JULY 26 this year was historic. That day, at 8 a m, over 1.2 million residents of Havana took out the most massive march ever, protesting the imperialist aggressions and crimes against Cuba. Thus, more than one tenth of Cuban population was out in the street on the day.

The march was led by Cuban president, Fidel Castro Ruz. Iranian president Khatmi was also present on the occasion.

The march took place in the background of a new administration taking over in the United States a few months ago. The way it took place violated even the internal laws that rule the empire. A scandalous electoral fraud was perpetrated in the same manner as in the "banana republics" which the US has created in the western hemisphere. One candidate robbed another of the post that should have rightly been his in accordance with the established system.

As it was, the hard-fought battle was decided in Florida, one of the states with the largest number of votes for the presidential election. The shameless theft took place in Miami Dade county that houses the Cuban-American terrorist mob. Through gross manipulation, trickery and illegal means, including acts of coercion and violence against African-American voters, they deprived tens of thousands of US citizens in this county alone of their right to vote, thus allowing the extreme right and its presidential candidate to take control of the government. Thanks to this fraud, that candidate achieved a hair’s breadth victory of 537 individual votes in the state of Florida, while he was actually beaten by 3,37,576 votes in the national count.

This shady and contemptible episode, subsequently validated by the corrupt US legal system, was preceded by a carnival-type political campaign costing billions of dollars. The Cuban people, fully informed of every detail of these events, were able to grasp like never before the vast difference between revolutionary democracy and the shameless political parody that was staged in the heart of the empire.

The new US president is now acting exactly as he was expected to. With regard to both domestic and foreign policy, he is promoting the most reactionary ideas he represents, in every field. His sole philosophy seems to be a government of the wealthiest, by the wealthiest and for the wealthiest, within and beyond his country’s borders. At this critical time for humanity, the empire is attempting to use its tremendous military, economic and technological power to impose the interests of its increasingly vast multinational corporations on the entire planet.

This is a time when neo-liberal globalisation is provoking more and more disasters in the third world, and the three major centres of world economy --- the US, Europe and Japan --- are facing ever growing difficulties. They are constantly cutting down their forecasts for growth. While the economies of other countries are faced with a grave crisis, the new US government is proving to be more self-serving, more insatiable and less cooperative with the rest of the world than ever before.

This is a time when climatic changes are causing increasingly frequent and intense floods, droughts and other natural disasters. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, the ozone layer is getting thinner, the deserts are growing, drinking water is more and more scarce, and the seas --- a source of food for the growing world population --- are being polluted. But the US, which is home to only 5 per cent of the world population, consumes 25 per cent of available energy annually and emits the largest amount of polluting gases. Yet the new US regime has dealt a brutal blow to the Kyoto Protocol, and has within its own borders liquidated the measures established to protect important and valuable areas of its territory, with complete disdain for future generations of US citizens.

This is a time when a real possibility had emerged for an end to the arms race, after many decades of cold war. Yet the new US government is unilaterally breaking the ABM treaty. It has announced the creation of a global anti-missile shield, using the false and shameless pretext of alleged threats from third world countries that do not have the slightest capability of reaching US territory with missiles and nuclear weapons.

The US’s real strategic goal is to reduce Russia, China and the world to a state of total helplessness. This has given rise to the threat of a new arms race. Also, the US president recently announced in Genoa that his country will not abide by the convention on bacteriological weapons.

Despite all the talk about the end of Cold War, the US military budget, far from being reduced, has been increased year by year. New and sophisticated weapons, fit for nothing less than absolute control over the world, are being feverishly developed. This has been accompanied by other troubling events such as the attempt to obstruct peace and reunification in Korea and the veto of a Security Council resolution aimed at protecting the Palestinians, the victims of a true genocide.

The very survival of the human race is seriously threatened by such absurd moves.

In the western hemisphere, the new US government is obstructing efforts aimed at economic and political unity among the Latin American countries. It is trying to remove Europe and the industralised countries of Asia from trade competition and investment in the region, and imposing a "free trade" agreement that essentially signifies the annexation of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean to the US. The dollar would be the sole currency, and big US multinationals would be the exclusive owners of the most profitable lines of production and services in the hemisphere. Hundreds of millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean would be nothing more than a source of cheap labour.

Such a future is neither acceptable nor viable. Throughout the world, people are fighting back against the globalisation of plunder, poverty and hunger. The IMF, the WTO, the G-7 and other such bodies or the ideologues of neo-liberalism cannot now find a single place on the planet to meet. Seattle, Washington, Davos, Quebec and Genoa, despite the brutal scenes of repression, have demonstrated this.

As for the Cubans, they have never accepted such a world order or the status of a neo-colony of the United States. This is what they again demonstrated on July 26.

