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Forward from mart. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE "Solidarity With Cuba" - Statement from the Communist Party of Canada =========================================== From: "CPC" [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Recipient List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Solidarity with Cuba Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 15:18:15 -0400 July 22, 2002 Re: Cuba Solidarity Dear Comrades, As you are well aware, the U.S. government has recently stepped up economic, political, and ideological pressures on socialist Cuba. While U.S. imperialism’s hostility to the “free territory of the Americas” dates back more than 40 years, the recent slate of anti-Cuban pronouncements by President George W. Bush and his administration are unprecedented and deeply troubling. Within a span of four weeks, Bush has made four outrageous speeches outlining greater hostility, virtually threatening military intervention. He has added Cuba to his by now infamous "axis of evil" list of countries. He has made the incredible and totally fabricated insinuation that Cuba is a bio-terrorist state. And in a most crude interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, the U.S. President has called for a change in the political, economic and social system in Cuba. Cuba, in short, is now most clearly one of the prime targets in the cross-hairs of the Bush Administration’s “war on terrorism.” Nothing reveals the hypocrisy of this contrived campaign more than the plight of the “Miami 5” – the five Cuban nationals who are currently incarcerated (on life sentences) in U.S. prisons for the ‘crime’ of attempting to foil terrorist acts against Cuba by reactionary and fascist anti-Cuban groups based in Florida. The statements by Bush, together with those of Vice-President Richard Cheney, Under Secretary of State for Latin America Otto Reich and others, not only constitute a sharp escalation in Washington’s anti-Cuban rhetoric; they may well portend more direct acts of adventurism – even military aggression – against socialist Cuba. The Cuban people and their socialist government have calmly but resolutely rebuffing Washington’s lies and slanders, and are multiplying efforts to defend their national sovereignty and the social and political gains of the Revolution. That heroic resistance, combined with the full mobilization of world public opinion, can frustrate imperialist designs against Cuba and stave off the danger of aggression and war in our hemisphere. As part of its anti-Cuban campaign, Washington is intensifying pressure on Canada’s traditional policy of “engagement” towards Cuba. In the current prevailing conditions, when the Chrétien government increasingly defers to such pressures, and allows Canadian foreign and defense policy to be dictated by the White House, there is a real danger that Canada’s historic relations with socialist Cuba will be irrevocably altered for the worse. Given these circumstances, it is absolutely incumbent on labour, the broad peace movement, and on all progressive, anti-imperialist and pro-peace forces across Canada to intensify our solidarity efforts with Cuba, and to oppose the bellicose, reactionary forces bent on undermining Canada-Cuba relations. Today, anti-imperialist solidarity with socialist Cuba, and the struggle to defend Canadian sovereignty, is more closely bound together than ever before. * * * * * * * * In consideration of the above, the Central Executive Committee calls upon all Party Clubs and Committees to step up solidarity action with socialist Cuba. We would like to bring two initiatives in particular to your attention. First of all, at the end of July, an important “Solidarity Conference with Cuban Workers” will be held in Windsor, Ontario. The three-day conference, co-sponsored by “Worker-to-Worker”, and the US/Cuba Labor Exchange, will bring together trade union representatives and activists from both the U.S. and Canada. Pedro Ross Leal, the President of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) and other Cuban labour officials, will be featured guests t the conference. The conference has been endorsed by such important national affiliates as CUPE, NUPGE, UFCW, and CUPW, among others. Newly-elected CLC Vice-President Barb Byers will also be a featured speaker. While organization of the conference is now in its final stages, we would urge that party activists, especially those in the trade union movement, give every possible support to this conference, and help to implement the proposals and initiatives which arise from it. Details about the conference are attached below. * * * * * * * * We would also like to alert all Party Clubs and Members to the convening of the first “Canadian Cuban Solidarity Coordination Meeting,” to be held in Ottawa from August 31 - September 2, 2002. The conference, which will bring together friendship and solidarity organizations from across English-speaking Canada (Quebec-based solidarity groups will hold a similar conference on the following weekend in Montreal), along with trade unions, NGOs and other interested pro-Cuba forces, will mark a historic advance in Cuba solidarity work in Canada. The conference is being convened with the express purpose of founding an ongoing “Canada-Cuba Solidarity Alliance” which will facilitate and coordinate friendship and solidarity campaigns across the country. The absence of such an “alliance” has impaired Cuba solidarity work in Canada for many years. Details of this crucial meeting are attached. More info is available on the Ottawa-Cuba Connections website - http://www.ottawacuba.org/. The CEC strongly urges all Party Clubs and Members in English-speaking Canada to do everything possible to ensure maximum participation at this Ottawa Conference. The PCQ is also asked to mobilize full participation for the ensuring conference in Quebec. This should include efforts to involve all locally-based friendship and solidarity groups in this process. These two initiatives will be decisive in strengthening solidarity activity with Cuba and blunting U.S. imperialism’s escalating campaign against the Cuban Revolution. Let us do all we can to ensure their success. Comradely yours, Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada ******* Communist Party of Canada 290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, Ontario Canada M4K 1N6 tel: 416-469-2446 fax: 416-469-4063 www.communist-party.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Attachment canada_conferencecall.pdf Type .pdf : Scanning recommended Scan With Norton Antivirus Save to my Yahoo! Briefcase Download File ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Attachment Cuba_Labor_Conference.doc Type .doc : Scanning recommended Scan With Norton Antivirus Save to my Yahoo! Briefcase Download File View Attachment ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Attachment Fidel___June_26_02_Speech.doc Type .doc : Scanning recommended Scan With Norton Antivirus Save to my Yahoo! Briefcase Download File View Attachment __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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