In the midst of the euphoria surrounding Venezuela's aggression, Trump and Marco Rubio sounded the death knell. After 67 years of resistance against the empire, the Cuban revolution was supposedly finished. Cuba was expected to fall this year, the US administration proclaimed daily, in every possible tone.

BY Maïté PINERO

Cuba: in defense of the honor of humankind.

The perennial haters, in Miami and elsewhere, a multitude of voices and pens, speaking and writing at attention, echoed this sentiment.
While the curtain has fallen on the ruins and massacre in Gaza, while the genocide continues there with or without missiles, eyes are now turning to Cuba. One must vary the topics to keep the reader's mouth water. The predicted tragedies are like sweets that generate a flood of ink. Two articles in Le Monde are headlined "In the streets of Havana, a ghost town, ravaged by shortages and American threats" and "The impossible life: There's nothing left but to leave."

NO ONE LEAVES HERE.

Where were these experts on the ground when, led by President Diaz-Canel, the traditional torchlight procession descended the steps of the university? When Havana and other cities demonstrated with grief and rage against the aggression in Venezuela? When, on both sides of Boyeros Avenue, in stony silence, the people of the capital paid tribute to the 32 Cubans who died fighting for the sovereignty of Bolívar's country? When, the next day, a kilometer-long line waited to pay their respects before their urns? When, in their hometowns, their funerals gave rise to massive demonstrations, so many promises to resist, to resist again.

But here's the thing: this incredible Cuban resistance, this unwavering will to endure against all odds, first and foremost the US blockade—the longest, most cruel, and most unjust in history, exacerbated by the recurring hurricanes, relentlessly and relentlessly tightened—must not be known. And it's constantly condemned by the UN, in just a brief mention, isn't it?

This determination to defend values ​​of solidarity when they are collapsing everywhere else, to preserve achievements in education, healthcare, and culture when they are being challenged everywhere else, must be silenced, denied, and erased.

This kind of rare miracle, which should at least pique our curiosity and be the subject of discussion, is constantly ignored. We are filled with indignation at these mediocre journalistic products that censor the Cuban resistance, that are an insult to Cuba and to intelligence, portraying us as a people already resigned, already defeated, awaiting the final blow. The demonstrations, the music and songs, the official and unofficial speeches proclaim that no, and a thousand times no, "surrender has never been an option."

The empire's parrots, its feathered lackeys, and the ignorant cohorts miss the real issue: in Cuba, since 1959 and at the height of the current White House offensive, a tragedy is unfolding, a challenge to human honor.

THE CRUELTY OF THE BLOCKADE

The indignation upon reading this doesn't stem from the situation itself. If these scribblers had the decency to consult official documents, they would have found more substance there. The last meeting of the Central Committee analyzed the critical situation across the board. Public transportation covers only 42% of the country's needs, construction has plummeted to 41%, and production has halved. Due to fuel shortages, garbage trucks are out of service, and trash is piling up. The electricity deficit has reached 2,000 megawatts, and the water service is compromised. There are shortages of gas and electricity; daily life is a struggle. And yes, we know, some families are only eating one meal a day, and the exodus for economic reasons is bleeding the country dry. But Cuba is holding firm and proclaiming this loudly and clearly, raising its voice at the UN, before all governments, all peoples, "in every possible forum," as its government declared.

Yes, the economy has collapsed, and threatening to tax countries that supply oil to Cuba aims to starve the people and plunge the island back into the Stone Age. Creating scarcity, anger, and despair to provoke unrest and revolt—this is the criminal and cynical recipe proclaimed by Trump before the entire world. Cuba, ruined and above all humiliated, must fall, must be enslaved once more, and this must serve as a lesson to the whole world, especially to all those who suffer and struggle nonetheless.

PROOF OF THE REVOLUTION

If the empire were to succeed, if Cuba were to disappear, one of the world's lights would be extinguished. Cuba has become like the soul of the revolution, the symbol that our humanity is not eternally doomed to misfortune and tears, the vibrant proof that hope exists and that it is worth defending even when all seems lost, when the possibility of defeat stares you in the face. Words cannot express what such energy, such courage, represents on a national scale.

This great hope that has animated progressives since time immemorial, that has inspired liberation struggles, revolutions, and the great emancipatory battles of slaves, women, and all the oppressed, found a place to flourish on this island. Cuban medical brigades and literacy workers have radiated human solidarity throughout the world.

The entire world owes a debt to Cuba. This revolution belongs to the realm of this world; it is Cuban, but it belongs to our shared heritage.

It is the empire that denies Cuba its right to live as a sovereign nation, that has turned it into a battleground. Life there is hard, increasingly hard, but even though the economy has collapsed, society resists because the hope of Spartacus, of the giants of 1789, of the Commune, of October 1917, of all those who fought in the anti-colonial wars, still resonates there.

If Cuba were to fall, if this bulwark were to give way to the ferocity of the empire, we would all have to start from scratch, as if all those past struggles, which sustain us and whose torch we have taken up, were erased.

That must not happen. Defending Cuba is not only, even today, about defending education despite insufficient food, free healthcare despite water and electricity cuts, widespread culture despite garbage in the streets, pioneering research despite crumbling neighborhoods, and community-based medicine despite the lack of transportation.

Defending Cuba means defending that small difference, whether we call it socialism or not, which has proven and proudly upheld throughout the world the values ​​that inspire us and that we have always defended.

Ninety miles from the most criminal empire in history, so close to Haiti—which continues to pay in blood and tears for the glory of having been the first Black republic in the world, the first French colony to gain its independence—the fate of this small island of 11 million inhabitants determines the future of Latin America and also our own.

Defending Cuba is at the top of the agenda for progressives worldwide. Cubans have said it time and again: they will not pass here! They are calling for global solidarity: we will not let them pass.

Maïté Pinero
Journalist. Writer.

https://www.legrandsoir.info/cuba-en-defense-de-l-honneur-du-genre-humain.html

TRANSLATION BY JULES LETAMBOUR

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MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - The Cuban government has updated its plan for transitioning the country to martial law in the event of possible external aggression, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez said on Thursday.

"This Saturday, the National Defense Council met to analyze and approve plans and measures for the transition to martial law as part of the country's preparations within the framework of the strategic concept of the people's war," Diaz-Canel told a press conference.

The Cuban government has updated all plans for repelling aggression related to the working bodies of the National Defense Council, the president said, adding that they have been updated and clarified taking into account "experience gained from recent international conflicts."

Diaz-Canel explained that the publication of information about the meeting of the National Defense Council does not mean that Cuba has entered a state of martial law.

"We are preparing in case at some point it becomes necessary to move to a state of war," the president added.

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