People's Democracy

July 26 To Be Observed As Defence Of Cuba Day 

The National Committee for Solidarity with Cuba met at 4 Ashoka Road, New Delhi on July 11, 2006. The meeting was presided over by the eminent art critic Suneet Chopra and attended by A Vijayaraghavan, MP and convener of the committee, G Devarajan (Forward Block), N K Shukla (AIKS), Pushpinder Tyagi (DYFI), R Arun Kumar (SFI) and others. The meeting passed the following resolution:

WE condemn the continued attempts of successive US administrations and the Bush administration in particular to destabilise the regime of the Republic of Cuba, which has transformed from an island under dictatorial control of US puppets and steeped in ignorance and crime into a leader of the Non Aligned Movement, a global fighter for the rights of humanity and now a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Such a destabilisation attempt is doomed to failure, like the hundreds of terrorist plots hatched by the US against Cuba so far. The US refuses to return the Guantanamo base to the Cubans even after the lease has expired. We condemn the continued use of terror and secret funds to threaten the lives and interests of the Cuban people through an illegal blockade.

It is shameful that the Bush administration has increased its funding of terror to Miami-based Cuban gangs by $80 million recently from an earlier $290 million. What is worse is that a large part of this money is to be spent on secret missions with no questions of transparency and accountability.

To say the least, such persistent clandestine activity being conducted by a country pretending to fight a war against terrorism is both dangerous and reprehensible. We demand the government of India to take note of this in the interest of our own security and firmly convey its disapproval to the USA. 

The National Committee for Solidarity with Cuba, for its part, calls on various political parties and mass organisations to observe July 26 the Cuban National Day as the ‘Defence of Cuba Day’ with mass actions to highlight the achievements of socialist Cuba, the necessity of ending illegal sanctions imposed on it by the USA, and to give US attempts to destablise the Cuban regime a fitting response.