| Cuba solidarity campaigns unite! - May 19 |
Saturday 19 May 2007, members of several organisations: Rock Around the Blockade set up by the Revolutionary Communist Group, North London Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Communist League and the Young Socialists, held a joint solidarity event to call for the immediate release of the 5 Cuban heroes. The protest was held in Trafalgar Square, in the centre of London, where protesters held up placards demanding the release of the Five, an end to the illegal US blockade of Cuba and incarceration for infamous terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Many passers by, including tourists from around the globe, stopped to listen to speeches and slogans and took leaflets about the case of the Five and the example of the Cuban Revolution.
The demonstration of over 60 people concluded with a march to 10 Downing Street, home of the British Prime Minister, where members handed in a letter demanding that the British government intervene in the case of the Cuban Five and end its complicity with US attacks on the Cuban Revolution. Prime Minister Blair was not there to receive the letter – as he was in Iraq, where Britain has shown its true imperialist colours as junior partner to the fascist Bush administration responsible for a barbaric invasion.
The British government and the media censor the Cuban Revolution, because they fear that if the British public learns the truth about the island's achievements, they will support and emulate Cuba’s revolutionary process. Most of the population is sickened by the prospect of perpetual, imperialist war and by British involvement in the indefinite imprisonment in inhumane and brutal conditions of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and of torture in prisons in Iraq. Learning about the example of Cuba, an alternative society, could impel them to join a movement for revolutionary change.
Luis Posada Carriles may have escaped justice for now, but he will continue to symbolise the total hypocrisy of the US government. Communists and other activists here in Britain will continue to demand the immediate release of the Cuban Five. 14 activists from Rock around the Blockade recently returned from the international conference in Havana organised by the UJC and attended by 500 people from 49 countries to demand justice for the Cuban heroes. Rock around the Blockade. |
| Free the Cuban Five! Close Guantanamo Base! Day of action in Britain - Apr 7 |
Activists from the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) and Rock around the Blockade (RATB), which campaigns in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, took to the streets across Britain on Saturday 7th April, to demand freedom for the Cuban Five and an end to US occupation of Guantanamo Bay. The protests were among several activities organised by RCG/RATB during three months of international action called by the Union of Young Communists in Cuba, to demand the release of the five heroes. Today’s events were timed to coincide with demonstrations in New York and Los Angeles called by the April 7th Coalition in the United States.
Lively actions were help in busy city centres in Glasgow in Scotland, in Newcastle and Manchester in the north of England and in London, the capital city. The Cuban flag, a symbol of anti-imperialist resistance, flew proudly across the country, while thousands of leaflets were distributed informing the British public and tourists from all over the world about the international campaign to free the Cuban Five and about the achievements of Cuban socialism. Hundreds of signatures were collected on petitions, illustrating the significant support for Cuba, even here in the belly of the imperialist beast. Using loud-speakers (megaphones) to inform the public, activists condemned the US blockade of Cuba, Britain’s complicity in US imperialist aggression and explained how Cuban socialism demonstrates that ‘another world is possible’, a world based on people not profit.
In London and Newcastle we used street theatre to expose the hypocrisy of the US’s war on terrorism and plans for transition to a ‘free’ Cuba. Activists dressed in orange suits, with black hoods and chains to symbolise the brutal conditions for prisoners incarcerated by the US military in its concentration camp in illegally occupied Cuban territory in Guantanamo Bay. We pointed out that this was the ‘democracy’ which the Plan Bush dreamed of imposing on the Cuban people and that the decision to build Camp X-ray in Guantanamo was an insult to the socialist revolution in Cuba, a society which placed humanity and consciousness at the centre of development. The case of the Cuban Five and the US barbarity in Guantanamo illustrate the shameless hypocrisy of the US and Britain’s claim to be fighting a ‘war on terrorism’ and to represent the forces of freedom and civilisation.
In reality, Cuban socialism and the growing revolutionary movement sweeping Latin American, particularly in Venezuela and Bolivia are the real forces of progress for humanity. These countries have shown the benefits of cooperation in trade and development through ALBA – a powerful and democratic alterative to years of neo-liberal policies which have plundered the continent and plunged millions into poverty. Socialism is the only solution to salve humanity and the planet.
In Manchester the protest had an added attraction – the public had the chance to show their disgust with the Labour government by throwing wet sponges at one activist dressed as Tony Blair, giving him a good soaking in the process!
During the demonstrations, we raised funds for our campaign work in support of Cuba and for the solidarity brigade which we are sending to Cuba on 21st April, to work with the UJC in Caimito before taking part in the international conference to demand freedom for the five in Havana on 29-30 April. RCG/RATB will be donating over $5,000 to buy materials for a pioneers’ camp in Havana province. This is the tenth such brigade we have sent to Cuba in the 12 years since the solidarity group was founded.
Free the Cuban Five!
Close Guantanamo!
End the Blockade!
