Hands off Cuba and Raúl!: Communist Party (Switzerland)

Hands off Cuba and Raúl!

The Justice Department of the United States regime is currently staging a farcical political trial against comrade Raúl Castro Ruz, former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and former President of the Republic of Cuba, accusing him of having ordered, 30 years ago, the downing of two US aircraft causing the death of four people. For the record, the aircraft shot down in 1996 were not civilian planes but belonged to an armed criminal organisation funded by the CIA and had intentionally violated Cuban airspace with terrorist intent.

After the genocidal economic, commercial, financial and energy blockade imposed by Washington, which aims to suffocate the island causing enormous suffering to the Cuban people, US imperialism is now attempting to indict - moreover outside its own jurisdiction - a former head of state: after kidnapping Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and assassinating Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, we are faced with yet another criminal provocation by the Trump Administration, now totally out of control.

We must be aware that the USA wants to militarily attack the rebellious island: indicting Raúl Castro, after having strangled the Cuban economy, represents a further escalation of the ongoing hybrid war aimed at overthrowing socialism in Cuba. The USA is a regime in decline and precisely for this reason is today more dangerous than ever: Trump must in fact divert public attention from his defeat in Iran and from the humiliating diplomatic failure in Beijing, while at the same time keeping the Cuban mafia in Miami appeased.

Swiss communists express their solidarity not only with the Cuban people who resist imperialism, but also with its government and with comrade Raúl in particular, one of the charismatic leaders of the Cuban Revolution, who has had various merits: we recall the innovative economic policy guidelines promoted in 2011 to attempt to reform the island's economy; the promotion of civil rights for homosexual people; the new Constitution that improved the rule of law and the separation of powers; and his diplomatically engaged approach oriented towards dialogue, which led him to reopen diplomatic relations with the USA itself, among other achievements.

We call on the Swiss government to publicly condemn the true purpose of the US regime in indicting Raúl, namely, to create a pretext for bombing and invading Cuba. The Federal Council must implement Postulate No. 20.4332 approved by the Federal Assembly, which commits Switzerland to act against the US blockade and sanctions against Cuba. Bern must explicitly prohibit every Swiss company and every public and semi-public body from complying with extraterritorial US laws that conflict with Swiss law. Defending Swiss neutrality also means refusing unilateral US sanctions that indirectly violate our own national sovereignty: the Swiss people trade with whomever they choose, Cuba included, and must not accept being threatened and blackmailed by laws passed in Washington!