March in Havana: Massive Sea of People Marches on US Interests Section

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March in Havana: Massive Sea of People Marches on US Interests Section

"Proclamation by an Adversary of the US Government" - Cuban President Fidel Castro’s Speech

Massive March against the US Even Impressed the Cubans

Cuba Denounces US Measures to Reinforce the Blockade before the WTO

Cuban Trade Unionists Reject US Plan

Cuba warns new sanctions could be prelude to invasion:
Foreign Minister Says the US May Wish to Provoke a Migration Crisis

A massive sea of people flooded through the streets of the Cuban capital on the morning of Friday, May 14, and into the afternoon – marching on the US Interests Section to protest against the latest brutal measures against Cuba adopted by Washington.

During the early morning hours Friday, young and old, men, women and children, made their way toward Havana's Malecón (seaside drive). The huge march stepped-off just a little past 8 am, local time, and did not end until after 2 pm.

For more than six hours, well over one million people – initial estimates put the number at 1.2 million – passed by the US Interests Section. Marchers carried Cuban flags and raised them high as they approached the building on Havana's seaside drive. Some held photos of Bush, sporting a Hitler moustache and dressed in a Nazi uniform.

Just before the march stepped-off, Cuban President Fidel Castro addressed the huge crowd, estimated at more than one million. The leader of the Cuban Revolution read an open letter to US President George W Bush, accusing him of knowing nothing about Cuba and its people – who are ready to not only march, but willing to give their lives to preserve their country's sovereignty.

Among the measures boosted by George W Bush against Cuba, probably the one that hurts Cuba’s sensibility the most are those aimed to "categorise" and divide the Cuban family, wrote Prensa Latina on May 15. Thus it was expressed to local radio and television stations by the many people, as a unique an indivisible family, who marched in Havana.

Either through interviews, shouting slogans or on their banners, the protesters rejected the so-called Commission of Assistance for a Free Cuba report, including, among other prerogatives, that of deciding who of the Cuban-origin citizens in the United States can travel to Cuba according to a whimsical family "classification".

According to the new dispositions by Washington, the Cuban émigrés only could travel to their native country once every three years, instead of every year, while the remittances are limited to "first-degree" blood relatives.

"Who authorised Bush to decide where family begins and ends?" asked an outraged woman – judging by the voice, a grandmother – to the microphones of a radio station. "This is another example of the disdain the US administrations have towards us," the interviewee added.

According to the suggestions by the mentioned report, in order to get permission to visit Cuba, the Cuban resident in the United States have to prove they come to visit children, parents, couples, siblings, grandparents or grandchildren.

The rest of the relatives are not included in Bush’s narrow concept of family. Concerning the remittances, they not only are prohibited for "second degree" blood relatives. Those who are government officials or Communist Party members cannot receive them either.

"Remittances are little to me. In fact, I have never received one cent from a cousin I have in the United States. But I don’t want anyone telling me who is my family and who is not," a farmer holding a banner with the slogan "El Pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido" (The people, united, will never be defeated) stated.

A place where relatives and friends usually meet, Havana’s "malecón" became the tribune where Cubans repeated that nobody, other than themselves, decide where the family begins and ends.

Radio and TV commentators also noted that while the marchers are extremely angry over Washington's latest measures against the island, the Interests Section must be one of the safest diplomatic missions in the world; not a single stone has ever been thrown against the building that represents the interests of US imperialism.

One young marcher commented to a reporter from Radio Havana Cuba: "The United States thinks it owns the world. Well, they don't own Cuba... and they never will."

Full text of Cuban President Fidel Castro’s Speech, Havana, May 14, 2004, preceding the massive march condemning US President Bush’s latest sanctions against Cuba

Mr George W Bush: the million Cubans who are gathered here today to march past your Interests Section is just a small part of a valiant and heroic people who would like to be here with us, if it were physically possible.

We have not gathered in a hostile gesture to the American people whose ethics, rooted in the time when the first pilgrims emigrated to this hemisphere, are well known to us. Neither do we wish to upset the officials, employees and guards of this mission, who are given all the safety and guarantees that a civilised and educated people such as ours can offer while they serve their terms. This is an outraged protest and a denunciation of the brutal, ruthless and cruel measures against our country that your country has just adopted.

