Friends, siblings, and comrades in the struggle for human dignity and freedom. On behalf of the U.S. contingent of the May Day Brigade and the National Network on Cuba, we stand as representatives of a new world and the millions of people who support Cuba.
Yesterday the United States announced new sanctions on Cuba as part of their escalation policy to foster regional instability in Latin America and the Caribbean. The new order attacks the dignity of the Cuban people and questions the intelligence of the revolutionaries in the belly of the beast who knows the truth.
We know Cuba is not a terrorist nation. We know the people of Cuba are not separate from the government.
We know of Cuba’s support for the Palestinian resistance, the Iranian resistance. We know of their export of research, of doctors, of solutions for other friends of Cuba and countries represented here. Because of this, we as organizers know that we are Cuba. We ARE Fidel. We are Diaz-Canel. We too refuse to bend to the will of the ruling class, who trample on the rest of us and profit off of our struggle.
Our struggle is not the same as theirs. Our struggle is for the people. Our call is to increase our level of organization. We are committed to advancements in our infrastructure, to further our revolutionary media power, and to build the number of people required and necessary to have a deep and wide united front in the United States. We know the United States has been doing that. The daily attacks on the character of Diaz-Canel and Fidel and other Cuban officials of the Cuban revolution, the deployment of agents undermining the Cuban revolutionary process, is not new.
But what is new is that the people of the United States see and feel the empire crumbling from within. They know what their government is doing and they know what has to be done next. This is not our government. Not the people’s government.
The people sent over $750,000 in solidarity support for the revolutionary cause.
They say Cuba is a failed state, but this comes from the same place where nearly a million people are on the streets hungry, unhoused, uneducated. This comes from the same place where people are paying for and fighting in wars they don’t believe in and working two or three jobs for healthcare they can’t get. I know Cubans get healthcare. I know Cubans get education.
Who is the real failed state when basic human rights are stripped away in the U.S. and abroad, when children are shot in schools and beaten by police? They jail and threaten revolutionaries, immigrants, and educators who want to shift the material conditions of the people. They fund concurrent genocides and underdevelopment and refuse to develop their own people.
It is clear that the imperialists are running out of ideas and running out of time.
Their foolishness has created opportunities for all of us in the room, in the U.S., and all around the world.
In the words of Fidel Castro in 1966: “It is evident that the imperialists are fighting a hopeless fight. The imperialists are fighting a fight in which they are doomed to inevitable defeat, and as a result, they want to swap defeat for a false peace.” It is our duty and responsibility, it is our political mission and our charge to learn from the Cuban revolution.
We refuse to settle for a false peace when Bruno just reported that millions are impacted by the actions of the U.S. government. We refuse to compromise in the midst of orchestrated genocide. We refuse to be defeated. Just as they cannot blockade the sun, they will not blockade our solidarity, our hope, our promise, or our resolve. Cuba is already free, and now Cuba needs room to stretch beyond these conditions. We can make this happen together. Everybody in this room can make this happen together.
Let the imperialists hold on to their crumbs, for we the people will feast together. We vow to work alongside each other in the U.S., across borders and political lines, to get our people free and to follow the sovereign Cuban model of revolutionary struggle. We vow to raise their political consciousness and make sure they call and work for no war on Cuba. No war on Cuba. No war on Cuba. Take Cuba off the list of U.S. state sponsors of terrorism, give all Cuban land back to the Cuban people, and see the U.S. illegal and inhumane blockade and new sanctions lifted.
Like Cuba, we will export solidarity. Like Cuba, we will create solutions. Por Cuba, juntos creamos.
No matter what Donald Trump says, what Marco Rubio says, we don’t care. If they blockade economically, technologically, culturally, socially, we know as revolutionaries that every contradiction must be resolved. We know that every problem has a solution. We will fight until we win, and we will fight until we find it.
Viva la solidaridad internacional.
Viva las trabajadores del mundo.
Viva la revolución cubana.