Solidarity activists and supporters of the Cuban Revolution will gather this month at the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society National Consultation, where one item of discussion will undoubtedly be how to defeat the stifling economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the US government since 1962. For most of the existence of the blockade, few people in the US have really understood what damage it has caused.
Dr Benjamin Spock, the internationally renown paediatrician – who, in 1993 at the age of 90, risked imprisonment for challenging the blockade by taking medical aid to Cuba – said: “I believe that very few Americans realise what our country is doing down here – [trying to] starve people into submission and deprive children and old people of medicine”.
In recent years, this has slowly changed and more US citizens have come to understand that the blockade must be lifted. Repeatedly when the issue has come-up at UN General Assembly meetings, the US has been condemned for its actions toward Cuba and a resolution has been adopted by the overwhelming majority of delegates calling for an end to the blockade. Perhaps this support for Cuba is not surprising given the international solidarity and assistance that the Cuban government has provided, without hesitation, over decades to the underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Direct Action calls for the immediate lifting of the US blockade and greater solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. We regularly feature reports and updates on the situation in Cuba, including debates and discussions among the Cuban revolutionaries on where their socialist revolution is heading. DA seeks to highlight the gains, ideals and desires of Cuba’s working people and their struggle to build a socialist society on the doorstep of a hostile and antagonistic superpower. As opposed to the lies and distortions peddled in the corporate media, DA seeks to inform its readers about the reality of the Cuban Revolution.
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