The following statement was issued following the April 2011 Cuban Com munist Party
Congress and so is over a year old. Nevertheless, the sentiments expressed should be
supported, whilst we have no illusions in the possibility of censors or policemen changing
their minds, as might be implied in the statement. Even today there is still illusion, and
even among some libertarians, in the Cuban regime. Thus whilst the International
Solidarity Commission of the Industrial Workers of the World signed the statement, an
article appeared in the July 2011 issue of the IWW paper Industrial Worker denouncing the
statement and the attempt to set up an IWW branch in Cuba, defending
the regime and calling on the IWW to support the creation of workers? states!!
Statement of international
solidarity with those in Cuba
The Communist Party of Cuba's VI
Congress has just closed with an en-
dorsement of the liberal reforms (?to
each according to his labors?) prom-
ised in the realm of the economy:
but along with these come cuts in
social services and an increased pres-
ence for military and for technocrats
in the machinery of government,
with a reduction in the presence of
intellectuals and workers.
In terms of rhetoric and deeds alike,
efficiency, control and discipline re-
place equality, solidarity and partner-
ship. Against this backdrop we have
indications of a crackdown in the
cultural realm, heralding yet another
set-back to Cubans' exercise of their
fundamental freedoms. Performing
artists find their names blackened
by cultural officials-turned-censors
engaged in frantic campaigns, the
length and breadth of the country
peddling false rumors and spurious
accusations.
A prestigious Cultural Theory Center
finds its facilities and equipment
being sabotaged again by ?thieves?
who forget to take anything and
whom the authorities cannot seem
to identify and punish. Poets and
community activists are visited
by police personnel who threaten
to haul them before the courts as
?counter-revolutionaries? and to
leave them to the mercy of the ?peo-
ple's wrath?, thereby demonstrating
that said wrath is not ?of the people?
nor independent of the powers that
be who direct it.
Damage to social property, defama-
tion and physical and psychological
bullying (and violence) are not only
offenses punishable under legal
codes the world over ? Cuba includ-
ed ? they are also considered acts
of State Terrorism. For decades, the
Cuban people gave their best efforts
to their children and to the world
in order to build up a fairer country
with universal and high quality cul-
ture, health and education despite
the irrational and begrudging bu-
reaucracy that always depicted the
people's gains as its own creations.
Are the repressiveness and lying of
such ?apprentice Stalins? to go down
in History as the features by which
the Cuban process is to be remem-
bered, rather than the day to day
heroism of the Cuban people? This is
not justice.
But if we are to ensure that this is
not the case, then, from below and
from the left, we must banish the
silence and the self-censorship that
underpin the impunity of the cen-
sors, that we should never open our-
selves up to the charge that we are
allegedly ?playing into the enemy's
hands.? The people who today are
finding their integrity and their jobs
threatened by these actions of the
Cuban authorities are deserving of
our utter respect, for we have seen
them at close quarters in a range of
different times and circumstances.
They are not, as the official propa-
ganda line has it, hirelings of the
CIA, as they just about subsist on
the same dismal income as the vast
majority of the Cuban people. When
they go on trips, they spend their
meager savings on publicizing their
humanistic creations and on the
purchase of the materials they need
in order to carry on with their efforts
on behalf of a more cultivated coun-
try with greater freedom. Whatever
help they get from us (in the shape
of some DVD, art equipment or the
proceeds of some modest fund-
raiser) represents solidarity from us
male and female workers, artists and
students who, in our own countries,
resist the neo-liberal, authoritarian
policies of the capitalists and their
gendarmes in Seattle, Mexico City,
Paris, Caracas, San Francisco and
Buenos Aires.
What a contrast between our com-
rades and the bureaucrats comfort-
ably traveling the world in Solidarity
Drives, paid for with the Cuban peo-
ple's money, bureaucrats who defect
to Miami at the earliest opportunity
and parade their repentance on TV
as ?freedom fighters?! What a con-
trast with certain ?friends of Cuba?
intellectuals who, naively or for hire,
mistake the ideals of the Revolution
for the policies of the Cuban state
and deny to our Cuban comrades the
very rights that they demand (and in-
deed, sometimes, enjoy) under their
own bourgeois democratic regimes!
