International May Day Brigade

by María Josefina Arce

Like every year, friends from all over the world traveled to the Cuban territory to participate in the celebrations of May Day, International Workers' Day, and to express once again their solidarity with Cuba.

The presence of representatives from Latin American, European and African countries, as well as from the United States, Australia and Canada, is particularly important at a time when the Caribbean nation is the target of a policy of maximum pressure by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump.

It is another sign of the international community's rejection of the measures adopted by Trump to suffocate the Greater Antilles economically, from its arbitrary inclusion in the illegal US list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism to the reactivation of the controversial Title Three of the Helms-Burton Act, which expresses the extraterritorial nature of the inhumane US blockade.

That is why the condemnation of the economic siege has focused the attention of the friends in this new Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, which began on May 30th and which will bring them together on its last day, May 2nd, in Havana, in the emblematic Palacio de Convenciones.

 At this meeting, representatives of solidarity movements and progressive forces articulate new actions in support of the Cuban revolution, in addition to those that have already taken place in various nations in the past months.

These meetings, which had an impasse during the COVID 19 pandemic, have become a clear expression of condemnation of the blockade, rejected year after year since 1992 at the UN by the international community.

Their close contact with the population, with visits to communities, workplaces and student centers, enables the participants to learn first-hand about the impact of this unilateral measure on the daily lives of Cubans.

An economic siege that strongly affects essential areas and that only from March 2023 to February last year caused damages to the country for more than five BILLION dollars.

It has been demonstrated once again that our country is not alone, for as Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel pointed out at the closing of last year's meeting, “each friend who visits us is further evidence ...that Cuba continues to beat in the hearts of millions of women and men around the world”.