Miami Five are free, now we must end the Blockade!

CSC welcomes the return of Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernández to Cuba to join Fernando González and René González.

We celebrate along with their families, the people of Cuba, and the international “Jury of Millions” who have fought successfully for the release of these unjustly imprisoned men. CSC is proud to have played a role in publicising the case and winning widespread support here in Britain for the campaign for freedom and justice.

We want to thank all those who gave their support and worked tirelessly for this victory, including our members and affiliates, the international coalition Voices for the Five, and the Trade Union movement whose contribution to this struggle has been exemplary.

Unjustly imprisoned for acting to prevent terrorist attacks launched from Florida against the people of Cuba, the Five were given draconian sentences by the US courts and were locked up for 16 years, with Gerardo facing a double life sentence and the prospect of dying inside prison

On Wednesday 17 December President Obama said that, “Today America chooses to cut lose the shackles of the past” and that a “new chapter” was being opened that would see changes in US-Cuba relations. “We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests.”

Whilst this will lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations, a general increase in visitors, increased remittance limits and a variety of exchanges it does NOT mean the end of the blockade.

Some US politicians have already declared their opposition to Obama’s modest amendments. Some are threatening to block the appointment of an Ambassador to Cuba. The Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) will still be empowered to fine third country companies that trade with Cuba. And the pillars of the blockade – the Helms-Burton Law and the Torricelli Act can only be repealed by Congress, where Obama has no majority.

A White House press statement issued on the same day revealed some of the thinking behind the shift in US policies. Fundamentally the statement conceded that the blockade had failed to bring about any of the US desired changes inside Cuba. On the contrary this “Long standing US policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners.”

It makes clear that the policy changes are ones of tactics rather than goals – the objective remains the same, to turn Cuba into an economic satellite of United States’ big business and a pawn of Washington.

Indeed it is clear from the press statement that the intention of some of the changes is precisely to seek the erosion of the social gains that have been made in Cuba looking to restore the means of exploitation that existed under Fulgencio Batista, the dictator overthrown by the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

At the core of the question of the Cuba-United States relationship must be mutual respect for the sovereignty of the other. As President Raul Castro said on Wednesday, “we must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilised manner.”

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign commits to redoubling our efforts to ensure that the British Government moves forward to develop strong diplomatic, trade, scientific and cultural relations between our two countries based on mutual respect and understanding.

We urge anyone who is not already a member, to help us fight to end the blockade once and for all, by joining the Cuba Solidarity Campaign today.

We celebrate the return of all the Five heroes to their families. We remain vigilant and continue to demand; “Hands off Cuba, End the blockade Now!”

Please help us to end the blockade by joining the Cuba Solidarity Campaign here today

Please make a donation to support our work

A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the U.S.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, have praised the work of Cuban doctors dispatched to treat Ebola patients in West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sent an official to a regional meeting the Cuban government convened in Havana to coordinate efforts to fight the disease. In Africa, Cuban doctors are working in American-built facilities. The epidemic has had the unexpected effect of injecting common sense into an unnecessarily poisonous relationship.

U.S. attends Ebola meeting in Cuba called by leftist bloc

U.S. government officials joined health experts from throughout the Americas at an Ebola conference in Cuba on Wednesday, the latest show of cooperation between the historic adversaries on fighting the disease.

The meeting organised by ALBA, a bloc of leftist-governed countries, aims to coordinate a regional strategy on the prevention and control of Ebola, which has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa but in the Americas has only reached the United States.

Kerry acknowledges Cuba role in Ebola fight

Secretary of State John Kerry paid a rare US compliment to Cuba on Friday, acknowledging the communist island nation's role in the global fight against Ebola in West Africa.

"Already we are seeing nations large and small stepping up in impressive ways to make a contribution on the frontlines," Kerry told foreign diplomats in Washington as he pleaded for a greater mobilization against the epidemic.

"Cuba, a country of just 11 million people, has sent 165 health professionals and it plans to send nearly 300 more."

On 17 October, former President of Cuba, Fidel Castro wrote an article saying that Cuba was willing to cooperate with the US in the fight against Ebola.

Watch the Cuban Vote in Florida

John McAuliff writes for the Huffington Post

A factor in President Obama's potential victory in Florida are Cuban Americans who wish to maintain the normal liberty to travel and send remittances/investments. More than 25 percent of the Cuban community returned last year and an even larger percentage presumably provide assistance to their family, and their own future stake in Cuba.

