US promotes terrorism against Cuba

A Cuban who beat up his family, hijacked a plane and flew into the arms of the Miami mafia, has received a hero's welcome in the USA under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which stimulates emigration by giving automatic residential status to any Cuban who reaches US borders illegally. Despite the 11 September plane hijacking and despite air piracy being recognised in international agreements as an act of terrorism, this crime is being encouraged by the US in Cuba. Posada Carriles, who boasts of bombing a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, killing 73 civilians, walks freely in streets of Florida.

Speaking to the 12th Ibero-American Summit about recent US attempts to undermine the Cuban government, Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage said: 'In recent weeks four Cuban diplomats have been expelled from the Cuban missions in New York and Washington; the country that has the largest number of spies in the world is accusing one of the most spied-on countries in the world of espionage. The US government has reiterated its barefaced accusation that Cuba is producing biological weapons, in an old Goebbels method of repeating a lie until it becomes a truth... Acts of terrorism organised and fomented in the United States over more than 40 years have have cost 3,478 lives and inflicted 2,099 injuries [on Cuban people]... we unhesitatingly support the battle against terrorism and denounce the US government policy that protects and encourages terrorism against Cuba.'

Helen Burnes

From Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 170 December 2002/January 2003

If you think it is bad here...

By the end of 2001 United States prisons held a total of 1,962,220 prisoners and in total nearly 6.6 million people were on probation, in prison or jail, or on parole. This is 3.1% or one in 32 of all adult residents.

In 1990 the US already had by far the highest prison population in the world, both absolutely and per capita. But in the period since then, the number of men and women imprisoned has risen dramatically. Twelve years ago 292 out of every 100,000 US residents were behind bars; today it is 470 out of every 100,000 - equivalent to one in 212.

The figures rise dramatically for black people in a stark confirmation of the racist nature of the US state: whereas the number of white men in prison per 100,000 of the population was 462 at the end of 2001, for Hispanic men it was 1,177 and for African-Americans 3,535 - that is one in 28.

This is the system in which the five Cuban political prisoners whose cases FRFI has been highlighting are imprisoned. Although the Miami 5 were sentenced together, they have deliberately been separated and sent to the furthest corners of the USA.

Gerardo Hernandez is being held at USP Lompoc, California, a high security prison, holding 1,583 prisoners. Next door are two other lower security prisons, this clustering of prisons being common in the 'corrections' industry. In total Lompoc is home to 3,000 prisoners. Also incarcerated at Lompoc are Black Panther prisoner Sundiata Acoli (imprisoned in the 1970s along with Assata Shakur, who later escaped to Cuba) and white anti-imperialist prisoner Richard Williams. After 11 September several political prisoners at Lompoc were put into isolation for no ostensible reason. Williams was last to be returned to the mainstream population and suffered a heart attack the day after he was returned to 'normal' conditions.

Rene Gonzalez is in FCI McKean, a medium security prison in Pennsylvania designed for 784 prisoners and currently holding 1,116. Ramon Labanino is in USP Beaumont, Texas, a prison holding several survivors of the 1993 Waco siege.

Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez is in the notorious USP Florence in Colorado. Florence was purpose-built as a control unit, following the experimental use of Marion prison as a 'behaviour modification' facility. For more on this see FRFI 128 and 144 or read The Celling of America (published 1998 by Common Courage Press).

Fernando Gonzalez is at FCI Oxford, Wisconsin, way up in north of the United States. Oxford is not a maximum security prison, and is mainly filled with men like Jerry Lewis, who are victims of the US 'war on drugs'. Lewis was harassed for two years by an undercover federal agent, who asked him to arrange to supply him with cocaine. Eventually he agreed. Although no drugs were ever exchanged and the offense was entirely set up, Lewis was sentenced to 24 and a half years imprisonment.

Nicki Jameson

From Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 170 December 2002/January 2003

Socialism is built by people and for people

One of the great lessons of the Cuban Revolution over the past 43 years has been that building socialism is a process, not something immutable and finished. It is a lesson completely lost on the bourgeois and sectarian mindset of a British left for whom the achievements built by and with the Cuban people are somehow never quite socialist enough. JIM CRAVEN examines the issues.