We know beforehand what you believe or want to make others believe about those who are marching here. In your opinion they are oppressed masses who yearn for liberty and who have been forced onto the streets by the Cuban government.

You completely ignore that no force in the world could drag a dignified, proud people, which has withstood 45 years of hostility, blockade and aggression from the most powerful nation on earth, on to the streets like a flock of animals each one with rope around their neck.

A statesman, or whoever claims to be one, should know that down through history really humane ideas of justice have been shown to be much more powerful than force; force leaves in its wake only dusty, contemptible ruins; humane ideas leave a luminous trail that no one will ever be able to extinguish. Every era has had its own ideas, both good and bad ones, and they have accumulated. But the worst, most sinister and uncertain ideas belong in this era in which we live in a barbarous, uncivilised, globalised world.

In the world that you seek to impose on us today there is not the slightest notion of ethics, credibility, standards of justice, humanitarian feelings, nor of the elementary principles of solidarity and generosity.

Everything that is written about human rights in your world, and in the world of your allies who share in plundering the world, is an enormous lie. Billions of human beings live in infrahuman conditions starving, without enough food, medicine, clothes, shoes or shelter and without even a minimum amount of knowledge or enough information to understand their tragedy and that of the world in which they live.

Surely nobody has told you about the tens of millions of children, adolescents, youths, mothers, middle or elderly people who die every year but that could have been saved in this "idyllic Eden of dreams" which is Earth, nor have they told you at what rate the natural conditions for life are being destroyed and that the hydrocarbons which took the world 300 million years to create are being squandered in a century and a half, with devastating effects.

You have only to ask your assistants for precise data on the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, bombers, smart long range missiles, battleships and aircraft carriers, conventional and non-conventional weapons in your arsenals which are enough to wipe out all life of the planet.

Neither you nor anyone else would ever be able to sleep again. Neither would your allies, who are trying to emulate your military build-up. If your allies low responsibility coefficient, political talent, inequality between their respective states and their infinitesimal inclination to reflect in the time they have left between protocols, meetings and advisors, are taken into account, those who have the destiny of the world in their hands can harbour few hopes when, half puzzled half indifferent, they gaze upon the real madhouse that world politics has become.

The purpose of these words is not to offend nor insult you: but since you have set out to intimidate, to terrorise this country and eventually to destroy its socio-economic system and independence, and if necessary its very physical existence, I consider it my elemental duty to remind you of a few home truths.

You have neither the morality nor the right, none whatsoever, to speak of freedom, democracy and human rights when you hold enough power to destroy humanity and are attempting to install a world tyranny, side-stepping and destroying the United Nations Organisation, violating the human rights of any and every country, waging wars of conquest to take over world markets and resources and installing decadent and anachronistic political and social systems which are leading the human race into the abyss.

There are other reasons why you cannot mention the word democracy: among these is the fact that everyone knows you became president of the United States through fraud. You cannot speak of freedom because you cannot conceive of a world other than one ruled by fear of the lethal weapons which your inexpert hands might rain down on humanity.

You cannot speak of the environment because you are completely ignorant of the fact that the human race is in danger of disappearing.

You label a tyranny the economic and political system that has guided the Cuban people to higher levels of literacy, knowledge and culture than those in the most developed countries in the world. The same that has reduced infant mortality to a rate lower than that of the United States and whose population is provided with all healthcare and education services and with other extremely important social and human services free of charge.

Listening to you talk of human rights in Cuba has a hollow, absurd ring. This, Mr Bush, is one of the few countries in this hemisphere where not once in 45 years has there been a single case of torture, a single death squad, a single extrajudicial execution or a single ruler who has become a millionaire through having held power.

You lack the moral authority to speak of Cuba, a dignified country which has withstood 45 years of a brutal blockade, economic war and terrorist attacks which have cost thousands of lives and ten of billions of dollars in economic losses.

You are attacking Cuba for petty, political reasons, trying to obtain electoral support from a shrinking group of renegades and mercenaries who have no ethical principles whatsoever. You lack the moral right to speak of terrorism because you are surrounded by a bunch of murderers who have caused the death of thousands of Cubans through terrorist methods.

You do not hide your contempt for human life, because you have not hesitated to order the extrajudicial death of a secret, unknown number of people in various parts of the world.

You have no right whatsoever, except for that of brute force, to intervene in Cuba’s affairs and, whenever the fancy takes you, to proclaim the transition from one system to another and to take measures to make this happen.

