Cuba mobilizes in support of Palestine
Cuba mobilizes in support of Palestine
“We will not die; we will be reborn from the rubble”
Joined by the President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Cuban people mobilized on March 2 in a national popular concentration in support of Palestine. Thousands and thousands of Cubans filled the streets and plazas in all the provinces of the country.
The Cuban daily newspaper Granma reported that the mobilization was very different in tone from the annual celebration of International Workers’ Day on May 1, which always is characterized by happiness and jubilation. The mass concentration of March 2 was characterized by denunciations, condemnation, and sadness in the face of so many mortalities; of indignation before the impunity of Israeli bombardments, destruction, and killing; and of demands that the appropriate institutions—which thus far have been blind, deaf, and dumb before the genocide—enforce international law. The people of Cuba say to the criminal government of Israel, “Enough!”
In Havana, the concentration was held at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune, adjacent to the U.S. Embassy. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa also joined the mass concentration in Havana, as did the Ambassador of Palestine in Cuba, Akram Samhan.
In Santiago de Cuba, thousands of students, youth, women, and workers, led by local governmental authorities, marched from the Antonio Maceo Plaza of the Revolution to Abel Santamaría Park. In Las Tunas, the people arrived in the early morning hours at the Cultural Plaza of the city to denounce Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people.
In Granma, a solemn act was held in the historic Plaza of the National Anthem, presided by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the province as well as the governor. In Ciego de Avila, collective educational work was carried out prior to March 2 with school students, educating them with respect to the barbarous killing of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip. On March 2, thousands marched to the Máximo Gómez Báez Plaza, where calls were made for the implementation of the creation of an independent state of Palestine with the boundaries that were in place prior to the Six-Day War of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In Sancti Spíritus, thousands of children, youth, and adults of all ages participated in a gigantic march of solidarity with the cause of the Palestinian people, headed by the highest provincial authorities of the Party and the government. They condemned the massacre that Israel continues to commit against the humble and defenseless people of Palestine, and they demanded the end of the genocide.
In Holguín, thousands marched to repudiate the barbarity that is being committed in Gaza, led by the First Secretary of the Communist Party and the Governor of the province. In front of a great statue of Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, Wadee Moustafa Nakhla, a Palestinian doctor who resides in a medical center in the province, declared to the crowd that he knows that the Cuban people will always have solidarity with Palestine. Also addressing the demonstration was the singer Nadiel Mejías, who declared that he dreams permanently of the moment when Palestinian children will grow without fear of living under bombs and without the anxiety that they or their loved ones could lose their lives.
At the demonstration in Cienfuegos, a fifth-year Palestinian student of medicine, Yausef Abourd Rub, gave a detailed account of Israel's murderous military incursions against his civilian compatriots. He mentioned among the list of horrendous crimes the more than 30,000 innocent deaths since the genocide began, including around 15,000 children, plus 70,475 wounded. In addition, 31 hospitals and 53 health centers are out of service, and 126 ambulances have been destroyed.
The future Palestinian doctor declared that it is not a war, but a genocide, carried out by a racist and xenophobic superpower that does not think about all the collateral damage, only its hegemonic interests. Our struggle, he stressed, is for rights and human life. We have the capacity to rebuild what has been destroyed, and to continue to struggle until regaining what has been stolen from us, including the return of our original lands. He concluded, “We will not die; we will be reborn from the rubble.”
§
See Cuban President Díaz-Canel’s video on X (Twitter) (with English subtitles)
§
A free subscription option is available, with capacity to read, send, and share all posts. A paid subscription ($5 per month or $40 per year) enables you to make comments and to support the costs of the column; paid subscribers also receive a free PDF copy of my book on Cuba and the world-system. Ten percent of income generated through subscriptions to the column is donated to the Cuban Society for Philosophical Investigations.