http://themilitant.com/2017/8105/810505.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 5 February 6, 2017
(front page)
Fidel Castro, Cuba’s revolution celebrated at Washington forum
Le Canal Nabo News
Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas, with microphone, and Gnaka Lagoke,
far right, of the Revival of Panafricanism Forum, at Jan. 7 meeting in
Washington, D.C., to celebrate political life and leadership of Fidel
Castro and internationalism of Cuban Revolution.
BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
WASHINGTON — Some 200 people gathered here Jan. 7 for a meeting to pay
tribute to the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro
Ruz, who died Nov. 25. Titled “Cuba, Africa and the World: A Tribute to
Fidel Castro,” speakers discussed Castro’s decisive political leadership
at all the crucial turning points in the Cuban Revolution and his
unbroken proletarian internationalism.
“Thank you for talking about Fidel’s life with happiness, and without a
sentiment of loss,” said José Ramón Cabañas, Cuban ambassador to the
United States. “Many U.S. workers respect Fidel.”
Fidel’s enemies have been wondering about the ‘post-Castro Cuba’ for
years, Cabañas said. Describing how Cuban workers and youth, in their
millions, reaffirmed their commitment to Cuba’s socialist revolution and
its values, he continued, “They know they have something to contribute —
that is how Fidel educated us. For many years, he told us, if at some
point you are isolated, anywhere in the world, you will be your own
comandante. You will know what to do, and how to do it. You will also
know that our revolution will never forget you. Fidel said the Cuban
Five would return, and we won their freedom.”
Miguel Fraga, first secretary of the Cuban Embassy, accompanied Cabañas
and was introduced at the meeting.
Other speakers included Gnaka Lagoke, founder of Revival of
Panafricanism Forum, who chaired; José Pertierra, a Cuban-American
attorney who represented Juan Miguel González, father of Elián González;
Dr. Piero Gleijeses, professor at John Hopkins University and author of
Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976;
Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party and president
of Pathfinder Press; Heather Benno, ANSWER Coalition and Party of
Socialism and Liberation; Jennifer Bryant, an organizer for the
Venceremos Brigade; and Netfa Freeman, International Committee for
Peace, Justice and Dignity, Pan African Community Action, and Institute
for Policy Studies. Carlos Ron, consul at the Venezuelan Embassy, gave
greetings.
“In the years to come, we will need more meetings about the Cuban
Revolution in more countries, especially in Africa,” said Lagoke, who
has organized annual meetings to discuss Africa and the Cuban Revolution.
People came from the Washington, D.C., area, Philadelphia, New York, and
as far away as Chicago.
The internationalist solidarity that binds revolutionary Cuba and Africa
was a central theme of the meeting. “Fidel is our link to Africa. For us
in Cuba, Africa is not something else, we are Africans, ” Cabañas said
to applause.
“Fidel was a Pan Africanist of the highest order and Cuba’s solidarity
and footprint in the Pan African movement goes all the way back to the
’60s,” said Netfa Freeman. During Algeria’s war for independence against
French colonialism, the revolutionary leadership in Cuba sent ships to
take weapons to the Algerian National Liberation Front and bring war
orphans and wounded children to the island for treatment and education,
just two years after their own revolutionary victory, he said.
José Pertierra recounted how during a Christmas day lunch at Fidel’s
home in 2010, Fidel got on the phone with volunteer Cuban doctors
combatting a cholera epidemic in Haiti. “He talked to them like a
general who was moving troops from one place to another giving them
courage and enthusiasm,” he said.
A number of speakers described the decisive role of some 425,000 Cuban
internationalists battling alongside Angolan and Namibian forces in a
hard-fought war for freedom against South African apartheid invaders and
their backers in Washington. The struggle began in 1975 as Angola won
independence from Portugal and lasted for sixteen years.
“Cuba’s example was unprecedented. They were not guided by narrow
self-interest, but by Castro’s sense of revolutionary mission. His
internationalism trumped everything else,” Piero Gleijeses said. Fidel
called the fight to defeat apartheid “the most beautiful cause of
humanity.”
