The war on Cuba is not separable than the war on human rights and human welfare here at home. If it succeeds, it will establish the right of military might over the right of self determination. It will drive thousands of desperate Cubans to our shores, where they will join the plight of the immigrants we already have.
We cannot let that happen. Not for the Cuban people, not for their dream of a society of people over profits, not for our own dreams of a society of people over profits.
As we have reported before, the United States has cut off all fuel to Cuba, now ordered all foreign companies out of the country and to cut all their investments in hotels, agriculture and companies there, curtailed shipping for imports or exports, prohibited the use of credit cards (Visa, Mastercard) in Cuba. Electricity is just 3 hours a day all over the island, water pumped into neighborhoods and homes has slowed to a trickle. There’s barely any cooking fuel, no garbage trucks, no public buses, people waiting weeks for routine surgeries, children and adults dying because medicines either cannot reach the island, are stuck in warehouses or are spoiling for lack of refrigeration.
The US is trying to create a humanitarian crisis that can drive Cuba and all its resources into the arms of the United States, and even more into the arms of the waiting right wing Cuban-Americans of Florida. They have already started a Cuban American National Chamber of Commerce, just ready for Cuba to fall like a ripe fruit into their arms.
Not only that, the USS Nimitz and its Strike Force is stationed menacingly nearby in the Caribbean, the US military is flying drones over the island, and there are reports of Secretary of War Hegseth actually visiting the Guantanamo Naval Base and issuing warnings to Cuba.
We have to be prepared. So much is at stake. Just as we are defending our own people, the new immigrants at home, defending the people of Gaza, the people of Iran, we have to be prepared to defend the people of Cuba with whom we share a border of just 90 miles of ocean.
The Cuban government has said it is willing to negotiate on lots of things. It has shown its willingness to negotiate as there are already many agreements in place, such as on stopping drug trafficking in the Caribbean, such as on migration, such as inviting Cuban Americans to invest in Cuba and start businesses there. On immigration and telecommunications. But not on its sovereignty or independence. Not on regime change. Not on who its government should be or on their health system or education or other governmental structures. It is not clear if the United States can ever accept that, if Marco Rubio’s presidential ambitions are so high that he will sacrifice the 9 million Cuban people to the ambitions of the Cuban Americans hungering to retake an island that they never did right by when they or their parents lived there.
We at MAPA and organizations and groups all over the country, in fact all over the world, have been meeting weekly to plan out how we can respond.
For one thing, we must keep up the pressure on Congress to pass war powers resolutions and bills to prevent funding of military action on Cuba.
You can join us in this effort in Massachusetts, by going here.
And at MAPA, as all over the country, we are forming a rapid response network of concerned people who can turn out within 24 hours if the US should launch a military attack on Cuba.
Act before it’s too late.
Sign up here to be the first to be notified of emergency actions.
If the United States attacks Cuba, our rapid response network will respond: If before 3 pm, at 6 pm the same evening; if after 3 pm, the following day at 6 pm.
You will be Notified and We will meet:
- In Boston, at Park Street in Boston Common
- In Salem, at Lappin Park, Essex & Washington Streets
- In Worcester, at City Hall, 455 Main Street
- In Northampton, at City Hall, Main Street
- In Holyoke, at City Hall, 536 Dwight Street
