Manchester Cuba Solidarity Campaign Canpaigning against the US blockade of Cuba http://cubasolmanchester.blogspot.com/

last updated: 6 January, 2012

Information sheet about the Manchester Group

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign is the British campaign for the defence of Cuba and its peoples' right to self-determination and national sovereignty. It is part of a world-wide movement aimed at forcing the USA to end its illegal blockade of Cuba.  This site is produced by the Manchester group of the campaign.
Links to CSC national page and groups

Site Menu
Manchester CSC links    Manchester events- please see change to regular meetiing venue             Contact us      Newsletter
                                           Our Direct Link with Matanzas Updated Dec 08                      Account of the April 2003 bigade visit
National CSC links
Action calls
Cuban 5 / Miami 5 / Prisoners of the empire
Spotlight on US aggression against Cuba (see also Cuban 5 / Miami 5)
Human Rights
Green Cuba
Health in Cuba
Other Cuba sites
Other struggles in  Latin America
Friendly organisations
Hurricanes of 2008

Not a member yet? then join CSC now:  http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/member.htm

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Cuba Solidarity Campaign - Manchester links

Cuba Solidarity Events and Activities in Manchester

Manchester CSC Direct Links with a Cuban Community - updated Sept 07

Why Cuba?

Notes on Cuba's system of democracy

Some famous friends of Cuba   

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There is no similar case of such a sustained assault by one power on another - in this case the greatest superpower against a poor, Third World country - for 40 years of terror and economic warfare.    Noam Chomsky,  Rogue States,  (Pluto 2000)

Cuba Solidarity Campaign National links

Contact Cuba Solidarity Campaign:

email national office:

email Manchester Group: 
- ask to join our email list to hear of events in Manchester

National CSC website

Hands of Cuba website

Blackpool and Fylde CSC group website

Cuba Connect website - sales of Cuban music, books, coffee etc.

Sheffield CSC group website

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4/4/07  Reflections of President Fidel Castro:  The internationalization of genocide  (from Granma)  On Bush and biofuels

and, after Fidel...   article by Ignacio Ramonet from the Guardian

Spotlight on US aggression against Cuba 

Know your enemy:  McCain promises aggression and destabilisation against hope in Venezuela, Cuba and America.
"We must also work together to counter the propaganda of demagogues who threaten the security and prosperity of the Americas. Hugo Chávez has overseen the dismantling of Venezuela's democracy by undermining the parliament, the judiciary, the media, free labor unions, and private enterprises. His regime is acquiring advanced military equipment. And it is trying to build a global anti-American axis. My administration will work to marginalize such nefarious influences. It will also prepare immediately for Cuba's transition to democracy by developing a plan with regional and European partners for a post-Castro Cuba so as to be ready to spark rapid change in that long-suffering country when the time comes. We must build on the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement by ratifying pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Peru and move the process of completing a Free Trade Area of the Americas forward."  source

Report by Cuba on the US blockade - lack of progress by USA since being censured by UN resoulation 62/3

Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots: Bush's New Cuba Plan   By former US diplomat Wayne S. Smith 
Counterpunch 13 July 2006

And the secret appendix:  "Everything in the document reflects the will to undertake, sooner or later, the annexation of the island of Cuba. Everything is written by the imperial power and its lackeys in a tone that would delight individuals like Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Santiago Alvarez and other killers, whose dreams of a Cuba subjected to the empire are reflected in the very existence of the withheld appendix, an augury of fresh aggression."  .......more

Global Exchange's Summary Of 500 Page Report on the so called Commission for A Free Cuba    - the Bush plan to destabilise Cuba and put in place a free market dictatorship.

What is the impact of the blockade?

The Bush Plan
...will take away forever your morning goodbye kiss, the hug at the end of school,  as well as the glint in your eye.
Thanks, but we already live in a Free Cuba.
 