The Cubans know that the new US administration oozes hatred for the island country. After it took over, it adopted measures to further tighten the genocidal blockade against Cuba, and stepped up its threat to punish the US citizens who visit Cuba. The Bush administration nominated a gangster of Cuban descent as the assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs. The fellow has an extremely shady past and close links with the Miami terrorist mob. He has broken laws, written and published statements supposedly signed by Nicaraguan Contra leaders, and worked with Lt Col Oliver North and Luis Posada Carriles for overthrowing the Sandinista government.

The nefarious Cuban Adjustment Act has been reinforced. Its new incentives further promote the smuggling of aliens and illegal migration. For, a recent court decision, deliberately uncontested by the government, grants resident status and the right to work to all Cubans who arrive in US by air, from anywhere in the world, even if they are carrying false documents. The US has failed to take measures against migrant smugglers, operating from Florida, who risk the lives and cause the deaths of women, children and other citizens of Cuba. It has tightened the blockade and made it impossible in practice for Cuba to acquire food, medicine and medical equipment from the US.

As clearly stipulated in the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and the Convention on Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949), both of which were signed and ratified by Cuba, US and a vast majority of states, the blockade of food and medicine constitutes a crime of genocide even in times of war. This very abominable act of genocide has been carried out by the US against Cuba for over 42 years.

After the triumph of the Revolution, the US government unleashed a wave of terrorism against the Cuban people. Before and after the mercenary invasion of Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis, terrorist acts of all kinds were carried out in Cuban territory against factories, schools, commercial centres, recreational facilities, sugarcane plantations, food-related facilities and all kinds of economic and social facilities. During the period from November 1961 to January 1963, a mere 14 months, US agents carried out a total of 5,780 terrorist actions against Cuba, including 716 major acts of sabotage against economic targets. This barbaric and inhuman terrorist war was officially given the strange and cynical name of "Operation Mongoose."

Mercenary gangs, organised and trained by the US, disrupted peace in all the Cuban provinces and murdered teachers, literacy campaign volunteers, workers and peasants in many areas. Cuban diplomats were victims of terrorist acts and lost their lives within the US and elsewhere.

An airplane was blown up mid-air, taking the lives of dozens of innocent people. The masterminds of this and other major acts of terrorism freely walk the streets of Miami today.

Hundreds of experts were trained in explosives by US institutions, to be used against Cuba. The FBI and CIA were fully aware of each and every activity of these terrorists. They knew well that these terrorists were attacking recreational facilities on Cuban coasts and planting bombs in hotels in Havana in the 1990s.

In the last 15 years alone, dozens of plots to assassinate the Cuban head of state have been organised, planned and financed by the US. The most recent attempt was to be made at the Ibero-American Summit in Panama, barely eight months ago. The lives of numerous heads of state or hundreds of university students were thus in danger there. But these terrorists were caught with explosives and other subversive things, thanks to the detailed information timely provided by Cuba to the Panamanian authorities. The FBI and CIA knew about the plot in detail. The Cuba-American National Foundation, which has close ties with the US government and its new president, assumed direct responsibility for these actions. This is the same terrorist mob that served as a support base for Bush electoral campaign.

And now the US is conducting a criminal and disgraceful trial against five Cuban patriots who, without using violence or causing the slightest physical harm to anyone, were gathering information on terrorist plots against Cuba. They were subjected to atrocious and inhuman treatment, and confined to punishment cells for 17 months.

Almost a year after their arrest, the US authorities shamelessly came up with the serious charge of conspiracy to murder, linking them to the incident of the plane shot down in February 1996. Moreover, when the charge was torn apart at the trial by defence attorneys and by the defendants themselves, the jury was tricked, pressured and terrorised into declaring them guilty. As a result, these five again find themselves locked up in punishment cells.

One may well ask: When will the US bring to trial those responsible for the aggression and terrorist acts against Cuba that have claimed the lives of 3,478 people and left another 2,099 physically disabled?

This was the question Cubans asked on July 26. Though summer is a time for vacations and carnivals in Cuba, July 26 this year was a day of combat. The marchers not only demanded the release of their five heroic compatriots but also remembered those who have fought and died for preserving Cuba’s independence and sovereignty.

The marchers made it clear that they would continue their struggle against the genocidal US blockade and the murderous US laws that are causing the loss of countless lives. They said they have withstood the aggression launched against them by the most powerful empire on the earth for more than 42 years and will keep daring the imperialist bully as ever.

On July 26, the streets of Havana resounded with the resolve that the Cubans are ever ready for this battle and stand for a better future for all of the people on the planet.

In response to the haughty, arrogant and menacing language of the US imperialism, the message of the Havana march was clear, calm and dignified: that the Cuban people have nothing but scorn for the cowardly US threats. They said they are people who know how to fight --- people who have triumphed and will continue to triumph!