took political power into their own hands. They ended capitalist exploitation, transforming themselves and setting an example for toilers worldwide.
Ever since, the U.S. rulers have been determined to overturn the Cuban government. But the dedication of the Cuban people to defend their sovereignty has stayed Washington’s hand. “What bothers them is Cuba’s dignity. Cuba’s courage in never giving up,” Cuban leader Víctor Dreke told a meeting in Havana earlier this year.
“Working people in the United States have both an obligation and an opportunity right now to get the truth about Cuba’s socialist revolution to the broadest layers of the population,” Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, said in a call to action in February. Join us in answering that call!