Cuba under threat: CSC briefing paper on the new US sanctions

The United States tightens its anti-Cuban embargo: new curtailment of freedoms - Remy Herrera

The Bush plan for Cuba by SHARMINI PERIES
'President Bush's recently unveiled plan to bring down the Fidel Castro government in Cuba bears close resemblance to the one for Iraq and is designed with the 2004 Presidential election in focus.'

13 July, 2006  200 MPs call on government to distance UK from US aggression
towards Cuba  

In the same week that the Bush administration has adopted a much trumpeted plan to force regime change in Cuba, 200 MPs from all parties have now signed a Commons motion calling on the UK and Europe to improve their relations with the island.  ...more
(see also the Cuban 5 / Miami 5)

Cuba isn't hated by the United States government because of any supposed repression of its citizens; there are dozens of countries around the world who would deserve the focus of such anger that the U.S. reserves for Cuba, but most of them are U.S. allies. Cuba isn't even hated by the United States because it's a tiny area of the world where the capitalist system can't extract additional profits, because the potential amounts involved wouldn't put a dent in the bottom line of the U.S. economy. No, Cuba is hated by the United States, and has been the object of attempts to overthrow its government by military force or economic pressure for 46 years, because of the example it sets for the people of the world. The example that a country, even a small country just 90 miles from the United States, can actually chart an independent course in the world, a course involving an independent foreign policy and an economic system designed around the needs of its own people, and not around the needs of multinational corporations.  ELI STEPHENS  Counterpunch
Report by Cuba to the UN General Assembly on the impact of the blockade, 2006 version  pdf file  NEW
Summary (CSC Web page)
Article by National CSC on the blockade  (pdf)



Reporters Without Borders Unmasked: Its Secret Deal with Otto Reich to Wreck Cuba's Economy
Counterpunch May 17, 2005  By DIANA BARAHONA
 
Even the Pope called for an end to  the blockade ! (not Ratzinger - the previous one)

No War on Cuba - US site. Cuba Should Not be on the Terrorist List International Policy Report by Wayne S. Smith, Robert Muse, and Glenn Baker, November 2004 [PDF format]

Britain wants Cuba taken off the USA list of terrorist states

Families for Justice - site of the families of those murdered in the bombing of the October 6 1979 Cubana airline flight over Barbados.

Bush Charges Castro with Promoting Sex Tourism By SAUL LANDAU (Counterpunch)

THE EFFECTS OF THE U.S. EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA AND THE URGENT NEED TO LIFT IT.  by Rémy HERRERA  (CNRS, France) (pdf file)

For the 55th session of the U.N.'s Subcommission of Human Rights, presented at the end of July 03 in Geneva.

also by Rémy Herrera: SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA IN MUMBAI(pdf file)

"Payment for Services Rendered": US-funded Dissent and the "Independent    Libraries Project" in Cuba
   By Rhonda L. Neugebauer, Bibliographer, Latin American Studies    University of California, Riverside

Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of U.S. Policy in Cuba By Philip Agee  

'Press conference by Foreign Minister of the Repúblic of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque on the mercenaries at the  service of the empire who stood trial on April 3,4,5 and 7, 2003. Havana City, April 9, 2003'  This very clear presentation counters the various misrepresentations outside Cuba of the trials of these people imprisoned for working for the USA.   In passing Pérez Roque contrasts the treatment of these oppositionists with that of the 5 Cubans imprisoned in the USA by a Miami kangaroo court
(see Cuban 5 / Miami 5 prisoners).

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OPINION: TRIALS IN CUBA  and Letter from Cuban intellectuals
Puts the recent actions against the so-called dissidents into perspective of the United  States' (also known for external rendition, torture, carpet bombing, weapons of mass destruction, finance of terrorism, etc, etc) 40 year aggression against Cuba.

... and just for comparison - try this for justice Texan style!

Operation Northwoods
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba; was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

Action calls

Posada released.

Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada  Bush cries terror where there is none. Meanwhile, he protects the real terrorists in our midst.    by Prof Marjorie Cohn, (Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists)  Global Research, May 10, 2007

Extradite him to stand trial in Venezuela for blowing up Cubana flight 455! Families for Justice website - frequent updates on the case   en castellano
Full briefing and action links

more background articles:  Posada Carriles: Why He Matters  Posada Carriles and Bush's Anti-Terror Hoax
Newly released files point to Posada's involvement: 
Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later  Toothpaste Disguised Plastic Explosives in 1976 Terrorist Attack, Confessions, Kissinger Reports, and Overview of Posada Career  posted on   National Security Archive.

Sign the petition for Cuba
             '...At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been
                                    unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we
                                    call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of
                                    national sovereignity, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and
                                    peaceful co-existence among nations'. ====>>>>>> Sign now online  signatories include
                                    Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Eduardo Galeano.

Fax your MP  (and MEP, councillor) - call for an end to the blockade

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BBC Complaint form - use it if you see misleading coverage of Cuba - and let the campaign know too - email national office  

Support for legislation enabling travel to Cuba - US based site:  this campaign is gathering strength.   See also  US Cuba Normalization

Cuban 5 / Miami 5 / Prisoners of the empire

16 June 2009  US Supreme Court turns down the 5's  appeal
CSC news
Statement from Ricardo Alarcon
Free the 5  (Cuba)
Free the 5  USA



On Monday 15 June, the US Supreme Court refused to review the convictions of the Miami 5.
'It's a form of torture'  In 1998, five Cuban men were arrested for infiltrating groups in the US that were plotting attacks on Cuba. They have not received a fair trial and two have not seen their families since. Duncan Campbell in The Guardian 6 October 2008

Cuba 5 - the song

We need a jury of Millions - Gerardo Hernández  September 2008

Nobel laureates demand justice for Miami Five  Guardian Sept 30

At last some publicity about this injustice in a mainstream US newspaper - The New York Times: Fate of 5 in U.S. Prisons Weighs on Cubans' Minds  by James C. McKinley Jr. August 5, 2007
Is it possible...? Terrorists free, anti-terrorists in prison? With Bush, everything is possible!
by Michel Collon and Vanessa Stojilkovic   from Global Research
Various links:- The Case of the Cuban Five Honor and Injustice By JOSÉ PERTIERRA  Counterpunch  April 27, 2006

August 2005 The five win their appeal, but remain unjustly imprisoned. 
CSC link
Today August 9, 2005, the three magistrates mandated by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case of the Five
 released their decision, unanimously ruling to reverse their convictions and order a new trial.   The Court of Appeals
recognized the right of the Five to be tried fairly in a non coercive atmosphere and to have a fair trial. 
Full court judgement.

And then ..... On August 9th 2006, exactly one year after a three judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia unanimously revoked the sentences of the Miami Five, a majority of the full court of twelve judges has ruled against the decision, reinstated the sentences, denied a Five a new trial, and ordered the case back to the original panel for consideration of the remaining nine issues.  Meanwhile the Five remain incarcerated in maximum-security prisons characterised by violence and lockdowns while their families.. continue to experience delays and difficulties in obtaining visas for visits.  All too aware of the  political nature of their case they know that there are many hurdles yet to be cleared before they receive ultimate justice and that the prosecution will buy as much time as possible while the US administration continues its vendetta against the Cuban people and tries to take advantage of Fidel's incapacity. (Geoff Bottoms August 2006.)  September 2006 - three weeks of Interntional Action for the 5.

UN working group denounces imprisonment of Cuban Five

Cuba and the War on Terrorism (warning large file, 1.16 Megabytes, inPDF format)  - 40 page pamphlet from Sheffield CSC.

Chomsky on the five and other matters (interview on his first trip to Cuba 28/10/2003)

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Free the 5 Campaign (USA)
Free the Five cubaweb site  (Cuba)
Antiterroristas (in English)  (Cuba)

          Chomsky Interview With Radio Havana  August 28, 2003  US Refuses Terrorism Intelligence
         Cooperation with Cuba as it would Lead Back to US Terrorists

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A SUN THAT WILL NEVER BURN OUT :  Background on the 5 by RICARDO ALARCÓN DE QUESADA
President of the National Assembly, Republic of Cuba

Free the Miami 5  (.pdf file)  link to Blackpool and Fylde CSC's page on the Miami 5 Tribute display for the 5 in the Pinar del Rio countryside.  

