Defiant Cuba celebrates May Day

Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents | May 06, 2023

Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canel (left) and former president Raul Castro (2nd from left) take part in the 2023 May Day celebration.

Defiant Cuba celebrates May Day.

An AFP report (“Communist Cuba celebrates Worker’s Day, four days late”), datelined May 5, 2023, said:

“Cuba finally celebrated May Day on Friday, four days late, after the original celebration of workers was postponed due to the risk of rain and trimmed down as a result of a fuel shortage.

“The May 1 celebration is usually a grandstand event in the communist island nation.”

According to the report, thousands of people from all over the country descend on the capital by bus to congregate at Revolution Square before beginning a parade.

This year, the report said, the Havana residents were asked to instead head on foot to the parade along the iconic Malecon promenade, while smaller festivities were organized in other neighborhoods. The only buses to bring workers to the event came from nearby municipalities. Instead of putting on a massive commemoration on the central square that marks the highest point in the city, a much more low-key celebration took place by the coast.

May Day in Havana: International Solidarity to Resist the U.S. Blockade

Walter Smolarek

Countercurrents | May 06, 2023

This year’s May Day celebration in Cuba was interrupted by severe storms that knocked out electricity in much of the country. Authorities had no choice but to postpone the traditional mass marches. But for over 150 young grassroots organizers from the United States who had traveled to the country to mark the holiday, this turn of events was just more reason to deepen their efforts to end the U.S.-imposed blockade of the country.

Miya Tada, a brigade participant from New York, explained how this showed that “the biggest obstacle the Cuban people are facing is the repression and economic warfare of our own government, and that just inspires me to further the struggle against the blockade back in the United States.”

This wide range of activists from nearly 30 states and dozens of organizations was brought together by the International Peoples’ Assembly, a network of left movements and parties around the globe. Members of the solidarity brigade had spent the preceding week taking part in educational panels, discussions with Cuban activists, and youth exchanges as they sought to deepen their understanding of the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba celebrates 62 years of socialism

Cuba celebrated today the 62nd anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of its Revolution, with a political-cultural event led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Granma | April 17, 2023

Havana, Apr 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuba celebrated today the 62nd anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of its Revolution, with a political-cultural event led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
At the corner of 23rd and 12th, Havana, the place where the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, made the declaration, Government and State officials, leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), political and mass organizations members, and the population recalled the event that marked the ideological course of the project initiated on the island on January 1, 1959.

People’s power is at the heart of the Cuban political system: Llanisca Lugo

Zoe Alexandra

People’s Dispatch | March 26, 2023

Meeting of the National Candidacy Commission with the Candidacy Commissions in Holguin. Photo: Consuelo Baeza Martín.

On Sunday, March 26, eight million Cubans will have the opportunity to vote in the elections to elect the 470 members of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The Assembly has the duty of discussing and passing laws that affect the lives of the Cuban people. Half of the candidates to the Assembly are elected at a municipal level, and half are nominated by the different sectors of society, such as the mass organizations of women, students, workers, peasants, among others, whose electoral representation is a unique aspect of Cuban democracy.

The National Assembly is the body that is responsible for electing and appointing persons to various state offices such as the President and Vice-President of the Republic who are elected from among its members, the leadership body of the Assembly, the members of the Council of State, the members and leadership of the National Electoral Council, the president and judges of the Supreme People’s Court, the attorney general and comptroller general of the Republic, and the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers and other members of the Council of Ministers.

Cuba’s “Code of Freedom” inspires US-based activists, academics

Natalia Marques

People’s Dispatch | September 29, 2022

Activist Karina Garcia asks question to Cuban officials at Cuban Mission to the UN in New York City (Photo: Emily Brease)

The people of Cuba approved their new Family Code on September 25, now the most progressive code of families in the world. With 74.01% of eligible voters participating, the Family Code passed in a landslide victory. 66.87% of participants voted in favor of the new code and 33.13% voted against. 