After the initial triumph of the revolution in 1959 and the affirmation of its socialist character during the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the seventies and early eighties witnessed a creeping deterioration in the development of socialism in Cuba, with increasing reliance on capitalist mechanisms and, as a result, a significant drop in political consciousness and commitment. This was stemmed with the conscious launch of a socialist Rectification programme in 1986, only for Cuba to come up against the devastating economic crisis of the Special Period with the collapse of its main trading partner and socialist ally, the Soviet Union, in 1991. The bleak economic realities of the next decade meant harsh choices being made by the Cuban Communist Party – such as the legalisation of the dollar, the formation of joint enterprises with foreign capital and the increase of private enterprise and self-employment, which the communists were the first to concede had nothing to do with socialist development and everything to do with mere survival in the cold light of a new world order dominated by imperialism.

It was inevitable that economic change would bring political consequences: a lowering of revolutionary consciousness and growing inequality within the Cuban population. But over the last eighteen months, as Cuba's economy has grown and stabilised, the Communist Party has risen to the challenge of not simply addressing those problems, but of taking the process of building socialism to a new and higher political plane. This is the Battle of Ideas, an ideological and political offensive aimed at educating, empowering and conscientising the whole population of Cuba at a level not seen since the Revolution of 1959.

For a more educated, cultured and revolutionary people On a day to day level, objectives include increasing the number of university students by 50% in five years, raising the average educational standard to graduate level within 10 years and eradicating unemployment.

Education projects include:

• the University for All;
• reducing primary classes to 20 pupils and in junior high classes to 15;
• putting 45,000 computers into schools;
• installing 2,000 solar panels in rural schools (including one with a single pupil) to ensure every child has access to audio-visual equipment;
• building 33 new schools and 4,453 new classrooms;
• training 70,000 teachers in IT skills;
• training 4,500 new primary school teachers in two years;
• training 30,000 high school graduates over five years to teach alongside junior high school teachers while continuing their own further education;
• a new integrated, student-centred approach to junior high school education.

In the social sphere 85,000 young people who would not otherwise have pursued further education are being trained as social workers. Their role is not that of social workers under capitalism – trying to patch up a system that cannot be reformed – but to offer support and information within communities. In addition some 80,000 unemployed young people have now been given the chance for further education and training which they will be able to continue to higher levels until they obtain a suitable job. All the tens of thousands of sugar workers who lost their jobs in the recent re-organisation of the sugar industry will be offered alternative jobs and/or further education and re-training.

Something new

Cuban socialism has already made remarkable achievements, but these developments amount to something qualitatively new, with leading Cuban communists publicly criticising the achievements of Cuba to date.

On several occasions recently, leaders have talked of being 'ashamed' of their previous socialism. At a recent speech at the Victoria de Giron Medical Institute, Fidel reiterated the outstanding medical advances made in Cuba since 1959 but then went on to make a devastating criticism of mistakes and failures within the health service, of 'considerable damage, which was supposedly due solely to the critical shortage of material resources... Old prejudices... combined with measures that reflected arrogance, mediocrity and incorrect management methods could have wiped out some of the best things achieved by Cuban medicine. In the midst of the battle of ideas we were waging, it became evident that we needed to deal with situations created by incorrect management styles and methods and even commercialisation vices that are unacceptable in the health care services created by the Revolution'. (Granma, 27 October, 2002)

This amounts to a declaration of a new rectification programme by a people increasingly committed to socialism and confident of tackling the problems created by concessions to capitalism over the Special Period. The Cubans are planning, as Fidel said 18 months ago, 'A new dawn...a more accomplished socialism, a more promising and profound revolutionary work'.

