By Mark Friedman
LOS ANGELES — Several hundred people from more than 30 organizations participated in the annual “Left Coast Forum” held at California State University, Los Angeles, on October 2-4, 2026. The conference featured dozens of workshops, taking up topics such as Palestine, fighting the ICE raids and defending immigrants, struggles for housing for the homeless, medical care for all, and the economic and political crisis of capitalism.
Destiny Rivera, a leader of the LA Hands-Off Cuba Committee (LAHOC), chaired a workshop focused on ending the US blockade of Cuba and organizing to send maternal prenatal aid to Cuba, a campaign organized by Global Health Partners. Rivera described LAHOC as “a broad united effort of more than 50 organizations, unions, and prominent individuals focused solely on winning Cuban sovereignty and ending US sanctions and the blockade and removing Cuba from the SSOT.”
The SSOT is Washington’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list; the addition of Cuba to the list is designed to prevent nations around the world from engaging in commerce with the island, not because of any evidence that Cuba has sponsored terrorism anywhere in the world. In fact, it is the United States that has supported hundreds of terrorist attacks and attempts on Cuba over nearly seven decades.
Rivera denounced the current attacks on Cuba solidarity supporters using the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) just as it is has been used recently against the Uhuru 3. She condemned declarations by US president Donald Trump slandering those organizing humanitarian aid for Cuba.
Via video message to the meeting, Mike Vera of the Inland Boatman’s Union (marine division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — ILWU) said, “For over six decades the blockade and designation as a state sponsor of terror, along with hundreds of sanctions could be defined as the normal foreign policy of the US towards Cuba; keeping the boot on the back of the Cuban people and punishing the people has increased exponentially. Kidnapping and imprisonment of Nicolás Maduro the president of Venezuela, a sovereign nation, the United States has erased the single most important trading partner of fuel to Cuba.”
‘Hypocrisy must end’ says Inland Boatman’s Union
“Important resolutions have been passed by labor and civic groups condemning the blockade, demanding removal from the SSOT list, removing sanctions and normalizing relations,” Vera said. “The hypocrisy must end by returning the Guantanamo base to Cuba. The ILWU in each of its last two conventions passed similar resolutions that also included $10,000 contributions for medical aid. The Pan-American Medical Association, Not Just Tourists, Global Health Partners, and the Hands-off Cuba Committee have been instrumental in bringing millions of medical aid to Cuba. This needs to continue.”
Vera pointed to the expansion of solar panels and vehicles in Cuba and increasing battery capacity as a real positive development. “We must find leaders who are not afraid and understand that all people have the right to self-determination to live in peace, security, and prosperity.”
Erika Feresten, who led a 2025 delegation of Health Care for US activists to Cuba, decried the health care situation in the United States compared to the Cuban model of health care for all. “We traveled to Cuba with a Hands-off Cuba delegation to be of service, to bear witness, and we went to learn. We carried suitcases of medical supplies; we stuffed rice and beans into our carry-ons; and we brought toys and school supplies in our backpacks. When we arrived, we were greeted with joy and appreciation.
“Our group witnessed the devastating effects of the U.S blockade,” Feresten explained. “Fuel shortages, restrictions on banking, and access to essential goods; power outages; scarcity of medicine and medical supplies that make it harder for patients to get care and harder for health care workers to do their jobs. The infant mortality rate has tripled in just over a year, childhood cancer survival rates have dropped by 20 percentage points. Shortages of essential medicines once produced domestically in Cuba are no longer produced because chemical components are no longer available.”
“I say free Cuba; I say free Palestine, free Sudan, free all people in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ICE. None of us will be free until we are all free. I realize that what all of these places and these people have in common is they are resisting the empire. Palestinian medical students were in Cuba because of the scholarships and talked about how Cuba ‘doesn’t just teach us medicine, they teach us to be revolutionary physicians.
“A Cuban labor organizer put it simply, ‘Our goal is to organize the best we can under the circumstances we face.’”
Jewish Voice for Peace activist applauds Cuban foreign policy
Estee Chandler, representing Jewish Voice for Peace, addressed Cuba’s solidarity with the Palestinian people. “Cuban policy of strong support for the Palestinian cause is rooted in anticolonial ideology and solidarity in the global south since prior to Israel’s founding. Cuba with all its own challenges continues to provide diplomatic, political, and educational support for the Palestinian liberation struggle.”
“In 1959 Cuba began granting citizenship to displaced Palestinians unlike many countries in the region,” Chandler explained. “In 1973 Fidel Castro cut diplomatic ties with Israel and recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Castro’s message is clear: Palestine should be recognized by the international community as a state.”
Castro was one of the first world leaders condemn Israeli policy against the Palestinian people as genocide. “We repudiate with all our strength the ruthless persecution and genocide that Nazism, in its time, unleashed against the Jewish people.” Castro said during a speech to the United Nations in 1979. “But I can think of nothing more similar in our contemporary history than the eviction, persecution, and genocide that imperialism and Zionism are carrying out today against the Palestinian people. Stripped of their lands, expelled from their homeland, scattered throughout the world, persecuted and murdered, the heroic Palestinians are an impressive example of self-sacrifice and patriotism.”
