More than 500,000 Havana residents gathered this May 1st at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribune to celebrate International Workers’ Day, in an event led by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, as part of the centennial commemoration of the birth of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.
During the ceremony, Yolaidis Hernández Valdés, a specialist from the Chemical Industry Business Group, spoke on behalf of the sector’s workers to denounce the “intensified economic, commercial, financial, and energy blockade” imposed by the United States government, exacerbated by the executive order of January 2026. “We will not stop. We have the responsibility to reinvent ourselves in order to grow,” she affirmed.
The event was attended by Rebel Army Commander José Ramón Machado Ventura, and members of the Political Bureau: Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee; Major General José Amado Ricardo Guerra, Secretary of the Council of Ministers; and Bruno Rodríguez Parilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs; as well as leaders of mass organizations, the Union of Young Communists, the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and the Ministry of the Interior.
Hernández Valdés emphasized that, despite the daily shortages caused by the blockade, Cuban industry is advancing with innovative projects, financial self-management, and import substitution. “When we transform challenges into opportunities, we build our nation, we make revolution,” she said.
She paid tribute to the legacy of the Commander-in-Chief on his centennial:
“Fidel continues to call upon us to resist and to overcome. In the most difficult circumstances, there has never been, nor will there ever be, an impossible task.”
Yolaidis Hernández Valdés also rejected any characterization of Cuba as a threat:
“Is Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat to anyone? No, a thousand times no. This is a people of solidarity, internationalism, anti-imperialism, and peace.”
The event also brought together more than 827 friends of Cuba from 38 countries and 152 labor and solidarity organizations from around the world, along with labor heroes, founders of the Cuban Workers’ Federation, and members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the island.
IMAGE CREDIT: Presidencia de Cuba / @PresidenciaCuba
[ SOURCE: GRANMA ]
