Organizaciones sindicales advirtieron hoy al gobernador Pedro Pierluisi y a la Junta de Control Fiscal que paralizarán el país si no se cancela el contrato de LUMA Energy que aumenta las tarifas, permite al consorcio irse de Puerto Rico si azota un huracán y que desplaza a miles de trabajadores.

“Le estamos advirtiendo al abogado de la Junta de Control Fiscal, Pedro Pierluisi, que no habrá paz en Puerto Rico si no se deroga el contrato y se escucha a un pueblo que exige, no solo una AEE pública y más eficaz sino, también libre de combustibles fósiles. En estos momentos existe el ambiente para paralizar el país y si el gobernador sigue sin escuchar al pueblo, eso haremos. Ya hemos sostenido varias reuniones para coordinar logística y fechas y esta semana nos volveremos a reunir para ultimar detalles, tengan por sentado que este verano será uno muy parecido al del 2019”, Carlos Rodríguez, coordinador del Frente Amplio de Camioneros.

“Hoy, le decimos a LUMA que ni se preocupen por acomodarse en nuestro país porque no les vamos a dejar tranquilos hasta que se larguen de Puerto Rico. Y a los trabajadores que pretendan traer de afuera que sepan que si cruzan la línea de piquete se encontrarán con un pueblo dispuesto a defender su soberanía energética y su acceso al agua. ¡Sin agua y luz no hay vida! En los próximos días no solo estaremos en los portones junto con nuestros compañeras y compañeros de lucha para evitar la entrada de los parásitos de LUMA, sino que seguiremos convocando actividades que desembocarán en un Paro Nacional si el intransigente de Pierluisi no detiene el contrato. La bola está en su cancha”, subrayó, María del Mar Rosa, coordinadora organizacional APPU.

Los portavoces de insistieron en que el Gobernador quiere despojar al pueblo de Puerto Rico de su principal recurso de desarrollo económico, la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE), para entregarla gratuitamente y sin garantía alguna para el país a LUMA Energy y que no lo permitirán.

“No vamos a permitir que nos arrebaten nuestra primera industria y más sabiendo que el pueblo será quien pague las consecuencias. A esto hay que añadirle también la forma humillante y abusiva como han tratado a los trabajadores y trabajadoras de esa corporación, despojándolos de sus plazas y derechos y hasta de la posibilidad de atender las necesidades de servicio de los ciudadanos. De igual manera expresamos nuestro total e incondicional solidaridad a la Alianza de Empleados Activos y Jubilados de la que han sido atropellados, abusados, humillados y burlados por el Gobierno de Pedro Pierluisi y la dictadura que gobierna el País”, añadió.

El grupo reiteró su apoyo y solidaridad a los empleados de la AEE que han sido traslados a quienes pidieron calma.

“Esto será algo temporero, hemos vivido tiempos muy difíciles, pero también hemos demostrado que la lucha del pueblo de Puerto Rico es nuestra herramienta más efectiva, si como el pueblo sacó a un gobernador, puede tener la voluntad de sacar a todos los buitres que invaden nuestro país. Desde aquí les reiteramos nuestro apoyo, solidaridad y compromiso de que LUMA tiene los días contados”, puntualizó Antonio Cabán, presidente de la Federación Central de Trabajadores, Local 481/UFCW.

Los líderes sindicales insistieron en que lucharán junto a la Alianza de Empleados Activos y el pueblo para sacar a LUMA Energy del país.

“No tengan la menor duda los llamados gobernantes de que tendrán una efectiva respuesta del pueblo trabajador. No estamos, ni vamos a quedarnos cruzados de brazos. Ustedes, arbitrariamente, le han cerrado las puertas al diálogo, ustedes le han cerrado las puertas a la búsqueda de soluciones equitativas en los tribunales de justicia, ustedes han legislado para menoscabar nuestros derechos, ustedes han hecho todo lo que han podido para garantizar su dominio. Ahora aténganse a las consecuencias. Ustedes tiraron la raya en el piso. Nosotros sabemos cómo cruzarla”, sentenció Lizbeth Mercado, presidenta la Unión de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado.

Las organizaciones que suscriben son las siguientes Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), UNETE, Central Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, Movimiento Solidario Sindical, Federación Central de Trabajadores Local 481/UFCW, Prosol-UTIER, Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios, Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras, EDUCAMOS, Frente Amplio de Camioneros, Hermandad de Empleados Exentos no Docentes (Heend), Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, UIASAL, UITA, Unión de Empleados de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado, UASAL, UAASL, USW y HEOAMA.

https://www.facebook.com/PrimerodeMayoPR/videos/314846860121702/

June 1 — Union organizations today warned Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and the Financial Oversight and Management Board that they will paralyze the country if the LUMA Energy contract that increases rates, allows the consortium to leave Puerto Rico if a hurricane strikes, and displaces thousands of workers, is not canceled.