Chandler noted that in his 1979 UN speech, Castro said, “The basis for a just peace in the region begins with Israel’s total and unconditional withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, presupposed for the Palestinian people the return of all their occupied territories and the restoration of their inalienable national rights, including the right to return to their homeland, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent state in Palestine.”
Chandler continued, “In 1982 Cuba began granting free scholarships to Palestinian students and has since provided free education to over 1500 Palestinian students, with hundreds graduating from medical schools. And famously, in June of 2024, 200 new, fully funded medical scholarships for Palestinians were added as Israel began assassinating Palestinian doctors in Gaza. In October of 2024 and 2025, thousands of Cubans led by president Miguel Díaz-Canel and other state leaders marched in Havana wearing keffiahs at large demonstrations to express their solidarity with Palestinians and protesting the continued Israeli genocide.”
In closing, Chandler noted, “I feel it’s always important to note that approximately 70 percent of the weapons and ammunition used by Israel in its ongoing genocide are provided by the United States using tax dollars not being used to provide social aid for our unhoused communities, financial aid for students, funding to refurbish our dangerously crumbling infrastructure, nutrition programs, medical care for all, and fully funded Social Security for elders and disabled populations.”
Bita Amani is an epidemiologist who takes her public health students to Cuba for three weeks of intense training in the island’s maternal health care model. When she talks “about capitalism and it’s real racialized surveillance and histories of white supremacy, colonialism, imperial medicine,” sometimes her students say to her, “You never tell us anything good.” Amani responds, “Let’s go to Cuba; go and see what it means, this idea that dignity and well-being healthcare and education is codified.”
Cuban doctors have a different mission, sense of purpose
“People who’ve had revolutions or liberation struggles that are not only for their own country but instead connected to liberation struggles around the world, we must see how they put things together,” Amani explained. “This isn’t simply a situation where the Cuban doctors or workers have a different scope of work. They have a different mission and they have a different sense of their purpose to the larger existence of the planet. So, it’s been wonderful to be able to take students there.“
“The economic warfare that’s been imposed upon Cuba is disheartening and upsetting to see, the ways that over time these policies completely undermine and take back many of these advances,” Amani said.” When you’re there and every year that you come back and they tell you that theirinfant mortality is slowly creeping up because it’s getting harder, you see the pain in the doctor’s eyes…. We have to do a deep dive and understand the reasons are not in their control in any way.”
Amani also noted, “The continuing blockade means that our people here are not getting what they need, like Cuba’s medications that would reduce the need for amputations by 70 percent… Cuba has had this technology, but anybody who drives through neighborhoods like South Central sees people without different parts of their limbs.”
Amani concluded her remarks noting the stepped-up wave of harassment of Cuba solidarity activists, those taking humanitarian aid to Cuba, and the new travel regulations that eliminate the majority of licenses that had covered US delegations visiting the island and participating in conferences. She called for a united defense effort to push back these attacks.
US Treasury further restricts right to travel to Cuba
The US treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on September 29, 2026, significant changes to these travel regulations. These changes are the result of executive fiat, not a consequence of the laws being changed through legislative action.
Up until now, some aid to Cuba — in particular, shipments of medical supplies — had been getting through because of the efforts of those in the United States who opposed Washington’s policy. While that aid was only a fraction of what is needed, it helped give some Cubans a little breathing space and, more importantly, expressed the sentiment of the majority of people in the United States that the blockade is immoral, illegal, and bad business. The new changes will further reduce this aid.
Some of the changes were highlighted in an OFAC press release New Restrictions on Cuba Travel. (The citations in the federal law can be found in the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations — ECFR.)
OFAC narrowed the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) authorizations for certain travel-related transactions. (See 31 CFR § 515.560(a) for the list of twelve authorized categories of travel-related transactions.)
Professional meetings. As of September 30, 2026, persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are no longer authorized to attend or organize professional meetings or conferences in Cuba, as previously authorized under 31 CFR § 515.564(a)(2). OFAC issued a 30-day authorization to wind down (expiring October 30, 2026) certain travel and other transactions that were previously permitted by this general license.
Educational activities. As of September 30, 2026, educational Cuba-related travel by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction must now be under the auspices of an organization subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and almost all travelers must be accompanied by a representative of the sponsoring organization. Accredited U.S. undergraduate or graduate-degree granting institutions, their students, and full-time permanent employees conducting certain educational activities, however, may travel without being accompanied by a representative from a sponsoring organization. Additionally, “group people-to-people educational travel,” which was previously authorized under 31 CFR § 515.565(b), is no longer permitted. For those who have already completed at least one travel-related transaction (e.g., purchasing a flight) that would have previously been authorized by either 31 CFR § 515.565(a) or (b) prior to September 30, 2026, such travel remains authorized.
OFAC also announced additional restrictions on financial and banking transactions with Cuban entities.
Mark Friedman is a member of the International Association of Machinists Local Lodge #1484 and a founder of the LA Hands-Off Cuba Committee.
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Categories: Cuba/Cuba Solidarity