Labor Leaders to Converge for Cuban May Day March

The traditional May Day march in Cuba promises to be a big event next Tuesday with more than 900 labor leaders from 225 organizations and 52 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and Africa confirming their attendance.

Among those expected is George Mavrikos, general-secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions, scheduled to arrive in Havana on Sunday.

Over two hundred members of the foreign press have already been accredited to cover the International Worker’s Day rally.

A number of the labor leaders will be participating the following day at the International Solidarity Meeting to take place at the Havana Convention Center. Many will also attend the Sixth Hemisphere Conference against Free Trade Agreements and pro Peoples Integration on May 3 to 5 in the Cuban capital.

(Susana Lee, Granma)

Belafonte Demands Justice in Posada Case

Havana, Apr 28 (Prensa Latina) US singer-actor Harry Belafonte joined more than 4,000 world-renowned personalities who signed a call demanding justice in the case of notorious criminal Luis Posada Carriles.

The document, published on April 16 by the Network of Networks in Defense of Humankind and signed by the prominent musical and film producer, is entitled "Luis Posada Carriles Must Be Tried for His Crimes".

The text says that the Cuban-born terrorist "was accused and tried in Venezuela for the sabotage of a civilian airplane in 1976 killing 73 people." "After escaping from a Venezuelan prison in 1982," the document adds, "he worked for the CIA in the Iran-Contras operation and in the implementation of the genocidal Condor Plan", aimed at exterminating Latin American political opponents.

In 1997, Posada Carriles organized a series of terrorist attacks on Havana hotels, killing young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

The declaration says that "in March 2005, Posada Carriles entered the United States illegally. Only after repeated public denunciations revealing the presence of the notorious criminal on US territory, the government of President George W. Bush arrested him and indicted him." However, he was charged "on migratory crimes and false testimony, without the slightest allusion to terrorism," says the document, adding that under pressure from South Florida-based Cuban extremists, Washington"s has given absolute proof of its double standard against terrorism.

The document has been signed by Peace Nobel prizewinners Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Rigoberta Menchu, Literature Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and Harold Pinter, and Physics Nobel prizewinner Zhores Alfiorov.

Well-known artists like Danny Glover, Maria Rojo and Walter Salles also signed the declaration.

U.S News Report on Release of Posada Carilles

Click here to view today's 'Democracy Now' report on the release of Luis Posada Carilles. The report features an interview with the President of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon and also the lawyer representing the Venezuelan Government who are pursuing the extradition of the suspected terrorist. The video stream can be viewed at 128k or the higher quality 256k for those with broadband.

Posada Carriles Released on Bail

Anti-Cuban dissident and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carilles has been released from an El Paso prison on bail this week. Posada Carilles, who has been charged with immigration offences in the United States, is the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cuban Airliner in 1976. The bombing caused the deaths of 73 people.

With no other country agreeing to allow Posada entry, the US is refusing to extradite the suspected terrorist to Venezuela or Cuba because they fear he may be tortured! This explanation is a complete joke given that the U.S military have been accused of torture and other human rights abuses at their detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. There is no evidence to support any claim that either Cuba or Venezuela are torturing prisoners. This is clearly another attempt by the U.S government to stimulate support among the masses for it's current attempts to 'assist' in Cuba's 'transition to democracy'(an even bigger joke) and to undermine the revolutionary processes which are spreading throughout Latin America.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez condemned the decision to release Posada Carilles saying of the U.S that "They say they fight against terrorism, (but) there it is! Their mask keeps falling off. The U.S. empire will end up being a paper tiger, and we will be tigers of steel!"

Whilst the Five Cuban Heroes sit in U.S prisons on fraudulent charges of espionage the real terrorists are receiving tacit support from the United States government.

Go to our 'Downloads' box to the right of the page to read statements on this outrageous situation from both the Cuban Government and the 'Non-aligned Movement' which consists of 118 countries.

Americans to train in Cuba...

Citizens of the U.S must wonder what's going on when they hear that their friends are going off to Cuba to be trained as doctors. It must be hard to understand why it is that a small country like Cuba can afford to hand out 500 scholarships to the Latin American School of Medicine in Habana when their own government can't even cover the costs of basic health care. But that is exactly what was announced at a recent meeting of Pastors for Peace, a group in Oakland, California, who are getting behind the people's revolution in Cuba.

At least a hundred students showed up, packing the modest conference room. Speakers described the history of the Latin American School of Medicine, the scholarship program, facilities, and curriculum. They said that Cuba has sent teams of doctors to disaster-stricken areas all over the world, but the US government (which refused to let them in after Hurricane Katrina) doesn’t want people to know of Cuba’s success in health care because it’s afraid that they will realize that there’s an alternative to the high-tech, capital-intensive Western model.

Click on the audio file in the 'Downloads' box to your left to hear about the latest efforts of the Cuban government to provide U.S students the education that it's own government cannot or will not sponsor.