“We are warning the attorney for the Financial Oversight and Management Board, Pedro Pierluisi, that there will be no peace in Puerto Rico if the contract is not repealed and they listen to the people who demand, not only a public and more efficient Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), but also one free of fossil fuels. 

“Right now there is a favorable atmosphere for paralyzing the country and if the governor continues to ignore the people, we will do so. We have already held several meetings to coordinate logistics and dates, and this week we will meet again to finalize details. Make no mistake, this summer will be one very similar to that of 2019,” said Carlos Rodríguez, coordinator of the Frente Amplio de Camioneros (Broad Front of Truckers).

“Today, we tell LUMA not to bother settling in our country since we will not leave them alone until they leave Puerto Rico. And the workers who they intend to bring in from abroad should know that if they cross the picket line, they will face a people willing to defend their energy sovereignty and their access to water. There is no life without water and electricity! 

“In the next few days we will not only be in front of the gates together with our comrades in struggle to prevent the entry of the LUMA parasites, but we will continue calling for activities that will lead to a National Strike if the intransigent Pierluisi does not stop the contract. The ball is in their court,” stressed María del Mar Rosa, organizational coordinator of the Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios (Puerto Rican University Professors Association).

The spokespersons insisted that the governor wants to deprive the people of Puerto Rico of their main resource for economic development, the Electric Power Authority, to give it up to LUMA Energy for nothing and without any guarantee for the country, and they will not allow it.

“We are not going to allow our main industry to be taken from us and even more so, knowing that the people will be the ones who will pay the consequences. To this must also be added the humiliating and abusive way in which they have treated the workers of the corporation, stripping them of their positions and rights and even the possibility of attending to the service needs of citizens. 

“In the same way, we express our total and unconditional solidarity to the Alliance of Active Employees and Retirees, who have been bulldozed, abused, humiliated, and belittled by the government of Pedro Pierluisi and the dictatorship that governs the country,” she added.

The group reiterated its support and solidarity with the PREPA employees who have been transferred, to whom they advised to keep their calm.

“This will be something temporary. We have lived through very difficult times, but we have also shown that the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico is our most effective tool; if the people removed a governor, they may have the will to remove all the vultures that invade our country. 

“We reiterate our support, solidarity and the commitment to make sure that LUMA’s days are numbered,” stated Antonio Cabán, president of the Federación Central de Trabajadores (Central Federation of Workers), Local 481/UFCW.

Union leaders maintained that they will fight alongside the Active Employees Alliance and the people to oust LUMA Energy from the country.

“The so-called rulers should have no doubt that they will have an effective response from the working people. We are not sitting by, nor are we going to do so. 

“You, arbitrarily, have closed the doors to dialogue, you have closed the doors to the search for equitable solutions in the courts of justice, you have legislated to undermine our rights, you have done everything you can to guarantee their domination. Now, face the consequences. You drew the line. We know how to cross it,” said Lizbeth Mercado, president of the Unión de Empleados de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (Union of the State Insurance Fund Corporation).

Signing organizations: Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), UNETE, Central Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, Movimiento Solidario Sindical, Federación Central de Trabajadores Local 481/UFCW, Prosol-UTIER, Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios, Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras, EDUCAMOS, Frente Amplio de Camioneros, Hermandad de Empleados Exentos no Docentes (Heend), Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, UIASAL, UITA, Unión de Empleados de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado, UASAL, UAASL, USW and HEOAMA.

https://www.facebook.com/PrimerodeMayoPR/videos/314846860121702/

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Palestine’s largest socialist movement, held a large rally in Gaza City on Wednesday, June 2.

The rally was held under the banner of celebrating the victory of the Resistance in the latest Israeli war on the besieged Strip, which started on May 10 and lasted for 11 days.

The rally was also motivated by another objective, asserting the centrality of the socialist movement in Palestinian resistance and political discourse.

Thousands of Palestinians, mostly PFLP supporters, turned out to the massive rally, where hundreds of men and women fighters marched in the Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City.

“From the top of the ruins of our homes, leveled to the ground by our enemy to break the will of our people and our Resistance, we insist that Palestine is one and that we do not accept compromises, backdoor dealings or divisions,” Jamil Muzher, a top PFLP official in Gaza, said.