This people can be exterminated – it’s as well you know this – or wiped off the face of the earth but it cannot be subjugated nor put once again into the humiliating position of a United States neo-colony.

Cuba fights on the side of life in the world; you fight on the side of death. Whereas you kill countless people with your indiscriminate, pre-emptive surprise attacks, Cuba saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, mothers, old and sick people all over the world.

The only thing you know about Cuba are the lies that spill forth from the ravenous mouths of the corrupt and insatiable mob of former Batista supporters and their descendents who are experts in electoral fraud and capable of electing President of the United States someone who did not obtain enough votes to claim victory.

Human beings are not aware of nor can they be aware of freedom in a regime of inequality like the one you represent. No one is born equal in the United States. In the black and Latin ghettos and on the reservations for the natives who once inhabited that land but were exterminated, there is no other equality but that of being poor and excluded.

Our people, educated in solidarity and internationalism, do not hate the American people nor do they want to see young white, black, Native Americans, mestizo or Latin soldiers from that country die, young people driven by unemployment to enlist in the military to be sent to any corner of the world in traitorous, pre-emptive attacks or in wars of conquest.

The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has rendered the world speechless.

I do not seek to offend you with these words, as I have already said. My only hope is that in your leisure time one of your assistants would bring these truths to your notice, even though they may not be completely pleasing to you.

Since you have decided that the die is cast, I have the pleasure of saying farewell like the Roman gladiators who were about to fight in the arena: Hail Cesar, those who are about to die salute you!

My only regret is that I would not even see your face because in that case you would be thousands of miles away while I shall be in the frontline to die fighting in defence of my homeland.

In the name of the Cuban people,

Fidel Castro Ruz.

By Leonardo Anoceto, Havana, May 15, Prensa Latina

In an act that even impressed the Cubans used to great popular demonstrations in support of their Revolution, the Cuban people expressed their resounding rejection of the new plans of aggression of the United States.

For six hours the one million 200 thousand persons in the march packed the wide avenue of Malecon to a short distance past the Washington Interest Section in Havana.

This massive demonstration was even greater than those when, all across Europe, people raised their voices to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq by the United States and Great Britain during the beginning of 2003.

This number, however, may have been insignificant if instead of being only held in the capital and neighbouring province of La Habana and had been extended to the entire Island, as President Fidel Castro, expressed explaining that "the entire brave and heroic people of the Island would wanted to add their voices here".

This demonstration surpassed the manifestation of May 1st, even before learning of the package of measures by the United States government to provoke the fall of the Cuban people, had six million persons expressing their support of the Revolution.

After Fidel Castro’s resounding 15-minute speech, the citizens of Havana and many visitors and students from Latin America and Africa, cheered and waved their flags in a war cry. The demonstration was so immense that the end was not visible along the main streets leading to the march.

Ninety miles to the North, across the street as the Cuban say, must have amazed the television viewers to see the greatest example of support of the Revolution in 45 years.

People like President George W Bush who approved the measures of the Report of the Commission of Assistance for a Free Cuba, who thought that the measures were for an "oppressed people, desirous of freedom" could not have imagined the response of the Cuban people, Fidel Castro expressed.

It is a mistake to completely ignore the dignity of a people who have resisted hostility, blockade and aggression of the most powerful nation in the World for 34 years, he added.

It is unthinkable that any repression could call more than a million people and force them to march and protest against what they do not want representing a hope of freedom. But that is not the case.

"Just and truly human ideas throughout history have demonstrated to be more powerful than force; more powerful than the intentions that are in despicable ruins and are expression of the brilliant ideals that no one can put out", the head of state stressed in conclusion of his brief and forceful speech.

Cuba today (May 18) denounced before the WTO the measures to go into force in the United States to reinforce that country’s aggressive economic policy aimed at destroying the Revolution, reports Prensa Latina.

The charge was presented before the Council by Celia Labora, advisory minister for the Cuban mission to the UN and other organisations, accredited in Switzerland.

Labora read out a statement recalling that the WTO was established to support and safeguard a multilateral system of open, not discriminatory, trade with the aim of raising the living standards of its members.

The text states that, given those principles, the Doha ministerial declaration noted that international trade can play an important role in the promotion of economic development and the alleviation of poverty. However, the document continues, for 45 years the U.S. government has violated those commitments via the unilateral application of an economic, commercial and financial blockade on Cuba, which imposes serious obstacles in terms of the island’s economic, cultural and social development.