The difference in quality, in terms
of handiwork and spirit, from those
?licensed reformists? who are ready
to treat every wheel and turn of the
Cuban regime with a fresh coat of
theoretical gloss and to indulge in
abstract (pseudo) critiques, as long
as this suits the powers that be.
Our Cuban comrades' only sin is that
they have the effrontery to con-
template (and change) their reality
without waiting for promises from
the Nanny State or Capital's siren
songs. They believe in a fuller life, in
a community where the unhindered
growth of each is the precondition
and measure of the unhindered
growth of all. Dialogue with and les-
sons learned from our other worldly
struggles, from piqueteros and from
zapatistas have broadened their
horizons and also allowed us to learn
from their historical record of mis-
takes and popular resistance. They
represent the liveliest, most splendid
bequest of the Cuban Revolution
which refuses to perish despite the
canker of bureaucracy. They are (in
body and soul) young marxists, anar-
chists, libertarian socialists, followers
of Marti, humanists, feminists, ecolo-
gists, communitarians but, above
and beyond any such labels and de-
scriptions, they are decent folk who
have risked their lives in the service
of others. For which reason we shall
not not allow them to stand alone.
We know that the forces of domina-
tion are mighty, that they control the
billy-clubs and cyberspace, punish-
ment and reward, the intimidated
and the paid retainers. But we pos-
sess the sense of shame and hope
against which ? as popular anti-im-
perialist rebellions around the globe
can testify ? despotic power cannot
stand. Hopefully there may, in the
minds of the censor and the police-
man, be some lingering memory of
the original commitment given to
the Cuban people that hoisted them
into power: but, if not, we are ready
to launch the mightiest solidarity
campaign using every resource avail-
able to the law and to progressive
public opinion worldwide.
_______________________________________________________________
We know our enemies are on the alert : but let them have no
doubt of this: SO ARE WE.
Signatures of supporting groups:
?
Confederation National du Travail - C.N.T. Le Havre (France)
?
Internationaler Arbeitkreis e.V. (Germany)
?
iz3w ? informationszentrum 3. welt, Freiburg i. Br (Germa-
ny)
?
Colectivo Editor de El Libertario (Venezuela)
?
GALSIC ? Grupo de Apoyo a los Libertarios y Sindicalistas
Independientes en Cuba (France)
?
Federation Anarchiste ? FA (France)
?
Le libertaire (newspaper, France)
?
Colectivo Actores Sociales (Mexico)
?
Colectivo Passapalavra (Brasil)
?
Movimiento Libertario Cubano
?
Frente Anarquista Organizado (Chile)
?
Colectivo Feminista Josefa Camejo (Venezuela)
?
Equipo Editorial de Insurrectasypunto (Argentina)
?
Biblioteca Popular Libertaria "Mauro Mejiaz" (Venezuela)
?
Secci?n sindical de la Confederaci? General del Treball (CGT)
de la Universidad de Barcelona
?
Secretar?a de Relaciones Exteriores de la Federaci?n Anar-
quista Uruguaya
?
AK Internationalismus der IG Metall Berlin (section interna-
tionaliste du syndicat, Berlin) ? Germany
?
Asemblea Libertaria del Vall?s Oriental ? Catalonia
?
Ateneo Arte y Cultura de l?Escale de l?Alt Empord? ? Catalo-
nia
?
El Bloque Anarquista ? F.L.L. ? Mexico
?
Colectivo A les Trinxeres ? Catalonia
?
Coordinaci?n anarquista de Le Havre ? France
?
Forschungs- und Dokumentationszentrum Chile-Latein-
amerika e.V. ?Germany
?
Red libertaria Apoyo mutuo ? Spain
?
FALCLC (Federaci? Anarquista ? Comunista llibert?ria Cata-
lana) ? Catalonia
Bron : a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
