POLITICS-CUBA/US: A Million March in Anti-Embargo Protest

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 26 2000 (IPS) - More than a million people, according to official counts, followed Cuban president Fidel Castro in a “march of the combatant people” Wednesday, demanding an end to the economic blockade the United States has maintained against the socialist-governed island for nearly 40 years.

The protest parade, which Castro said was the “biggest in Cuban history,” broke with the traditional festivities of July 26, “Day of National Defiance.”

Unlike previous years, the main event of the day – which marks the beginning of the fight 47 years ago that led to a victorious revolution in January 1959 – did not include speeches by Castro or any other top government official.

“Down with the blockade! Long live the fatherland!” protesters shouted outside the US Interests Section in Havana, in a scene reminiscent of numerous marches called by the Castro government over the last year.

“It is a totally fair demand and that is why I am here. To think that we are talking about the longest economic blockade there has ever been in times of peace,” Yobany Alvarez, a doctor who took part in the march, told IPS.

Official sources estimate that the policy of economic sanctions the United States decreed in 1962 has meant at least 70 billion dollars in lost income for the island and its population of 11 million.

In the health sector alone, losses have surpassed 2.1 billion dollars, according to Diana Martínez, director of Havana’s William Soler paediatric hospital, in comments during a round-table discussion broadcast on state-run television.

But even with this setback, Martínez pointed out, in Cuba life expectancy at birth is more than 75 years, infant mortality fell last year to 6.4 per 1,000 live births and the country’s children are immunised against 13 diseases.

“I see the effects of the blockade every day in my work,” said physician Alvarez as he marched, adding that he often has to “juggle in order to obtain US-made medications that are necessary in some cases.”

Other march participants said they agree that “the blockade must be lifted to see if things begin to change,” but they acknowledged they were attending the protest “because they did not have much choice.”

“I was summoned through my office. I though I would be able to leave half way through, but they say the attendance certificates won’t be handed out until the end. If I could have done as I wanted, I would have gone to the beach,” said one man who asked that his name be withheld.

Participation in the marches organised by the Castro government is voluntary, but mechanisms established through the workplace and neighbourhood organisations mean that many feel they are obligated to attend.

At Wednesday’s parade, hundreds of foreign guests took part in the anniversary celebration, which is to include events in the provinces of Santa Clara and Pinar del Río, as well as carnivals in Havana and holidays through Friday, July 28.

Officials announced that the Cuban population will have five consecutive days of vacation, counting Saturday and Sunday, which the government says citizens deserve after the “intense battle” launched in recent months against the United States.

Protests and political events of various sorts began last December to demand that the United States return six-year-old Cuban castaway Elián González, which it finally did on June 28.

Even before Elián was back in Cuba, Castro had warned that protests, open hearings and televised round-table discussions would continue to denounce the trade embargo and the US law known as the Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants privileges to immigrants from the island entering the United States illegally.

“The most difficult part is yet to be won,” said a television news announcer, repeating the official position published Monday in an editorial in the newspaper ‘Granma,’ the voice of the Communist Party of Cuba.

The text states that a partial lifting of the blockade – exempting food and medicine – would not necessarily mean that the island nation could obtain these necessary products from the United States.

The government’s statements came after the US House of Representatives passed a bill last Thursday to eliminate restrictions on sales of food and medicine to Cuba and to allow US citizens to visit the island as tourists.

When he announced the Wednesday march to protest the blockade, Castro said that the Cuban people are facing “the most difficult battle” they have ever waged, and it “will last months, years, or however long it takes.”