Cuba: US moves in for the kill

 

[Havana, June 15, 2026: Funeral of 32 Cuban soldiers killed in US attack on Venezuela.]

[Educational to Socialist Alliance Melbourne branch, March 3, 2026.]

Washington’s fundamental hostility

67 years after the initial victory of the Cuban Revolution, it faces perhaps its greatest ever challenge as Washington moves in for the kill.

The January 1, 1959 triumph of the Revolution and its victory over the US-led counterrevolution at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) in April 1961 electrified progressive and popular forces in Latin America. The revolution and the bold, dynamic new leadership around Fidel and Che had a huge impact.

With Fidel's death, an extraordinary revolutionary has gone

[Speech at Fidel memorial meeting, Trades Hall, Melbourne, December 16, 2016.]

With Fidel's death, an extraordinary revolutionary has gone. The imperialists and their hired guns hated Fidel. There is so much utter rubbish circulating online. In 2006 Forbes business magazine listed Fidel as one of the world's richest "kings, queens and dictators"! A recent News Corp article explained that "Western observers have long suspected that 'El Comandante' . . . was siphoning off the proceeds from state-run enterprises, including a small gold mine." And so it goes on . . .

Fidel lives on in the struggle

[Speech given at Melbourne rally in honour of Fidel, December 4, 2016.]

Fidel Castro was a towering figure in world politics for almost six decades. Now, with his passing, the hacks of the capitalist media have been gloating over the death of the "dictator". Of course, he was nothing of the sort. As he truthfully told director Oliver Stone in the movie Commandante, "I am a slave to the people"! His life is a monument of conscience and loyalty to principle.

Cuba: challenges & changes

[The slide show and text of a talk given to the Geelong branch of Socialist Alliance on October 6, 2010. For a PDF of slideshow see here.]