Cuba Solidarity Homepage
Project USA/Cuba InfoMed
We, solidarity activists in the U.S. and our companeros in Cuba. have come together to affirm Cuba's many strengths and her right to self-determination. Inspired by the resistance and determination of the Cuban people to defend their sovereignty, by the many achievements of the Revolution, and by Cuba's promotion of social justice in the world, we resolve to renew our strategies for solidarity work to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba and other U.S. government aggressions against Cuba.
The U.S.-Cuba solidarity movement is currently in an important and challenging moment, which is also a time of great opportunity.
It is our particular responsibility to increase the interest of the U.S. public in international solidarity in general, and in Cuba solidarity in particular. In answer to the question: "Why should I work for Cuba?", we can draw many natural links with local and domestic issues in the U.S. Government and right-wind attacks on people of color and all people, especially regarding police brutality, political repression, bilingual education, and affirmative action, call for a unified national response. Organizing around these domestic issues offers us countless opportunities to bring Cuba into the dialogue. And in a real sense, solidarity with Cuba is solidarity with ourselves--because Cuba has resisted the very same neoliberal forces that we must struggle to resist at home, and because Cuba is being punished by the U.S. government for that very reason.
The recent revelations printed in the New York Times about terrorist activities against Cuba which were funded by the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) point to the continued role of the U.S. government in supporting sabotage against Cuba and violating international law.
The solidarity community was given many new opportunities for education and outreach in the wake of the Pope's visit to Cuba, in spite of the U.S. government's hope that this visit would create social unrest.
The U.S. government has been working to establish a public perception that the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba is easing by continuing to insist that "there is no blockade on food and medicines" to Cuba, and by announcing a "loosening" of certain restrictions, such as direct flights. We must resist this manipulation because in actuality the blockade remains in full force, and has in some ways been strengthened. The Clinton administration has implemented new licencing and enforcement regulations which give the U.S. government more control, and has stepped up harassment of U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba. The U.S. has also escalated its efforts to internationalize the blockade, and has increased the pressure on other nations to acquiesce to the Helms-Burton law.
Broad based and growing public sentiment in the U.S. in opposition
to the blockade has pushed Congress to consider bills to ease
the blockade on food and medicines to Cuba. But recent amendments
to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill suggest that Senator Torricelli
and his associates in Congress will work hard to maintain sanctions
on food and medicine against Cuba. In this important and challenging
time, we must not relax our efforts. Instead we have a special
responsibility to work more effectively to transform the growing
public sentiment for change into more concrete actions to end
the blockade. This includes stepping up our mobilizations, affirming
our opposition to all sanctions, and increasing our educational
efforts to expose the misrepresentations and lies of the U.S.
government about its brutal and genocidal Cuba policy.
THEREFORE, we propose to the solidarity movement and to all
people of conscience the following series of collective action
strategies, in order to intensify on all fronts
our fight against the blockade, including the ban on
trade and restrictions on travel to Cuba:
to intensify our efforts directed at Washington:
to support laws which would lift sanctions and end the blockade, such as the bills to lift sanctions on food and medicine;
to challenge and oppose those laws which maintain the blockade (Including the Torricelli, Helms-Burton, the Trading with the Enemy Act, etc.);
to challenge the U.S. government lies, "spin" and misrepresentations regarding the blockade;
to encourage grassroots advocacy and letter-writing campaigns to Congress and the administration;
to protest U.S.-government-backed- terrorism against Cuba;
to expose and condemn the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)---Based in Miami---for financing terrorist activities against Cuba;
to expose the links between numerous U.S. elected officials and the CANF;
to make it known that there are hundreds of thousands of Cubans living in the U.S. who actively oppose the policy of aggression against their homeland, and who support normalization of relations with Cuba;
to focus our educational efforts on countering mis- and disinformation about Cuba, and the immoral and hypocritical nature of the blockade;
to intensify our outreach to new sectors in the struggle to lift the blockade, including but not limited to the Latino, African American, Asian, Native, gay and lesbian, youth and student, religious, labor, Southern and rural, recent immigrants to the U.S., the political mainstream, and business sectors, among others;
to link Cuba solidarity with domestic and local issues and struggles;
to educate in our own communities about Cuba's many achievements and the brutality of the blockade;
to call for a World Conference in Solidarity with Cuba in the year 2,000;
to call for a National Conference on Cuba Solidarity in the U.S., perhaps with simultaneous meetings organized in different regions of the U.S.
to encourage the organizing of united local and regional events commemorating 1898, and to include Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii in this organizing;
to emphasize and encourage civil disobedience strategies to resist U.S. government licensing regulations and challenge the blockade wherever possible;
to encourage the development of sister city, sister school and sister church projects;
to encourage and organize delegations and exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba among many U.S. sectors.
to work collaboratively to provide scholarship funds for youth, low income people, ,and people of color who whish to travel from the U.S. to Cuba;
to support the joint organizing of travel challenge delegations, in addition to the ongoing work of our individual organizations, in defense of our constitutional right to travel;
to develop strategies to intensify and increase opportunities for youth organizing and education; and to develop youth leadership in the Cuba solidarity movement.
to develop better unity in our struggle, acknowledging our differences while concentrating on our common goal of ending the blockade;
to improve communications and networking among our organizations, combining our resources where possible to make this happen;
to develop a resource a resource bank of books, films, videos, speakers, workshops, and web sites, and a common calendar of activities.
to build and support the work and strength of the National Network on Cuba;
to form regional coalitions to consolidate and strengthen our work and our outreach;
to develop our movement to be more diverse and pluralistic and to work collaboratively with other progressive movements:
to increase our use of the Internet and other new technologies as tools for education, organizing, cooperation, and coordination;
to develop more comprehensive uses of the media, especially community radio and alternative media, and to press for more balanced coverage of Cuba by the mainstream media;
to continue to use demonstrations and protests to respond to crucial events and issues; and
to develop strategies to internationalize
our movement.
Of all the above-stated proposals, we call for a particular focus on:
1. A national solidarity conference
2. Networking of information and resources, and improving the coordination of our efforts.
3. Unified joint actions to challenge the blockade.
Cuba is not alone, and her struggle is ours.
Resolved on July 30, 1998
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