On September 27, the Cuban mission to the United Nations hosted US scholars, activists, union leaders, lawyers, journalists and judges in order to share the Cuban experience in winning and ratifying their new Family Code. People in the US were able to dialogue directly with Cuban officials, and many expressed their admiration for the victory.

No Cuban child died of COVID-19 after vaccination campaign

Before the vaccination campaign in children started, 18 infants between the ages of two and 18 years old had unfortunately lost their lives to COVID-19. No child died of this terrible disease in Cuba after the vaccination campaign in this population group began.

Leticia Martínez

Granma | July 20, 2022

Photo: Ismael Batista

Before the vaccination campaign in children started, 18 infants between the ages of two and 18 years old had unfortunately lost their lives to COVID-19. No child died of this terrible disease in Cuba after the vaccination campaign in this population group began. This is the most relevant result of the Cuban vaccine Soberana, an immunogen of the Finlay Vaccine Institute.

Precisely, the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine presented the closing of the evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of the pediatric vaccination against COVID-19 in the country during the Tuesday meeting with the President of the Republic.

Cuba: Digitization of medical services: Another revolution in health

A project to digitalize Cuba’s public health system was presented at a meeting between Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz with experts and scientists working on healthcare issues

René Tamayo León

Granma | June 22, 2022

As part of the computerization of society, the first system to undergo a digital transformation must be public health, Díaz-Canel emphasized. Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

As “another revolution in health,” Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez described the project, “For digital health,” presented at this week’s meeting with experts and scientists working on healthcare issues.

The Ministry of Public Health project involves “a cultural transformation of health institutions, to produce a positive impact on the quality and safety of services focused on the patient, the family and the community, as a result of the computerization of care, teaching and research processes, through inter-operational integration,” explained Dr. Dalsy Torres Dávila, one of the specialists leading the initiative.

Cuba Celebrates International Workers’ Day With Mass Marches

teleSUR | May 01, 2022

Cuban workers, inspired by the concept of Revolution expressed by leader Fidel Castro, precisely on May 1, demonstrating their support for the continuity of the revolutionary work. May. 01, 2022. | Photo: @BrunoRguezP

After two years of isolation to avoid Covid-19 infections, Cuba celebrates this May 1st with a massive day of mobilization.

With the presence of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, historic leader of the Revolution, and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the historic parade to celebrate International Workers’ Day began in Havana’s Revolution Square, after two years of pandemic realated restrictions.

The world’s peoples can always count on Cuba to be present for just causes

Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez yesterday conversed with Latin American intellectual Atilio Boró in a radio interview, discussing Cuba’s creative resistance in the face of continuing U.S. attacks and imperialist threats around the world

Granma | April 25, 2022

Artwork by Ernesto Rancaño 

“We are not going to surrender, we are going to continue resisting, but with the concept of creative resistance, which is precisely the way in which we have faced COVID-19, that is, we resist, but with talent, effort and intelligence, we also grow; as we resist, we are capable of advancing.”

This observation was among those shared by Communist Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in an interview with Latin American intellectual Atilio Borón, for the Argentine radio stations Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and the Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda, also broadcast on several community radio stations in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and elsewhere.

Cuba ratifies socialist course in Geneva despite aggressions

Luis Linares Petrov

Prensa Latina | March 03, 2022

Geneva, Mar 3 (Prensa Latina) Cuba’s permanent representative to the UN, Juan Antonio Quintanilla, reiterated Cuba’s decision to maintain the socialist path sovereignly chosen by its people, despite aggressions such as the US blockade.

The ambassador stressed that this is the decision of the Cuban people, taken more than 60 years ago and ratified in 2019 in a constitutional referendum.

According to Quintanilla, nothing will change this position, alluding to the intensification of the blockade and the most recent destabilization plans promoted by the United States.

“The blockade constitutes the most flagrant and massive violation of the human rights of an entire people and the main obstacle to its economic and social development,” he highlighted.