Speak Out Against the Lies and Disinformation Designed to Isolate Cuba
Do Not Permit Canada to Be Used As a Base Against Cuba!
Action in Montreal in
solidarity with Cuba, July 17, 2021
As part of a campaign to discredit the Cuban government and institutions, a handful of anti-Cubans calling themselves Organizations in Canada of Cubans for Democracy are trying to use Canada as a base against Cuba. Their specialty is telling lies about the reality in Cuba and the achievements of the Cuban Revolution from a virulently anti-communist perspective. Anyone who has seen them in action knows they are hooligans incapable of political discourse. Blinded by hatred for the Cuban people who defend their Revolution, their level of culture is very low and their vocabulary is limited to disgusting misogynist accusations against women. The most recent filth they are trying to promote is a film entitled Plantadas by filmmaker Lilo Vilaplana. The film is being screened in Ottawa and Toronto on September 22 and 24 respectively with a high entrance cost and trailers on YouTube.[1]
The themes are
the usual dealt with by the counterrevolution, about alleged political
prisoners and their mistreatment, human rights violations and
repression. The scriptwriters falsify the history of Cuba and its
reality by piling one lie onto another in a manner that suits their
objective of
garnering sympathy for their counterrevolutionary cause. Their aim with
this film, as it has been in the past, is to incite violent
demonstrations and social disorder in Cuba and provide fodder for a
massive disinformation campaign about the reality which is Cuba. They
will then use this to solicit
phony human rights organizations to get media coverage abroad and even
official condemnations of Cuba by governments and parties in the
opposition, whose stock in trade is to foment regime change in Cuba and
any country which defends its sovereignty and right to determine its
own affairs.
With this particular film, the promoters have picked a topic to attack Cuba which in the end will not win them any friends because it is such a pack of lies -- and that is the condition of women in Cuba. The film claims that in Cuba, since the Revolution, women have been degraded, downtrodden, disrespected and altogether violently abused. Film footage is invented and/or distorted to make this false narrative a horrifying spectacle.
The hand of the Miami anti-Cuban mafia and U.S. and other counterrevolutionary agencies determined to bring down the Cuban state is evident behind this film which is stock-in-trade anti-communism. The news media in Canada and reactionary academics are quick to pick up anti-Cuba accusations about human rights abuses and detention of political prisoners and mistreatment of prisoners by imposing ideology on facts to distort them and tell lies. It brings them no honour. On the contrary, it exposes them as two-bit anti-people elements who condone illegal acts against Cuba and the murderous U.S. blockade for an ideological cause and, no doubt in many cases, payment as well.
Picket outside U.S. embassy in
Ottawa demanding an end to the blockade of Cuba, July 17, 2021
It is not in the interests of Canadians to see their government or opposition parties promote false narratives about human rights, women's rights or the reality in Cuba. The anti-Cuba Miami mafia is known to have committed heinous crimes and even murders in Cuba by planting bombs, killing tourists, including Montrealer Fabio Di Celmo killed in the 1997 bombing of a Havana hotel. They bombed a civilian Cuban airliner in 1976 claiming the lives of 73 people. They run a radio station funded by the U.S. government which spews out lies 24/7 to incite Cubans and people in the U.S. to overthrow the Cuban government. All to no avail.
The Cuban people
have made their choice and are sticking to it despite more than 60
years of the inhuman U.S. blockade to deprive them of food, medicines,
medical equipment and access to everything they require to interact
normally in the fields of trade relations and people-to-people
exchanges.
The U.S. has put Cuba on a list of counties it claims are state
sponsors of terrorism and uses its hegemonic positions to deprive the
island of its rights to engage in trade and commerce.
There is no more heinous violator of human rights than the government of the United States which to this day occupies Guatanamo Bay, a part of Cuban territory where it continues to maintain a detention camp where people are tortured and held without charges or trial for years. The Guantanamo detention centre, a torture site on occupied Cuban land, lies outside of U.S. jurisdiction so that impunity cannot be brought to account. This means that it is up to the peoples of the world, including the Canadian people, to speak out about the truth of the Cuban reality and not permit the spreading of lies about Cuba or anti-Cuban actions from any quarter.
The venom the counterrevolutionary forces spew, the ugly scenes they manage to conjure up in fact reveal their hatred for the Cuban people who overthrew the Batista regime which created a pleasure palace for the rich in the U.S. and a hell-hole for the Cuban people. The people of Cuba led by Fidel Castro and other legendary leaders of the Cuban Revolution established their own people's power and have defended it ever since. The venom and ignorance of those who lost their paradise is such that now, in their most recent film, they have decided to attack the women of Cuba – the very women who in Cuba stand second to none and who established their dignity as one of the most significant achievements of these more than 60 years of the Revolution.
The film maker Lilo Vilaplana is permitted into Canada under the guise that his film is made "to pay homage to the political prisoners who are victims of communism. Armed with conviction and courage, these women sacrificed their freedom for that of their country. The funds raised will go to Plantadas, a foundation that helps women imprisoned for having the courage to publicly criticize the Havana regime."
What freedom would that be? One of the most significant features of the neo-colonial era before 1959 that the annexationists like so much was the oppression of Cuban women.
Prior to 1959, women represented only 12 per cent of the country's total labour force. In general, they occupied jobs traditionally considered to be women's work and were generally paid a pittance. In 1953, six years before the Revolution, 76 per cent of the Cuban population over 10 years of age were literate. Corruption and discrimination prevailed with the majority of the people living a marginalized existence. Abuse of women by men of property was protected by the Batista dictatorship, which thrived from its casinos and pleasure palaces. The conditions women suffered explained why they joined the struggle against the dictatorship and took their place second to none in the July 26 Movement where they created the Mariana Grajales women's military platoon in the Sierra Maestra, among other great feats.
The Revolution created the conditions which outlawed violence against women, educated them, elevated them to positions of respect in all fields. They incorporated themselves in an integral and active way into educational and cultural programs, socially useful work and contributed to the development of the country. At last they could exercise control over their lives as producers and reproducers of life. They were no longer dependent on others for their living and nor were their children. Never again would the women of Cuba be relegated to the drudgery of housework and seen as mere objects of pleasure. Violence against them is outlawed in Cuba and those who commit crimes against women face the penalties prescribed by law.
In any country, it is the condition of women which reveals the truth about the kind of society which exists there and the kind of relations people enter into. By taking on the women of Cuba, the counterrevolutionaries who spew filth about the Cuban Revolution have once again sown the wind and they will reap the whirlwind. They will yet find out what mettle the women of Cuba are made of. We are confident that the women of Canada and Quebec and the people of this country will continue to stand as one with their counterparts in Cuba.
Canadians are
called on to go all out to discuss and oppose the aims of this
virulently anti-communist campaign against Cuba and oppose the Cold War
smear tactics. They are called on to make sure the U.S. blockade of
Cuba is brought to an end. Also, go all out to organize your peers to
gather
signatures for the petition which demands that the U.S. take Cuba off
the list of countries which it deems are sponsors of terrorism and to
make sure Canada continues to oppose the all sided U.S. blockade of
Cuba at the United Nations this year and that it support Cuba's right
to self-determination.
Let us as one people make sure Canada cannot be used as a base to
promote hatred by spewing lies about Cuba's human rights and its
reality.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 7 - September 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS53071.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca