May Day in Havana started off at 5 am with people marching from 4 different points in the city to the Anti Imperialist Tribunal in on the Malecón seafront Boulevard, and in front of the US embassy. The crowd was estimated at more than 500,000, including some 800 people from 68 countries and 152 trade unions.
Winding up the march were Pres Miguel Diaz-Canal, Raul Castro and other top Cuba leaders who walked through the crowd to their places at the front of the Tribunal.
The program began with the singing of the National Hymn and then a program of speeches interspersed with music and dancing
The first speech was from Yolaidis Hernández Valdés, representing women working in industry industry who spoke of the need “to continually reinvent ourselves in order to grow,” despite “the intensified economic, commercial, financial, and energy blockade” of the US government. “We will not stop,” she said.
A big screen over the crowd announced that more than 6 million Cubans, two-thirds of the population, have signed a letter circulating that affirms support for the Revolution and recalling Cuba’svictory over US and Cuban exile aggression at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs). The President and Raul were presented with a book with the signatures and took some time to mingle with those nearby.
The organizing secretary of the Cuban Workers Central Osnay Miguel Colina Ridriguez gave the 2nd speech, saying, Cuba stands “as a moral beacon, without armies to invade…without digital algorithms to lie.” Cuba has, he said, “sent doctors where others send bombs…Our greatest weapon is not a missile, but a conscience. The certainty that another, better world is possible.”
The rest of the program consisted of both modern and traditional music and dancing including the music of Maria Victoria Rodriguez and her dancers in traditional Cuban garb; a group of storied repentistas accompanied by the guitar-like cuerda, decima couplets of the countryside that mix current events, humor and poetry; and the modern dance music of the ever popular Arnoldo y Su Talisman who brings pop and rap into the rhythms of salsa, with dancers in cutoffs and T-shirts. At this point, the crowd was dancing casino morphing into line dancing.
And then the program ended. But not before all 500,000 of us launched into singing The International.
You can see short video interviews with some of the day’s participants at the Mass Peace Action YouTube site. This video of the President and Raul walking through the crowd. Or watch the whole program on the CubaVision YouTube Channel
Love from Havana where the most important values are love, solidarity, community and resistance.
by Merri Ansara
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