Socialism at a deeper level

Three main principles guide this renewed process. First, that far more can be done even with limited resources if you have the support of the people. Earlier this year an outbreak of dengue fever was eradicated by the thousands of health workers and volunteers who cleared up stagnant pools and other potential breeding sites for the disease-carrying mosquito and by the voluntary disinfecting of homes on a mass scale. The recent school building programme was achieved only because parents and workers were totally committed. With just two months to go to the start of the new school year, repairs in 80 schools hadn't even been started and another 344 needed completing and yet the target was still reached. The total cost of the solar panel scheme was considerably less than the annual budget of a small secondary school in Britain.

Secondly, that socialism must penetrate to the individual level. It is not good enough to have 99.9% of the population well-fed if somewhere a dozen people are under-nourished. Recently, all 2.2 million Cuban children up to the age of 16 were weighed, measured and checked precisely for symptoms of under-nourishment and potential health problems. In Cuba no-one is to be left alone without support, no-one is to be excluded from society. That is the purpose of the new social workers – to make sure every family, every individual has someone they can turn to. That is the purpose of eradicating unemployment – not to save on state benefits or force people into crap jobs – but because everyone has the right to feel a valuable member of society. Indeed, the Cubans plan to change the very concept of what employment means in a socialist society. Employment under socialism does not just mean producing surplus value or providing services, it means playing your part in the total endeavour of society, and if that means continuing to study because a 'normal job' is not available then you are valuably contributing to the wealth of human resources. This is not possible under capitalism, where the vast majority of people are essentially valued only as sources of labour power.

Thirdly, that building socialism demands a population educated to the highest technical, political and cultural level. Among the first courses offered by the University for All were art, music and dance. All Cuban universities must now offer humanities courses. The Higher Institute of Arts has been re-organised, seven new art schools have been opened and 4,000 new art teachers per year are being trained. Similar developments are taking place in dance and drama. Every neighbourhood now has a cultural centre where video films are shown and discussed and hundreds of thousands of old people, now way beyond the age at which they could produce surplus value, are taking degree courses in foreign languages, history and literature.

In these ways the Cuban people can defend themselves against the onslaught of imperialist cultural domination. Cuba's Minister of Cultural Affairs, Abel Prieto, put it this way:

'The cultural work of the Revolution is aimed at insulating our people against campaigns in the style of Goebbels, the philosopher of Germany's Third Reich.

'If one is going to talk of freedom, democracy and human rights Bush needs to be reminded of Cuba's cultural efforts conceived as spiritual enrichment, so that people's activities are expanded rather than mutilated. [In the imperialist countries] the media has created an ideological mechanism for presenting the USA and its allies as the civilised nations and the rest of the world as barbarians [through] racism; the systematic demolition of intelligence, memory and historical significance; and the promotion of fanaticism and glorification of the white Anglo-Saxon race, the American way of life and the messianic role of the United States...Fascism tends to promote messianism, [but] in Cuba we say, "Don't believe, read!"'

Defend socialist Cuba

In Cuba they are trying to create the most cultured, educated and humane society that has ever existed, a living example that a better, socialist world is possible even in a country with limited material resources. We must be even more confident in confronting those on the left who attack Cuba. If, as they claim, Cuba is a state capitalist, bureaucratic dictatorship, we must ask them what sort of capitalism it is that ensures no one is excluded from society, that pays workers to study as a form of employment? What sort of dictatorship provides everyone with the possibility of the highest cultural education to allow them to withstand propaganda and brainwashing? If this isn't socialism, what does the socialism of the petty-bourgeois left amount to?

From Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 170 December 2002/January 2003

Rock around the Blockade round-up
"With Che's ideas"

A delegate from Rock around the Blockade joined 200 young people from many countries at a youth seminar held in Havana at the end of November 2002 to commemorate the ideas of Che Guevara on the 35th anniversary of his death.

The seminar opened with a film about Che's contribution to the Cuban revolution and the guerrilla struggle in the Congo and Bolivia. Orlando Borego, one of Che Guevara's closest comrades, talked about Che's economic ideas, including entertaining anecdotal evidence to explain how Che developed his unique 'bugetary finance system' for the transition to socialism. Che's daughter, Aleidita spoke about his emphasis on the importance of youth; another session dealt with Che's internationalism.