In face of growing U.S. military threats in the 1980s, Cuba refused to
pull back or withdraw from Angola, he said, even when it meant rejecting
the course of the leaders of the Soviet Union, who were focused on
achieving detente with Washington. “When President Jimmy Carter offered
to re-establish relations with Cuba if Cuba would withdraw from Angola,
Cuba said no,” Gleijeses said. “The wave of the Cuban victory in Angola
washed over the region.”
Fidel belongs to Cuba, the world
“Fidel belongs first and foremost to the men and women of Cuba. But he
also belongs to the working people of the world,” SWP leader Mary-Alice
Waters said. “He demonstrated in action what proletarian
internationalism means, and how and why it is inseparable from the
socialist revolution in Cuba and the strengthening of that revolution.
It was Fidel’s historical understanding that the struggle in southern
Africa would last until apartheid was defeated, and only its defeat
would guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Angola, Waters
explained. “Fidel was one of the great military commanders of the
toilers of the world. He understood that military leadership of the
working class in revolutionary struggle begins with political
leadership. That above all is decisive,” said Waters.
“There were two great socialist revolutions of the 20th century — the
Russian and the Cuban,” Waters said. “Neither was the product of any one
individual — they grew out of the conditions created by capitalism
itself. But without the presence and political leadership of Lenin and
Fidel, in those revolutions at decisive moments and turning points, the
odds that either one of them would have triumphed are small.”
“There are times when the role of an individual in history is decisive.
Fidel’s ability to lead the other leaders at key turning points was
crucial,” she said. “Without Lenin and Fidel, the history of the 20th
century and 21st century would be hard to imagine. It’s why those two
giants tower above all others and why we think of them together. They
knew that only by eradicating capitalist relations could a new order be
built.”
Two different courses were presented at the meeting on how to defend
revolutionary Cuba today. Some speakers argued that “stopping” new U.S.
President Donald Trump is paramount.
The Trump agenda is to smash labor unions, abolish environmental
regulations, carry out mass deportations and unleash massive attacks on
women’s rights, Heather Benno argued. “His goal is to return the United
States to the most unrestrained form of capitalist rule — with no
protections for oppressed sectors,” she said. “Protesting Trump is the
heart and soul of El Comandante’s legacy.”
She urged participants to join in a Jan. 20 protest organized by the
ANSWER Coalition seeking to disrupt Trump’s inauguration.
“We’re not only protesting Trump, we’re protesting the system that
allowed Trump to be elected to head the largest imperialist
war-mongering country in the world,” Jennifer Bryant said.
“Our responsibility here is to keep our fire on the U.S. government,”
Waters countered, in response to a question during the discussion that
ensued. “Whether the president is Trump or Clinton or Obama or another
capitalist politician, the propertied families who dictate Washington’s
foreign policy have worked consistently for decades to destroy the
revolution, regardless of tactical shifts or which capitalist party held
the presidency. We need to build a movement to demand that the U.S.
return Guantánamo now, right now, end their economic embargo and end
their subversive ‘regime change’ programs.
“The U.S. rulers fear the example of Cuba’s socialist revolution, and
for the first time in decades they have begun to fear the U.S. working
class,” she said. “Workers here have the same capacities to transform
ourselves and we’re capable of taking power and transforming society.”
During the far-reaching hourlong discussion, speaker after speaker
pointed to examples of Cuba’s internationalism, from aid to Venezuela in
its efforts to resist Washington’s attacks to its response to the 2014
Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The back and forth continued informally
over a delicious West African dinner.
Participants picked up 13 copies of Cuba and Angola: The War for
Freedom, Pathfinder’s newly released firsthand account of the Cuban
internationalist mission in Angola, by Harry Villegas, a brigadier
general of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) who served as Fidel
Castro’s direct liaison to Cuban forces there.
“The whole meeting was eye-opening and inspiring, including the books,”
Bryan Carrigan, a warehouse worker and Teamster, told the Militant. “I
didn’t know Cuba had helped in Africa, like in Angola, and stayed for
the long haul.”
Related articles:
‘Washington never accepted the Cuban Revolution’
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