The text adds that the blockade creates obstacles in trade relations among states and its effects compromise the well being of the Cuban population.

It reveals that material losses resulting from those practices are calculated at more than $70 billion and no less than $1.6 billion per year.

It poses the question of how, in the context of a genuine commitment to the multilateral trade system and to the WTO, the United States can maintain its blockade of Cuba and impose its laws on the rest of the world via the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts, which sanction businesspersons from other countries for having trade relations with the island.

In parallel, why is the way closed to the export of Cuban sugar, nickel, cigars, fishery products, vaccines and biotechnological items, computer programs and other manufactured goods.

The Cuban document also questions why Cuban imports are hindered and limited and U.S. citizens are banned from travelling to Cuba, and the acquisition of equipment and advanced technologies for Internet access is prevented.

The Cuban statement denounces all Washington’s actions against the country in violation of international law and the trading standards defended by the WTO.

Some 2.6 million Cuban workers in workplace assemblies throughout the country have rejected recent US measures against the Cuban government, the trade union weekly Trabajadores reported on May 17.

Until Friday, when 1.2 million Havana citizens protested in front of the US Interests Section, some 108,000 workplace meetings had manifest support for the government and Cuba’s political and social system -including willingness to defend them with arms-, and rejection of the new Bush strategy against the Revolution.

The central Cuban workers´ union (CTC), representing 3.2 million workers, informed that these meetings are continuing this week in Cuban workplaces.

Among the proposed Bush "totally fascist" measures to take effect in June "in an attempt to suffocate and bring our people to their knees," Trabajadores reported the 60 million dollar budget to reinforce radio and television transmissions to Cuba to intensify subversion and disinformation and aid internal and international campaigns against the island.

Other measures are to affect the Cuban economy and cutting visits, spending, and remittances to the Island by Cubans living in the United States to their families.

Washington also intends to apply the 1997 Helms-Burton Act sections applicable to try in US courts citizens of third countries who do business with Cuba, while forbidding foreign investors in Cuba to have visas to enter the United States.

Cuba has warned that the final objective of the recent US government decision to tighten the blockade against the island may be to provoke a wave of migration in order to justify a military intervention.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday 18 May in Havana, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the latest measures announced by President Bush seek to strangle the Cuban economy and bring the population to its knees out of hunger and need.

To emphasize the seriousness of the matter, Perez Roque recalled that US officials have said in the past that a spontaneous wave of immigrants from Cuba to the US would be considered a threat to US national security, and that they would act accordingly.

The foreign minister noted that the White House has historically manipulated the issue of bilateral migratory relations, trying to "put more steam in the pressure cooker" to make it explode.

"It does so," said Perez Roque, "by systematically refusing to grant permanent residency visas for Cubans seeking to live in the US, this despite Washington's promise to issue 20,000 such documents per year."

The top Cuban diplomat said the US promotes the very illegal emigration it supposedly wants to avoid.

Under the US Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans risking their lives to reach US territory by sea or air in makeshift or stolen vessels are routinely granted residency.

He further noted that the Bush administration has broken off the twice-a-year talks on migratory issues.

The embargo, the new US sanctions that intensify it and migratory regulations are some of the key agenda items at the Third "Nation and Emigration Conference" to take place May 21-23 at the Havana Convention Centre.

Some 200 Cubans residing abroad plan to attend the important event and 140 of those are already in Havana.

Perez Roque said the Conference would be respectful, serious and open between people who love their country.

He said the only people excluded from participation are members of extremist and terrorist groups that back the US blockade against Cuba and other aggressions against our country.

Other agenda topics include Cuban cultural policy and the promotion of Cuban culture abroad by the emigrants, as well as the possibility for them to invest and do business on the island, in abeyance with the foreign investment law.

Perez Roque recalled the many actions of local authorities in the US to normalize relations with Cubans abroad and promote family reunification.

He contrasted those actions with US federal government obstacles, making such relationships increasingly difficult; for example by prohibiting Cubans living in the US from visiting the island more than once every three years and greatly restricting their right to send family remittances.

The foreign minister said that approximately 1.5 million Cuban emigrants or their children live abroad and that of those, 1.3 million live in the US.