Other Cuba Links and News

Our country is blockaded by the only superpower and almost blockaded by Europe, but these together will not be able todefeat the Cuban revolution, among other things because together they do not have and will never have either the human capital or the moral values to do what socialist Cubahas been able to do.

Fidel Castro  8/9/2003

The seeds of Latin America's rebirth were sown in Cuba:  There was one region that saw the bankruptcy of neoliberalism - and now the rest of the world is having to catch up.  Seamus Milne in the Guardian Jan 29 2009


Monday 18 February 2008 Fidel retires from the presidency:  Video tribute (sorry about the ad. and use of the term 'dictator' - but otherwise OK)   Video profile of Raúl  both from the Guardian.
Audio interview with James Petras (Spanish)

Raúl Castro's Camagüey speech A translation of the full text of the address by Cuba's Vice President Raúl Castro Ruz on 26th July 2007, the 54th Anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks.  Alternative link 

The moral bankruptcy of the European Union in its policies towards Cuba  by Salim Lamrani  Global Research, May 14, 2007

Health in Cuba
First world results on a third world budget  Rory Carroll Guardian Wednesday September 12, 2007   On the high standard of health and health care in Cuba.   Shame Carrol has since written some really scurrilous pieces about Cuba.
See two responses that contextualise this artticle in terms of the blockade (Rob Miller) and the privatisation of the UK National Health Service (London Metropolitan University).Michael Moore's new film  Sicko has some interesting comparisons of health service systems in the USA Canada, UK, France and Cuba -   Interview  with Democracy Now at  this link.  
New  The idea of the polyclinic.  This model is now being discussed in the context of the British National Health Service.  This briefing note from Manchester CSC  explains that it is effective in Cuba but as part of a comprehensive primary care led public health service with an emphasis on prevention.
Timor, Cuba - and the making of a medical superpower  Every year Cuba, a Majority World country of only 10 million people, sends more than 30,000 volunteer medical workers to 93 countries around the world. Surgeon Katherine Edyvane recounts the little-told story from first-hand experience.   From New Internationalist magazine, Oct 2008

Link to WHO map of the World showing number of inhabitants per medical doctor.  Cuba - 170:1, i.e 170 people per doctor.  In the same area - Haití - 4.000:1,  Jamaica - 1.200:1, Guatemala - 1.100:1,  México - 500:1    USA has 390 or 470:1, depending on the state.  UK has 440:1 and  Africa  has between 30.000 and 50.000 residents per doctor.   This isn't the only index of health provision, but the comparisons speak for themselves.  NEW

Comparative data on UK, US, OECD, EU, Cuban health services. Health services and efficiency: comparative performance of the NHS over 40 years.

World Wildlife Fund Living Planet report (2006) shows that Cuba is the only country developing without damaging the ecosystem 
While the rest of the world is busy destroying the ecosystem, a report published by the World Wildlife Fund claims that the only country in the world with "sustainable development" is Cuba.
WWF includes in its report a graph which shows two features: the human development index (established by the United Nations) and the so-called "ecological footprint" which shows the per person energy and resources consumed in each country. Only Cuba has 'passed' in both arenas, which is enough to be designated a country that "meets the minimum sensitivity criteria". link for the full report: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report.pdf

Cuba ranks 50th on the HDI and outperforms its predicted ranking on the basis of GDP by 43 places! 
see http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf
The study's authors credit the high level of literacy, long life expectancy and low consumption of energy for this success. Things should improve further - 2006 was the Year of the Energy Revolution in Cuba.
This independent finding contrasts with the lies about Cuba's environment in the report of the Commisison for Free Cuba (sic) produced by the non-Kyoto signing Petroleum oligarchy that runs the USA.

Fidel's Final Victory By Julia E. Sweig From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007 wise words from an unlikely source