Viva Cuba!
Viva Fidel!
www.ratb.org.uk |
| RATB fundraiser - Mar 25 - go to the Rock Around The Blockade website! |
First of all thanks to all the people who came down! Thanks to all the acts for giving it their all! And thanks to RATB for putting it all together. A smashing evening!
Here are the pictures from the night @ 'Pleasure Unit':
"The ZongZing Allstars",
"DeadPlants" and
"MC Drop Dread Fred"
 |
WHO WE ARE
Rock around the Blockade was founded in 1995 by the Revolutionary Communist Group and supporters of the newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and is open to anyone who supports Cuba's socialist revolution.
Global Capitalism - dead end for humanity
We live in a world of unprecedented wealth and technological progress and a world of unprecedented poverty and oppression. Twenty million people every year die of malnutrition amid mountains of surplus food. A third of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water. A trillion dollars a year is spent on arms when just a quarter of that would ensure food, shelter, health and education for everyone in the world. The consumerism that suffocates us is portrayed as a triumph of civilisation by the capitalist media, while the very survival of humanity is threatened by the environmental destruction it generates.
These contradictions are not the result of poor decision making, corruption, bad luck or divine intervention. They are consequences of the economic system that dominates the world - imperialism - the super-exploitation of the world by a handful of rich capitalist countries. If the world is to change for the better, imperialism must be defeated and replaced by the only alternative - socialism.
Socialist Cuba - a beacon of hope
For over 40 years Cuba has defied imperialism. The Cuban people have withstood invasion, sabotage, terrorism, biological warfare and a sustained economic blockade at the hands of the world's most powerful economic and military power, the United States. They have given unyielding support to other poor countries. They have built socialist Cuba, a beacon of hope for poor and oppressed people throughout the world.
From the poverty and destitution that characterised pre-revolutionary Cuba, the socialist revolution can boast today:
- Infant mortality rate of 6.4 per thousand and life expectancy 75 years - better than in many parts of Britain
- A health service second to none with a doctor : patient ratio of 1:195, the best in the world! In Britain it is 1:518
- Free education available to all - within ten years the average educational standard for Cubans will be graduate level
- Institutionalised racism and other forms of discrimination have been eradicated
- Women are supported by a national system of day centres for children - divorce, abortion and contraception are available as rights
- Every Cuban can be sure of support from their community - despite the hardships of the 'Special Period', not a single school, hospital or old people's home has been closed since 1990
Throughout Latin America and Africa, thousands of Cuban doctors and nurses are helping to save lives and provide medical services. A school of medicine has been opened in Havana to provide free training to students from these countries and poor students from the United States. Cuba has offered the personnel and expertise to control the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Revolutionary Cuba shows us that it is possible to solve the problems created by capitalism; that it is possible to provide everyone in the world with the essentials for a dignified life even with limited material resources.
Britain needs socialism!
In Britain one third of our children live in poverty. Workers are forced into low-paid, insecure jobs. Thousands of pensioners without heating die every winter. The working class gets third rate health care and education, or none at all. Immigrants escaping economic and political persecution are criminalised. Racists and police attack black and Asian people every day.
In the last 40 years Cuba has revolutionised the lives and prospects of the Cuban people. Imagine the sort of society we could build in Britain with the technical advantages available now, if only we organised society on a socialist basis like the Cubans.
WHAT WE DO
RATB sees the struggle to defend the Cuban Revolution as part of our struggle to build socialism in Britain, not as a non-political humanitarian issue that has no lessons for our own country. We take the example of the Cuban Revolution onto the streets. We hold demonstrations, run street stalls, organise meetings, gigs and club nights to raise funds for Cuba. We provide a voice for Cuba through the pages of the newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and our own Viva Cuba newsletter and we keep Cuban youth informed about life in Britain through the pages of Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the Cuban Union of Young Communists (UJC).
In 1995 the UJC, which organises one in seven young Cubans, asked us to donate sound sound systems and disco equipment to provide entertainment for Cuban youth. At that time the British government had introduced the Criminal Justice Act which penalised young people and criminalised rave music. The contradiction was clear. Our capitalist government was threatened by youth culture and street parties. In Cuba they believed that young people needed 'soul food' to improve their quality of life.
So far RATB has taken four sound systems to Cuba. During the trip, people on the 'brigade' lived and worked among Cuban people, learning about how Cuban society is organised in the interests of people and not profit.
Boycott Bacardi!
In August 1999, RATB launched the Boycott Bacardi Campaign by closing down the corporation's British headquarters for a day. Bacardi backs the US blockade of Cuba and funds the right-wing Miami mafia which has committed repeated acts of terrorism against Cuba. The Boycott Bacardi Campaign is being picked up and duplicated throughout the world.
Get in contact, get involved and get active!
Rock around the Blockade c/o FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX.
Tel: 020 7837 1688 or e-mail: office@ratb.org.uk |
|
