By Duane Stilwell

HAVANA, Cuba — Keffiyehs and Palestinian flags were among the most visible symbols as Cuban workers began massing at 4:30 a.m. on May 1 for the 200,000-strong rally hosted by the five municipalities closest to the U.S. embassy here. It was one of several May Day rallies in Cuba’s capital. Ten other mass gatherings took place in Havana alone.

More than 4 million Cubans celebrated May Day — the international workers’ holiday — in avenues, town centers, and plazas across the island. They gathered within walking distance of their homes and workplaces instead of joining a single, massive march in each city, in order to save fuel, which is in short supply due to the ever-tightening U.S. blockade.

The gatherings had a unifying theme: “Por Cuba, juntos creamos” [For Cuba, We Create Together].

The main rally here took place at the José Martí Anti-imperialist Tribunal on Havana’s waterfront, with the U.S. embassy in the background. The mood was combative but also festive as three short speeches were interspersed with music from Cuban artists and short videos and slides projected on huge screens.

The first speaker was Darían Oramas Campo, a leader of Cuba’s electrical workers union. She highlighted the intermittent power blackouts, explaining the crippling impact of Washington’s economic war on the country’s ability to purchase fuel.

She added: “I could not avoid denouncing, from this space dedicated to the just causes of the people, the crime being committed by the state of Israel against the people of Palestine, the majority of them children, women and the elderly, who are systematically deprived of the right to life, as well as the complicity of Yankee imperialism.” The Palestinian people, she said, “have a right to self-determination, and to an independent and sovereign state.”

The keynote speaker was Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, general secretary of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC). He detailed the negative impact of the U.S. blockade on the lives of ordinary Cubans, including the scarcity of food and medicine, growing inflation, the difficulties in obtaining inputs for Cuba’s industrial development, and the fines imposed against any bank or enterprise that trades with Cuba. There is not a single sector of the country’s economy, the CTC leader said, “that is free from the effects” of the blockade.

Guilarte de Nacimiento also stated that Cuba can always be counted on to defend the cause of social justice and stand with those oppressed around the world. “The Cuban workers condemn the indiscriminate crimes committed against the people of Palestine by the Zionist Israeli regime,” he said.

Delegations from more than 50 countries — including Argentina, Congo, Canada, France, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States — totaling more than 1,100 people representing over 220 organizations, participated to show solidarity with Cuba. International guests waved banners and flags from their home countries.

May 2 solidarity conference

The massive rallies were followed the next day by a solidarity conference at the Convention Palace in Havana. Hundreds of conference participants and speakers, including Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, wore keffiyehs to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people besieged by the Israeli military in Gaza and under occupation in the West Bank.

International delegates and Cuban workers and others from across the country met to map out activities over the coming year to expand the campaign to end the blockade and get Cuba removed from the U.S. State Department list of “state sponsors of terrorism.”

Speaker after speaker, both in the main session and in each of the three workshops that followed, addressed Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and pointed to the contrasting example of Cuba’s solidarity and internationalism.

Welcoming the visiting delegations and thanking them for their work, Guilarte de Nacimiento referred to the repression faced by university students in the United States for their opposition to the bombing of Gaza.

“The Cuban Revolution, together with its heroic people, will continue to tirelessly defend peace, social justice, and Latin American and Caribbean integration,” said the union leader, with the conviction “that a better world is possible.”

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