“We bring to you greetings from the Secretary-General (of the PFLP) Ahmad Sa’adat to the Arab and Palestinian people and to the free people of the world as we celebrate the victory of our people everywhere,” Muzher said in reference to the imprisoned leader of the PFLP. Sa’adat has been a prisoner in Israel since 2002.

Muzher also commended the “tough resisters” of the PFLP’s armed wing, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, along with the armed wings of all Palestinian political groups, including Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and other movements.

“Our people have fought for over 73 years and resisted in every possible form including popular and armed resistance,” Muzher said, vowing to continue on the same path.

The rally, which was joined by the Palestine Chronicle correspondent in the Gaza Strip, featured men and women fighters, Che Guevara banners, and posters of Palestinian prisoners from the socialist movement.

The rally is considered the largest of its kind in Gaza in many years.

Below, is a selection of exclusive photos from the PFLP rally. For the full gallery, visit the Palestine Chronicle page on Facebook.

All Photos: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle

#BlockTheBoat NY-NJ Update:

This weekend we are taking the struggle to #DefendPalestine to the Port of New York and New Jersey as part of AROC: Arab Resource & Organizing Center’s International Week of Action to #BlockTheBoat. Be prepared to mobilize against apartheid israel’s largest shipping company ZIM this Sunday, June 6th at the Maher terminal in Elizabeth, NJ. (1210 Corbin Street Elizabeth, NJ 07201)

If you haven’t signed up for text updates yet, text your name to 833-320-1973 for the latest information about the #BlockTheBoat mobilization here in NY/NJ.

Please arrive by 6:30am for a lively picket line. Exact time will depend on when the ship docks. Bring signs, your voices, comfy shoes, water & snacks. For public transit, go to Newark Penn Station and grab ride share from there. If driving park near Newark International Airport and grab ride share as well.

For more details and to find out how your organization can endorse the campaign, visit bit.ly/3ic9rfr

Updates/changes will be sent via text alerts.

#BlockTheBoat #BlockTheBoatNYC #BlockTheBoatNJ #NYC #NewYork #NewJersey #Oakland #Palestine #DefendPalestine #FreePalestine #WithinOurLifetime

May 31 — Members of the December 12th Movement held a news conference today in front of the German mission to the United Nations in New York City to demand reparations for Namibia.

“From 1904 to 1908, the German colonial army murdered 75,000 of the Herrero and Nama inhabitants of what is present-day Namibia in South West Africa,” declared Roger Wareham, a member of the D12 International Secretariat.

“Last week, after over a century of denial, Germany formally admited its genocide,” said Wareham. “We are here today, as Malcolm X often said, to ‘make it plain.’ Germany must pay reparations.”

The people of Namibia fought for decades to win independence from the apartheid regime then existing in South Africa. The South West African People’s Organization — now known as the SWAPO Party — led this heroic armed struggle.

The late Pan-African teacher and organizer Elombe Brath, a co-founder of the December 12th Movement, worked closely with SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma.

While South Africa took over Namibia following World War I, the German colonists remained. Some white shopkeepers in Namibia’s capital of Windhoek would close their stores on April 20, Hitler’s birthday.

One of the German colonial governors of Namibia was Heinrich Göring, whose son Hermann Göring was the No. 2 Nazi and the No. 1 war criminal at the Nuremberg trials.

Roger Wareham, who as a lawyer has initiated several suits for reparations, pointed out the connection: “We also must note that the genocide which the Germans had perfected by the Holocaust had its beginnings in South West Africa, where they hanged and shot thousands of Africans, forced thousands more into the desert without supplies while poisoning the existing waterholes, and made thousands die in concentration camps.

“The Germans admit that they drew on the United States’ historically criminal mistreatment of its Indigenous peoples and its enslaved Africans in developing their genocide campaigns. Africans on both sides of the Atlantic have faced the devastation of white supremacist genocidal government action.

“Ironically, today, May 31, marks the 100th anniversary of the extermination of the Black community in Tulsa, Okla., which was popularly known as ‘Black Wall Street,’” noted Wareham.

Also speaking was Bill Dores, from Struggle for Socialism-La Lucha por el Socialismo newspaper. He said that he was honored to be there and demanded that Germany and all the other colonial powers must pay reparations.

Dores pointed out that Germany’s Deutsche Bank that plundered Namibia also helped finance Donald Trump. “If debts are supposed to be sacred,” said Dores, “then reparations have to be paid for Namibia, Tulsa and all the other crimes. There’s no justice without debts being paid.”

The rally ended with the chant, “Germany must pay! Reparations now!”

As the December 12th Movement says, “They stole us, they sold us, they owe us!”

