BY JORGE JORQUERA
HAVANA — In front of us in the throng marched a man holding a flag emblazoned with Che Guevara's face and the slogan Hasta la victoria siempre (To victory ever onwards). His arm did not bend once to rest as we passed the Office of US Interests, Washington's unofficial embassy here. Someone else turned to us laughing and said that today no-one in that office will dare show their face.
On June 12, the Cuban people in their millions stood defiant in the face of US imperialism's intensified offensive against their revolution and proudly reaffirmed its socialist character. Millions of people participated in more than 845 marches, and thousands of other actions, throughout Cuba.
In Havana, a colossal 1.2 million people marched. Even in Ibarra, as in many other townships, a village of just 80 homes and a population of 500, people rose before dawn to make their way to nearby Triunvirato, a town of 315 homes, to march along its streets.
In hospitals, offices and factories, people who could not attend a march met to demonstrate their support. This was the biggest and most passionate mobilisation in support of the Cuban Revolution since the US-backed attack at Playa Giron in 1961. This time the Cubans did not need to fire a shot. "We do not attack with smart bombs. Fidel shoots with ideas", was one slogan.
Washington has stepped up its efforts to demonise the Cuban government and to encourage the Cuban people to blame the suffering caused by the tightening US economic blockade on its economic and political system. On June 1, US President George Bush issued a thinly veiled threat to launch "pre-emptive" attacks on Cuba.
However, the response of the Cuban people was to raise the banner of socialism higher, and call on the oppressed of the world to take their side.
This was not an organised stunt for the benefit of the Bush administration, nor was it some Soviet-style state-sponsored parade. It was a genuine expression of the willingness of the Cuban people to fight, and a call for support aimed squarely at the people of the US and the world. This was revolutionary spontaneity at its best.
The demonstrations were called just days earlier. Only 24 hours before the massive mobilisation, no-one was sure what time demonstrations were supposed to start.
Since Bush's May 20 inflammatory anti-Cuba speech in Miami, the Cuban people have been waiting for the call to respond. This response was formulated on June 10 at an extraordinary meeting of Cuba's independent mass organisations — the trade union movement, women's liberation movement, Committees in Defence of the Revolution and mass organisations representing youth and students, revolutionary combatants and small farmers.
The presidents of the eight major mass organisations in Cuba have signed a petition to the country's National Assembly calling for a constitutional guarantee of the socialist character of the economy and government. This is what millions of Cubans came out onto the streets to support. It was a referendum in the streets in which the Cuban people exercised their freedom in a way that would terrify every other government on the planet.
Having marched with millions of Cubans on June 12, there can be no doubt of the democracy of this revolution, and the Cuban people's resolve or its determination to contribute proudly and selflessly to the global struggle for socialism.
The banner of the Latin American School of Medicine said it all: "Cuba is not calling on us to dream, but something much simpler, to awake".
From Green Left Weekly, June 19, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.