MINNEAPOLIS — As part of nationwide actions called by the National Network On Cuba to protest U.S. aggression against Cuba, the Minnesota Cuba Committee, Solidarity Committee on the Americas, the Socialist Workers Party and others carried out a week of actions in the area June 28-July 4.
These actions included banner drops with the message “No War on Cuba” displayed from highway overpasses in several locations across the Twin Cities; a reportback meeting at the Eastside Freedom Library in St. Paul, with three speakers who had visited Cuba on solidarity brigades in recent months; a contingent in the July 4 parade in St. Paul; and a Militant Labor Forum featuring a talk, “Defending Cuba’s Socialist Revolution,” by Kevin Dwire, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Minnesota.
At the July 4 march many bystanders cheered the Cuba committee’s banner, “No War on Cuba,” when it came into view. The contingent was lined up behind a group of high school women who were part of the Minnesota Frostbite Roller Derby contingent. One of the young women, who asked to be identified by her “derby name” Rumblebee and jersey number 16, said she agreed with the need to oppose U.S. aggression against Cuba. She posed for a photo for the Militant skating past our banner holding her hands up making peace signs!
This was indicative of the lack of support by working people and youth across the country to the U.S. rulers’ foreign wars.
Three members of the organization of Somali small-business people, Neighbors United, came to the Militant Labor Forum. The chair thanked the organization for writing a letter to the Florida Department of Corrections that, along with many others, led to the overturn of the ban on the Militant at several Florida prisons.
Neighbors United is involved in an ongoing fight to win compensation from the state for damages to their businesses during the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Operation “Metro Surge,” a concerted assault on immigrant workers here last winter.
Zahra Abdalla, a founder of Neighbors United, spoke to forum participants. “When the Metro Surge started, at first we were afraid and stayed in our homes. Then we decided we cannot just hide and we began to organize to fight,” she said.
“We decided that the organization would be not just for Somali small businesses, but for our neighbors and other people who want to fight for our rights — including you guys.
“So we thank you too.”
All agreed it had been a bang-up week.
Sydney protest calls for ‘US hands off Cuba, Venezuela!’
SYDNEY — Some 30 people rallied at the Ibero-American Plaza July 4 to protest mounting U.S. attacks on the national sovereignty of Cuba and Venezuela. This central city plaza here features busts of leaders of anti-colonial struggles in Latin America and the Philippines, including Cuba’s revolutionary national hero José Martí.
“For 67 years the United States has sanctioned Cuba and this year tightened the screws even further, inflicting untold hardship on the people of Cuba by blockading all oil supplies and trade between Cuba and any other nation,” Lee Walkington told participants on behalf of the protest organizers, the Australia Cuba Friendship Society.
“The U.S. has not forgotten or forgiven Cuba for this striking example of its independence,” said Walkington, pointing to Cuban working people’s defense over six decades of their 1959 socialist revolution. While “the Trump administration is the crudest, most blatant proponent,” the U.S. rulers’ determination to overthrow the Cuban Revolution has been the course of every Democratic and Republican administration alike.
Walkington called on the Australian government to actively oppose the U.S. sanctions on Cuba, as well as those on “Venezuela in its current hour of need.” Speakers from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network, which also endorsed the rally, described the devastating social catastrophe since two earthquakes hit Venezuela June 24.
— Janet Roth