Presentation at online forum “The New U.S. Aggression, Turkish-Greek Relations and the Popular Movement,” hosted by Coordination of Action and Dialogue between Communist Forces on May 9, 2021.

This year’s commemoration of the Nazi’s defeat by the anti-fascist struggle of the people is increasingly important, because U.S. imperialism is again recruiting its reactionary-fascist proxies as part of a new phase of aggression.

Among other things, the aggression takes place through the escalation of military intervention in Europe to restore the doctrine of imperialist encirclement of Russia. The primary aim is restricting Russian Gazprom’s pipeline (Nord Stream 2), unipolar control of Europe’s energy market by U.S. transnational companies, and the gradual conquest of former Soviet markets.

In this context, the strengthening of the U.S. presence in the southeast section of NATO is particularly important.

When Russia incorporated Crimea in response to pogroms following the Maidan coup in Ukraine, the U.S. strengthened NATO’s eastern and central wing, sending heavy weapons to the Baltic countries, Germany and Bulgaria, and launching North Macedonia’ s accession in the Euro-Atlantic bloc.

The restriction of intervention in Europe by the Trump administration, because of other priorities such as the escalation against Iran, led the southern strategy to be held back, as NATO’s deputy secretary acknowledged in 2019.

On the other hand, one of Biden’s first moves was to renew the U.S. commitment to NATO at the Munich Conference and to extend the alliance to the former Soviet area, namely Ukraine and Georgia. (“NATO 2030: United for a New Era”)

Growing U.S. presence

In the eastern Mediterranean, we have a gradual and growing U.S. presence.

Turkey, despite tensions with the U.S., remains an (undisciplined) NATO agent in the region.

According to an article of the Atlantic Council, the regional potential of Turkey could be exploited by the Euro-Atlantic bloc. The article urges Ukraine to copy how Turkey restricted Russia in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Moscow was forced to accept a NATO country as a watchdog in the former Soviet territories.

In Syria, the U.S. military and mercenaries organize the pillaging of Syrian oil together with Kurdish militias. They do so while giving the appearance of no longer supporting right-wing Islamist factions, leaving this role to Turkey, which imposed a control zone on Syria.

The U.S. plans to build a NATO center on the Black Sea, where Turkey has a role as the regulator of military transit (under the Montreux Convention). The Erdogan administration uses this as a bargaining chip with the West.

The Turkish government also entered into agreements with the Ukrainian regime concerning drone sales, the establishment of the Crimean Platform, and according to reports, the transportation of pro-Turkish mercenaries from Syria to Ukraine. Let’s not forget that Turkey has a special relationship with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)-funded Tatar movements, which supported the Maidan fascist coup.

Similarly, in 2014, former Chechen battalions and ISIS terrorists fought by the side of Ukraine’s Right Sector, using U.S. weapons.

‘No limits’ to U.S.-Greek military relationship

In Greece, the U.S. presence takes place in two ways.

First, through the ExxonMobil-Total-Hellenic Οil cartel and what this promises for a status upgrade for the Greek bourgeoisie. Even though Greek capitalists do not take the lion’s share.

At the same time, the Greek-Egyptian-Israeli alliance is planned, along with the Ukrainian “Naftogaz” in the Black Sea, as a gas gateway to Europe, against Russia’s Gazprom.

There are a number of traps behind this. It is not at present a question of environmental costs. I’ll say only that according to ExxonMobil’s leaked documents, the company plans to increase its annual carbon dioxide emissions with the aim of doubling its profits by 2025.

We’ve had the largest U.S. troop landing since the Cold War during the Defender Europe 2021 military exercise. Thousands of troops and military resources from 26 countries are moving to the Black Sea, based from the port of Alexandroupolis, in a literal war rehearsal against Russia.

Greece is participating in this exercise together with Turkey, and I clarify this so that we do not have any illusion that the U.S. presence has anything to do with defense of the country.

We recently had the Iniohos Exercise, during which the Greek air force was flying with planes from the U.S., Israel, United Arab Emirates, France, Spain and Cyprus, with the aim of gathering forces in the eastern Mediterranean region and restricting Russia to the south.

Between April 19-23, on the upgraded military base of Souda in Crete, training of snipers from Greece, Belgium, Italy, the U.S., Netherlands and Malta took place. At the same time, U.S. Lockheed spy planes carried out missions from Libya to Crimea and the Black Sea.

During eastern Ukraine’s military crisis, U.S. drones flew from an Italian base to the Black Sea via Greece, while the U.S. missile destroyers Donald Cook and Roosevelt were in the Aegean Sea (also supported by the Souda base).

