Solidarity with Cuba

Solidarity with Cuba

By Peter Boyle

MELBOURNE — About 450 people attended a rousing meeting in solidarity with Cuba here on November 2. Visiting Cubans Nieves Alemany and Eva Seone addressed the crowd which included many people from the Latin American community.

They called for urgent solidarity and material support for Cuba and nominated the campaign to end the 30-year US blockade of Cuba as the first priority.

Seone, vice-president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, told the National Conference in Solidarity with Cuba held the next day that Cuba's plight was very serious. There were growing shortages in almost everything, and the US was increasing military overflights over the island and pressuring other countries to vote with the US in the coming debate on the blockade in the UN General Assembly.

Cuba had obtained a copy of a letter sent by the US to other delegations to pressure them to support the blockade and had asked for the debate to be postponed to November 13, so that Cuba could prepare a response.

Bill Davies, assistant federal secretary of the Plumbers and Gasfitters Union, said it was time for the solidarity movement all around the world to repay some of exceptional internationalism Cuba had demonstrated over the last 30 years. He announced a plan to send a shipload of material aid to Cuba from Australia.

From GLW issue 34