July 14, 2021
Athens, Greece
Zelmys Maria Dominguez Cortina
Ambassador, Republic of Cuba to Greece
Dear Companera Zelmys,
The Editorial Board of Diethnes Vima wishes to express its solidarity with the Cuban revolution at this time of increased pressures by the capitalist rulers in Washington.
“What does the Cuban Revolution teach? That revolution is possible.” These words from the Second Declaration of Havana were read by Fidel Castro when the socialist character of the revolution was discussed and adopted by over 1 million toilers in Havana in 1962. This occurred just before the Bay of Pigs invasion by US sponsored and supported troops. This declaration helped politically arm and mobilize the toilers for the coming battle against the most powerful empire the world had know. But these words show the real danger of the Cuban Revolution for Washington and the other centers of world capitalism.
What is at stake in Cuba is 60 years of rule by the workers and peasants. What is at stake is the socialist character of the revolution in Cuba. What is at stake is the example that workers and peasants can take power, overthrow capitalism, transform society, embark on the road to socialism, extend internationalist solidarity to toilers worldwide, and transform ourselves in the process as new human beings with solidarity, discipline and self confidence as core elements.
With the deepening crisis conditions of capitalism that we are living through worldwide and the necessary resistance that it will engender among toilers, such an example is all the more dangerous for the rich rulers.
Overthrowing this example is at the heart of the 60 year US imposed economic, trade, commercial and financial embargo. As Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on July 12, "For 60 years the example of the Cuban Revolution has bothered them and they have constantly tightened… applied an unjust, criminal, cruel blockade, reinforced, worse than ever under pandemic conditions. Therein lies the manifest perversity, the maliciousness of all these intentions: blockade and restrictive measures, which they have never taken against any other country, or against those they consider their main enemies.”
The US measures against Cuba were tightened under the Donald Trump administration. These have remained in place under the Biden administration. On top of those Cuba now faces the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic which has added to the immense financial difficulties of the country as tourism declined dramatically.
As Diaz-Canel explained Cuba has faced this "with courage, we have done it without giving in and, above all, we have done it by sharing among all the little we have, and we have not only shared within Cuba, we have shared with the world. There is the example of the Henry Reeve internationalist brigades, which has gone to places brutally affected by the pandemic.” How different has the response of the capitalist governments around the world been as profit for the medical corporations, class bias and nationalism has dominated the response to the pandemic.
Washington’s aim has always been to create economic conditions for dividing and demoralizing people inside Cuba in order to undermine the support for the revolution. It is under such conditions that some have taken to the streets and as Diaz-Canel said “included members of the population, who have needs, who are experiencing some of these shortages; it included revolutionaries who are confused, do not have all the arguments, or were expressing these dissatisfactions, but they were doing differently, because they were seeking to understand, seeking explanations.”
We are confident that the working people of Cuba and their communist leadership will overcome this challenge as well.
We continue to add our voice to the demand for an immediate end to the US imposed embargo on Cuba and for an end to the EU governments’ complicity in maintaining it.
In solidarity,
Editorial Board,
Diethnes Vima,