On May 5, the giant vehicle carrier called Liberty Promise docked in Alexandroupolis, and we are waiting for the Green Ridge.

At the 110 Combat Wing base in Larissa, twelve U.S. Eagle F-15 fighters landed, with plans to remain in Greece for two weeks to participate in joint exercises with all air force divisions.

This is the transformation of our country into a base of operation for the imperialist powers against the peoples of the region.

This echoes U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Payatt’s recent statement, “There is no limit to the Greek-U.S. military relationship.”

This is true. Greek governments have no limit to their allegiance to the murderers of the people. We must impose the limits, standing with peoples in our region who are attacked by imperialism, such as the people of eastern Ukraine, Syria, Libya and Palestine.

Daily struggles and imperialist intervention

Αn anti-war movement can only be anti-imperialist, because war prevention and peace in the region depends on the defeat of the imperialist plans of the Euro-Atlantic Axis and the crash of its war structure in our country.

For that reason, a few years ago we founded the Pan-Hellenic Anti-War Kinematic Coordination (PAKC), when the anti-war, anti-imperialist movement was starting to lift its head again.

Today, the struggles against the health crisis, for labor and democratic rights, and other social demands are overriding the internationalist agenda. But we must not let the struggle for peace take second place. We have to make clear that the problems of daily life are intertwined with imperialist intervention in the region.

The money for people’s needs lacking from public funds is going to feed the war machine, through outrageous armaments programs that have nothing to do with defense of the country.

The Greek shipping of U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems to help the obscurantist Saudi petro-monarchy against the Yemeni people has nothing to do with defense of the country.

Greek armed forces have no place in the Strait of Hormuz near Iran or standing behind France’s imperialist war in Mali.

The disestablishment of university asylum is connected to imperialist pressure. Wikileaks revealed the U.S. pressure campaign, because of the anti-imperialist mood in Greek universities.

At the same time, what we need to say is that by transforming the country into a war base, these troops are a potential occupying army as NATO’s doctrine of the “internal enemy” implies, if our people choose a different path than that of subordination to imperialism.

For all of these reasons, the struggle against this military complex, which stamps its feet on our country, is a matter of life and death for any progressive alternative, independent of imperialism, for our people and the peoples of the region.

Only a massive, unifying anti-war movement has the potential to block the way of these war plans.

Panagiotis Papadomanolakis is editor of GuernicaEu (Greece) and a member of the editorial team of the Kommon website. He’s also a member of the coordinating committee of the Pan-Hellenic Anti-War Kinematic Coordination (PAKC), a founding member of the Greek Solidarity Committee “Todos Somos Venezuela,” the Greek Campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize for Cuban Doctors honorary committee and Red en Defensa de la Humanidad (REDH)-Greek section. He is author of the book COVID-19: Virus of Distinctions (Bookstars).

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT

Medical Examiners Office
900 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore

During the trial of the police officer who brutally murdered George Floyd, former Maryland Chief Medical Examiner David Fowler was exposed nationally as a racist, liar, and fraud! It was Mr. Fowler and his deputy, Pamela Southall, who handled the case of Marlyn Barnes.

Barnes died on April 10 in the custody of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the detention center.

Local law enforcement declared Barnes’ death a suicide after a rapid investigation. Since then, the family has faced obfuscation, unclarity and stonewalling from the Harford County authorities and the Maryland state Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. This has included a delay of two months in making the autopsy available, providing incorrect information to the family regarding public information act requests and general refusal to meet with the family.

Now that Maryland Attorney General is reopening cases handled by Mr. David Fowler and his associates, we want justice for Marlyn! Please join us outside the Medical Examiner’s office in Baltimore on June 8th for a protest and press conference!

The Biden-Harris administration is continuing Donald Trump’s war on Cuba. On June 23, the United States will vote at the United Nations General Assembly on a resolution to end the blockade of Cuba. 

We know the world will vote with Cuba, as it has since these resolutions were first submitted to the General Assembly in 1992. We also know that the people of the U.S. don’t support the blockade. Those voices need to be heard.

A week of actions is planned from June 17 to June 23, the day of the U.N. vote.

On June 17, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) will hold a Facebook live event showing the people of the world opposing the blockade. Alicia Jrapko is taping a message from the National Network on Cuba for this event. It will be aired at 9 or 10 a.m. Eastern at Facebook.com/SiempreConCuba. It is important to tune in and comment from your location and organization.

On June 18 in New York City, ProLibertad and other Puerto Rican and Cuban solidarity groups are having a demonstration called “Two Wings of the Same Bird” at 5 p.m. The U.N. Decolonization Committee meets to discuss Puerto Rico on June 21.