Although not all have become citizens and voted, enough have that Obama can expect to increase his percentage above the 5 percent gain over Kerry in 2008. In addition Cuba's migratory reforms have significantly broadened the group who can benefit from freedom of travel. In particular, the second phase announcement allowing return of previously excluded categories of illegal emigres affect people who have lived in the U.S. longer. With little hope of visiting Cuba, they likely have been more inclined to citizenship. Will they want to give up the opportunity suddenly afforded them to return?

All these folks know that a Romney/Rubio/Diaz-Balart/Ros-Lehtinen victory will slam the door shut to at least the Bush-era level of restriction of travel once every three years and very limited remittances.

Romney's campaign has run a scurrilous Spanish language ad in south Florida linking Obama to Presidents Chavez and Castro. Havana's denunciation of the semi-embassy U.S. Interests Section for meddling in domestic politics is a way to say publicly that it does not have a dog in the US race.

Even though, of course it does. For more than 200 years Cuba's fate has been intertwined with the U.S.

Only the hard-liners in Cuba welcome a hard line victory in the U.S. The government and party recognize that an Obama victory at least keeps the door open to Cuban Americans and purposeful visitors who are affecting public and elite opinion in the U.S. and in the case of the former, providing much needed grassroots investment. There are few American visitors who depart believing embargo and isolation make any sense, regardless of their conclusions about Cuba's political and economic system.

Moreover, a second Obama term offers the potential of deeper change in the bilateral relationship. The denunciation of USINT also signals that Havana will continue to maintain firewalls until Washington is prepared to grant the same respect for Cuba's sovereign independence as it does to Vietnam and China.

Cuba: US has no right to call us terrorists



Convicted terrorist and mass murderer Luis Posada Carriles
remains protected by the United States 

Since the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959, the United States has funded and instigated overt and covert attempts to undermine the island’s sovereign government. Over 3,000 Cubans have died as a result of US-backed terrorist attacks on the republic; the Miami Five remain incarcerated in the U.S for fighting terrorism and convicted terrorist Posada Carriles remains protected in Miami. Despite this, the U.S. government inexplicably and hypocritically continues to name Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The following article originally appeared in the Morning Star.

Havana has rejected its inclusion on the new US State Department terror blacklist.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that the US government “has absolutely no moral nor any right to judge Cuba, which has an unblemished history in the fight against terrorism and has also been consistently a victim of this scourge.”

It accused the US of “political manipulation of such a sensitive issue as the fight against terrorism.”

The Foreign Ministry added that “the terrorist actions against Cuba which were organised, financed and perpetrated from the US territory, often with the complicity of the government itself,” have killed 3,478 Cubans and injured another 2,099.

It said the only reason Cuba had been included on the list “is to discredit Cuba and justify the economic embargo, which has been maintained for half a century.”

Syria, Sudan and Iran were also on the list of countries deemed by Washington to have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.”

It was released last Thursday. 

American majority wants Cuban embargo lifted

This story originally appeared on RT.

Poll after poll show a growing number of Americans want an end to the US embargo on Cuba. It has been in place for over half a century and though it was designed to bring down Fidel Castro, it is Cuba’s citizens who have felt its impact most.

Despite promises from President Obama downwards, it seems America’s powerful anti-Castro lobby is not about to let the embargo drop any time soon.

Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US imposed an embargo on all trade, investment and travel in an attempt to bring down the communist government of Fidel Castro

Cubans who fled the island for the US pushed to keep this agenda alive, and so the anti-Castro lobby was born.

“They give a lot of money, US elections are in fact privately financed, and so they've been able to figure out how to play the game. Even though they are a small percentage of the population they play a very big in a key swing state,” Frank Sharry, founder of America's Voice organization, said.

Polls consistently show that two-thirds of Americans favor ending the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba, and some in Congress agree.

“It’s about time we talked to Cuba and stopped fighting these wars that are about 30 or 40 years old,” Senator Ron Paul said.

But anti-Castro groups have given a total of $1.798.124 in donations to House and Senate candidates from 2004 to 2010, keeping US Cuba policy virtually unchanged.

Fewer than one per cent of Americans are of Cuban origin and the majority emigrated before the end of the Cold War. Unlike the rest of the Hispanic population in the US, 58 per cent of Cubans are US citizens.

"Cubans that arrive and set foot on beaches in Florida are on their way to citizenship. Haitians that arrive and set foot on the beaches of Miami are on their way to a detention center and deportation,” Frank Sharry said.

Cuban Americans are also a force to be reckoned with in Congress. They are the most over-represented community in Congress, with two senators and four representatives, including the powerful Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

"I welcome the opportunity to have anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said. 

