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RATB brigade returns from Cuba

Members and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Group and Rock Around the Blockade returned in May from a two week fact finding and solidarity brigade to Cuba. After spending the first few days in Havana the brigade travelled across Cuba to the easternmost province of Guantanamo before returning to the capital.

Among the places visited in a packed itinerary were primary schools, the international schools of medicine and sports, the school for social workers, a Pioneers Palace, clinics, an orphanage, a nursery, an old people’s home, a chocolate factory that was first opened by Che Guevara and organisations for arts and music. The members of the brigade talked with people, on the streets and in their local organisations; to students, young people, children, journalists, religious believers and workers. They had discussions with members of local Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs), women’s groups (FMC), with leading members of the Cuban Communist Party and of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), who hosted the brigade.

In Guantanamo the brigade was able to check out the mobile sound system that had been donated by a previous RATB brigade and which was being used two or three times every day to take music and politics to young people in every corner of the province. By contrast they also visited the area overlooking the US naval base where prisoners, many of them young people, are still being held without trial in Camps X Ray and Delta. Back in Havana the brigade took part in the May Day celebrations in Revolution Square and joined over a million Cubans and other revolutionaries from around the world in singing the Internationale. The brigade has come back full of enthusiasm and up-to-the-minute information. On these pages you can read some of their reports and their most vivid impressions. To hear more make sure you get to one of the brigade report-back meetings (details on back page) and visit our website at www.ratb.org.uk.