On June 20, bike/car caravans will be held around the world again. Nineteen cities had caravans on May 30. New York, New Haven, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Albany, Detroit, San Antonio, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Bloomington, Indiana, Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Miami and Tampa all had caravans. How can we increase the number of cities?

On June 20 at 8 p.m. Eastern, the film “Sacha, A Child of Chernobyl” will have its online premiere. Cuba treated thousands of children who were impacted by the nuclear accident in the Soviet Union. This is the story of one child, now an adult. Check the NNOC Facebook page for further information.

On June 22 at 8 p.m. Eastern, a 24-hour Zoom event will begin and extend through 8 p.m. on June 23. It will broadcast the debate and vote at the U.N. and solidarity activities around the world, plus a celebration hosted by the Cuban Mission to the United Nations that evening. Register today: tinyurl.com/24hr4Cuba

In addition, many organizations will send letters to President Joe Biden against the blockade, including letters from religious groups and farmers. Some are sign-ons, like IFCO/Pastors for Peace’s “President Biden, Keep Your Promise.”

The Illinois State Assembly just voted against the blockade. Now 25 elected bodies — city councils, unions, labor councils, school boards, county commissions and small farmers’ groups — have called for ending the blockade since May 5, 2020, in just over one year! That’s more than the previous four years.

The Syringes4Cuba campaign has raised more than $100,000 to help Cuba fight COVID-19. More is needed. Cuba needs 20 million syringes to deliver the Cuban-developed vaccines into Cuban arms. Cuba has helped the world with medical solidarity — now let’s help Cuba. Donate directly through the website: Global Health Partners/Syringes4Cuba.

People from EVERY STATE — a veritable People’s Congress — posted photos taken with a sign that reads, “My State Says Hands Off Cuba.” Look at an interactive map, state by state, to see the photos.

https://www.facebook.com/2267312009947139/videos/3675257555912094

Video appeal from Carlos Lazo, a Cuban-American teacher whose bike ride across the U.S. has sparked a caravan movement calling for an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Lazo and many other Cubans living in the U.S. join their powerful voices to this struggle. He calls on people to come out on June 20, when bike/car caravans will be held around the world.

The political intolerance of an empire that has witnessed a Revolution taking place under its nose has hardened to the extent that – after 62 years of Cuba’s heroic resistance – the most fallacious and absurd arguments are deployed to justify the hostility, including accusations linking Cuba to terrorism, a scourge that the island has in fact suffered at the hands of self-confessed terrorists to whom the U.S. government has provided financing, logistics and immunity. Is it really necessary to recount the criminal U.S. record against Cuba? Apparently another repetition is needed, although its promoters in the immoral north are well aware of the history.

Intent on destroying the revolution, at any cost

One of the first terrorist attacks against the nascent Revolution occurred on October 21, 1959. On that day, a traitor pilot exiled in Miami, Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, who had been an officer in the Cuban Air Force, flying a twin-engine B-25, bombed several Havana neighborhoods, causing 45 injuries and the death of two persons.

Diaz Lanz himself would later confirm his responsibility for the attack. With full impunity and protection from U.S. authorities, he departed from Pompano Beach, Florida, where no one created any obstacle to his plans.

Thus began the terrorist war against Cuba, sponsored by the U.S. government and conceived as state policy, fully documented and denounced by Cuba in international forums.

A wide variety of political, military, economic, biological, diplomatic, psychological, propaganda, espionage and sabotage methods have been utilized in the attacks. Armed gangs have also been organized and logistically supported, while desertion has been encouraged and plots hatched to assassinate leaders of the Revolution.

Numerous declassified secret documents provide evidence of these crimes, along with the millions of dollars approved annually for this purpose, an amount which is published in the media as just another line item in the government budget, behind the backs of taxpayers, who are largely unaware of the allocation’s final destination.

In this regard, the Cuban people’s demand for compensation from the United States government for damages states in its first Findings, “Hostile and aggressive actions carried out by the United States government against Cuba, since the triumph of the Revolution to date, have caused enormous material and human damage to the people, and incalculable suffering to the country’s citizens, hardships due to shortages of medicines, food and other items essential to life.”

The document reports that the loss of human lives has reached 3,478 and 2,099 individuals have been permanently disabled as a result of bodily injury.

One of the bloodiest attacks perpetrated by the CIA was the explosion of the steamship La Coubre, in the port of Havana, as legitimately purchased weapons and ammunition were being unloaded, March 4, 1960.

More than a hundred Cubans died in the sabotage, including longshoremen, port workers and members of the Rebel Army. While the lives of six French crew members were lost.