They have powerful political action committees behind them, like the US Cuba Democracy PAC, the number one campaign donor in 2006 with $569.624.

“Our community is very focused and concentrated in New Jersey and Florida and so we have to make an effort to get out there and create the relationships,” Mauricio Claver-Carone, Director of US-Cuba Democracy Lobby Group, said.

Their agenda has been known to change many politicians’ minds, including President Barack Obama’s.

“I think it’s time to end the embargo,” Senator Barack Obama said back in January 2004.

Yet he changed his mind while campaigning before the Cuban American National Foundation, stressing that: “As president I’m not going to end the embargo.”

But while the majority of Americans favor ending the sanctions against Cuba, even protesting in the streets, they have yet to match the strength of the anti-Castro lobby.

Examples of previous polls in America which have rejected the blockade of Cuba can be found here and here.

Times have changed in Cuba, but softly the struggle continues

On his first visit in 1967, John Pilger witnessed the effects of US efforts to isolate the island. In this week’s New Statesman, Pilger recounts his thoughts on Cuba.

On my first day in Cuba, in 1967, I waited in a bus queue that was really a conga line. Ahead of me were two large, funny women resplendent in frills of blinding yellow; one of them had an especially long bongo under her arm. When the bus arrived, painted in Cuba's colours for its inaugural service, they announced that the gringo had not long arrived from London and was therefore personally responsible for this breach in the American blockade. It was an honour I could not refuse.

MPs turn out to support Cuba

Around 100 MPs, trade union leaders and friends gathered at the House of Commons on Wednesday 23 March to support better UK-Cuba relations while at the same time welcoming the new Cuban Ambassador HE Esther Armenteros to parliament.

Playa Girón

Fifty years ago, Cuba defeated a US-backed invading force at the Bay of Pigs. It marked the ‘first defeat of imperialism in America’, and for the Cuban people, the beginning of half a century of heroic defence of their revolution.

Wikileaks releases cables on UK Miami 5 campaigners

US Embassy in London reports on pressure from UK campaigners

Leaked cables from the US Embassy published by The Telegraph on 4 February 2011 show that UK campaigners for the Miami Five have been successful in reaching the highest levels of the US government. A US Embassy cable from February 2010 entitled 'PM Brown's call to Secretary Clinton regarding "Cuban Five"' reports that Gordon Brown asked Hilary Clinton to grant visas to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez "as a result of a commitment that he had made to UK trade unionists".

Another leaked cable with the heading 'Delegation presents petition to Embassy advocating visitation rights for wives of convicted Cuban spies', details the arguments for visitation rights made by a Cuba Solidarity Campaign delegation to the US Embassy in October 2008. It reports the handing over of a petition and the following CSC vigil outside the Embassy which led the US diplomats to issue a press release in an attempt to defend their position.

Wikileaks report on Hague's Cuba visit

UK Shadow Foreign Minister interviewed by US Embassy on his return from the island

Following a visit to Cuba when he was Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague was interviewed by a senior diplomat at the US Embassy in London who was concerned about a press report in which Hague called for an end to the blockade.

Obama and the Empire, by Fidel Castro

Obama and the Empire is a collection of Castro’s Reflections of Comrade Fidel column in the Cuban Communist Party’s daily newspaper. The period covered spans from Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2008 to mid-2010. As an anthology of newspaper features, many of the articles vary in terms of breadth and detail, but Castro provides a compelling critique of Obama and the United States which is not present in mainstream Western media.

Daughter of Cuba

Irma Gonzalez, daughter of Miami 5 anti-terrorist fighter, Rene Gonzalez, found time during her recent tour to speak to CubaSí editor Natasha Hickman about growing up in Miami, the campaign to free her father and her reception in Britain.

Until six, Irma Gonzalez led the life of an ordinary Cuban child. She lived with her parents and spent weekends with grandparents in Havana.

Suddenly, in December 1990, everything changed: “I woke up one morning and my dad wasn’t there. I was used to him being away for one or two nights, but this time he just didn’t come back.”

Noam Chomsky on US-Cuba relations

In his introduction to a new book on terrorism against Cuba, US academic Noam Chomsky details the history of US governments’ violent and often bizarre reactions to its small but defiant neighbour. CubaSí is privileged to have permission to exclusively reprint this introduction...

The real war on terror

For the past 50 years the Cuban people have been fighting a war against terrorism that has cost the lives of more than 3,400, with further thousands injured. And while America’s current campaign against the scourge of terrorism has been of upmost concern to the international community, Cuba’s battle has been fought in almost complete obscurity.