Delegates travelled to Santa Clara, where Che directed the decisive battle in the triumph of the Cuban revolution on 1 January 1959, to visit his memorial, which includes the bones of the Cuban and Bolivian guerrilla fighters, hidden for 30 years by the CIA and the Bolivian army after their execution in Bolivia in 1967.

While in Cuba, our delegate had an opportunity to meet with the families of the Miami 5, the Cuban political prisoners framed and gaoled in the USA. Rock around the Blockade has been actively campaigning in Britain for their release, and she was able to tell them about our work.

Free the Miami 5

Meanwhile, the campaign continues to grow, both within Cuba and on an international level, as Xiomara Pedroso Gomez writes from Cuba:

'In October, the British campaigner Father Geoffrey Bottoms, a leading member of the committee for the freedom of the 5 in Blackpool and committee member of the British Cuba Solidarity Campaign visited Gerardo Nordelo in prison in Lompoc and met with relatives of the Miami 5. He expressed his determination to fight for their release and commented on the huge number of solidarity letters Gerardo receives each week.

'Meanwhile, in Cuba, a concert was held on 16 October to launch a new CD, Regresaré (I will return) highlighting the case of the Miami 5. The song's lyrics were taken from poems written by Antonio Guerrero. His mother Mirta and his son attended the concert and read out a message from Antonio. 16 October was also Antonio's birthday so the concert marked a fitting tribute to one who through his courage and commitment raises each day the honour of our country and its Revolution.'

'Relatives of the Miami 5 have recently been campaigning for solidarity in Argentina, Chile, Britain and Ireland. After speaking at a rally in Britain, Olga Salanueva, the wife of Rene Gonzalez, told FRFI: 'The morale of the five is high. We feel very proud of our relatives, who represent the highest and most noble elements of the people of Cuba... They are political prisoners because they justly defended their people against death and terrorism. We have the support of the entire people to denounce before the eyes of the world this great injustice.'

With friends like these...

At every turn, the families and supporters of the Miami 5 in Cuba have called for an international campaign as broad as possible. How disgraceful, then, that at the meeting organised by the British Cuba Solidarity Campaign for Olga Salanueva, Rock around the Blockade should find itself forbidden not only to put up a banner calling for the release of the prisoners but prevented even from giving out leaflets urging people to write letters of solidarity to them! We have campaigned consistently for the Miami 5, with demonstrations outside the US Embassy in London and US Consulate in Glasgow, lively contingents on this year's May Day event and regular petitioning and leafletting on the streets of major British cities. Letters from the prisoners regularly reaffirm how welcome and vital such solidarity is. US imperialism has already done everything it can to isolate the men and prevent them from receiving international support. Whose side is the British CSC on?

Get involved in solidarity with Cuba

Rock around the Blockade holds regular events and meetings around the country. Recent events include a fantastic fund-raising 30-mile sponsored bike ride in Hatfield, holding a workshop on Cuba at the RCG's anti-imperialist forum on 17 November and a screening of a documentary on Cuba's pioneering role in developing a vaccine for Meningitis B, which is already saving hundreds of thousands of young lives in Cuba and Latin America.

To find out more, come along to our events or contact us at office@ratb.org.uk, write to RATB, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX, or tel: 020 7837 1688

From Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 170 December 2002/January 2003

Gracias a FRFI

Thanks a lot to FRFI for reflecting the level of support that the struggle for justice has across the world. Thank you for speaking out against the massacres being suffered by the Palestinian, for the injustices against our Iraqi brothers and sisters, for your unconditional support for the Cuban people and our Revolution that will never cede its convictions and principles for anything or anybody.

It is one of the few newspapers in the world that conveys information in a serious and impartial way without serving the interests of those classes and their governments whose only ideals are those that can line their own pockets.

Continue to be an example of justice, of tireless fight and revolutionary thought and action, until victory always.

XIOMARA PEDROSO GOMEZ
Havana, Cuba

From Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 170 December 2002/January 2003