It should also be recalled that when Comadante en jefe Fidel Castro attended the Ibero-American Summit on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, the military wing of the counterrevolutionary organization Cuban American National Foundation attempted to assassinate him.

Several of its members were arrested and, found on board the yacht La Esperanza, registered in the name of Francisco “Pepe” Hernández, later president of the Foundation, was a 50 caliber rifle of his, capable of perforating armored vehicles. In December 1999, they were all acquitted.

Another terrorist attack that deeply touched the Cuban people was the mid-flight bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane over Barbados, in which 73 persons perished, including passengers and crew. The intellectual authors of this terrorist attack were Orlando Bosch Avila and Luis Posada Carriles. (Both later died as free men in the city of Miami.)

They were detained in Venezuela, until the Foundation financed Bosch’s freedom and facilitated the escape of Posada Carriles, who cynically acknowledged responsibility for the sabotage, while calmly walking the streets of Miami.

Referring to the sabotage, Fidel stated: “Surely U.S. citizens will understand the attack better if they compare the population of Cuba 25 years ago with that of the United States on September 11, 2001. The death of 73 persons on a Cuban plane downed in-flight is equivalent, given the United States’ population, to the mid-air destruction of seven U.S. airliners with more than 300 passengers each, on the same day, at the same time, by a terrorist conspiracy.”

In 1997, several bombs exploded in Havana hotels, and Cuba denounced the fact that the culprits were residents in the United States. The State Department responded that it would investigate if Cuba provided information.

The FBI was forwarded a fat, secret dossier from Cuban authorities, in which the name of Luis Posada Carriles appeared as the instigator of the attacks. But nothing was done to arrest the criminals. Instead, the information provided by the island’s government was used to pursue, arrest and prosecute Cubans in the U.S. conducting surveillance to protect their people from these terrorist groups

Three years later, in November of 2000, on the occasion of the People’s Summit at the University of Panama, which was held simultaneously with the 17th Summit of the Americas, Cuban State Security agencies uncovered a terrorist plot to assassinate Fidel.

Diplomat Carlos Rafael Zamora, a witness to the events, recalled: “The Cuban side gave the Panamanian side a list of terrorists, their aliases and the types of passports they used to enter the country. All the individuals who participated in planning of the attack were identified. I witnessed the conversations held with Panamanian authorities, in which we expressed the Cuban delegation’s concern regarding the presence of these terrorists and the threat they posed to the security of the Comandante en jefe and the delegation.”

Upon arrival in Panama, Fidel denounced the terrorists’ plans in a press conference and provided information that would allow for their arrest. Posada Carriles, using the alias of Franco Rodriguez Mena, was staying in room 310 at the Coral Suites Hotel in Panama City. He was detained there. Cuban agents neutralized the assassination attempt by four terrorists in the University’s principal auditorium, where they had hidden nine kilograms of C-4 explosive. Some 2,000 people would gather there to hear Fidel. It would have been a real massacre.

The government of President Mireya Moscoso, under national and international pressure, was obliged to prosecute the four implicated, but they were given purely symbolic sentences. Messages from the Foundation in Miami poured in calling for their release. Thus on August 26, 2004, just one day before Moscoso’s term as President came to an end, she pardoned them.

Posada Carriles took many secrets to the grave. But it is no secret at all that he was a life-long terrorist assassin in the service of the CIA.

One of the most outrageous elements of the Trump’s administration’s foreign policy was to add Cuba, once again, to the spurious unilateral State Department list of the countries they consider “state sponsors of terrorism.”

The immorality of the U.S. government is so great that the absurd accusation about Cuban support of terrorism has been passed from “one hand to another” as a political inheritance, fully aware of the dimensions of this colossal infamy, as befits the imperialists’ arrogance, to be recycled by the Biden administration and serve as a justification for more sanctions that will not take Cuba by surprise. They reflect the empire’s unchanged interest in forcing this heroic country to surrender.

It apparently does not matter that the failed attempt has been underway for more than six decades. What a fiasco.

Source: Granma

To sign on to this Statement, please use the form at this link. The Google Document of this statement will be updated with signatories.

Human rights groups condemn the surge of racism against Palestinians and denounce the violence that has been waged and initiated by pro-Israeli groups.  As officials ignore these crimes, NY4Palestine has launched a taskforce to receive complaints at LegalNY4Palestine@gmail.com.

Palestine solidarity groups reject, as racist and defamatory, claims that the Palestinian liberation and solidarity movement is anti-Semitic. “We reject any equivalence between Jewish people and Israel or Zionism, and so we reject the racist contention that Palestinian identity and the Palestinian struggle for liberation and defense against Israeli violence is anti-Semitic,” said Fatin Jarara, member of Al-Awda and PYM, which are part of the NY4Palestine Coalition.

“Racism drives Israeli regime practices in Palestine so our movement is grounded in anti-racist work, –  but we are not equally protected from racist hate in NY,” added Gigi Mohammed, of Al-Awda.

“Pro-Israelis have been hurling racial slurs and violence at Palestinians in NYC to provoke a response which they manipulate to further demonize their victims. This is part of Israeli campaigns [i] to undermine the mushrooming global movement against Israeli violence, colonization, and Apartheid. It is intended to and is daily hurting Palestinians, it’s also endangering Jews facing real anti-Semitism and has to stop,” said attorney Michael Letwin.

“Anti-Palestinian hatred and racism by (pro-) Israelis is so deeply normalized here even government officials engage in it regularly- from Schumer to Yang and Yeger. This city has an anti-Palestinian racism problem which is endemic to all sectors of society from courts to campuses to media. It is grossly unequal protection when a system is itself dedicated to mobilizing anti-Palestinian racism,” said human rights attorney Lamis Deek.

“We also demand NY and US government officials preempt and prosecute pro-Israeli and Zionist New Yorkers who were filmed invading and stealing Palestinian homes, and openly calling for pogroms in Palestine. These are crimes under US and NY law, and they are war crimes under international law. This silence is empowering racism and violence against Palestinians,” Deek added.

Over the past two weeks, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate crimes by pro-Israeli groups in NY surged launching the hashtag #everdayIslamophobia. In the presence of NYPD and press, pro-Israelis threatened to kill and rape Palestinians, snuck into Palestinian rallies to physically assault youth, stalked youth on the streets and beat them, entire blocks of residents threw trash and full bottles from windows at them. In one incident, a middle aged pro-Israeli woman accosted a Palestinian teenager, maced him for several seconds and returned to chanting racist slurs with other Israeli and Zionist agitators – echoing Israeli pogrom chants of “death to Arabs” in Palestine.

Ex-Israeli occupation soldiers were caught on camera initiating assaults on Palestinian youth on several occasions [ii] another pro-Israeli yelled racist slurs against Palestinian youth inciting an inappropriate violent response from his targets.[iii ] Both incidents were racistly portrayed as anti-Semitism although nothing identified the provocateurs as Jewish before or after the altercation. “The erasure of pro-Israeli, white, racist provocations and the manipulation of anti-Semitism have life devastating impact on its victims.  It also privileges and protects white violence by way of the NYPD which itself has a long track record of abusing Arab and Muslim youth,” said Suzanne Adely, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild.

   **  More detailed report with context and footage of similar incidents is forthcoming in addendum to be released in the coming weeks

To sign on to this Statement, please use the form at this link. The Google Document of this statement will be updated with signatories.

[i] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/jdl-toronto-assault-palestinian-anti-semitic-1.6029953

[ii] https://twitter.com/protest_nyc/status/1395517369414524928?s=19

[iii] https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1396204203211636740?s=19

NY4Palestine is receiving complaints at LegalNY4Palestine@gmail.com

Donations for jail/legal support can be made to https://palestinefreedomfund.org/

ISSUED BY:      

NY4PALESTINE, a coalition of organizations working for Palestinian rights and liberation, and includes:

• Al-Awda: The Palestine Right To Return Coalition-NY;
• American Muslims for Palestine-NJ;
• Existence Is Resistance
• Jews for Palestinian Right to Return;
• La Lucha;
• Labor For Palestine;
• Palestinian Youth Movement-NY;
• Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network;
• Within Our Lifetime: United for Palestine.

SPONSORED & ENDORSED BY:

Organizations:

• Majlis Ash-Shura: ILCNY
• National Lawyers Guild
• Jewish Law Students Association- CUNY Law
• US Palestinian Community Network

Individuals:

• Suzanne Adely, Attorney
• Moira Meltzer-Cohen, Attorney
• Lamis J. Deek, Attorney
• Sheikh Ibad Wali
• Michelle Munjanattu
• May Arjomand
• Shalu Arjomand
• Bibi Areej
• Yaser Jawaid
• Tahsina Islam
• Rowan Rabah
• Monadel Herzallah
• Hadil El Wahidy
• Burhan Ghanayem
• Shireen Quaizar
• Maysoun Ahmad
• Manal Fakhoury
• Syed W Quadri
• Zahi Abdein
• Nazim Uddin

Source: Samidoun