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Change Your Life! |
Cubans'41-year-old fidelity to Fidel Castro |
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July 24, 2000
HAVANA (AP) - A large march along Havana's coastal highway will be held this week to protest the U.S. trade embargo and celebrate the start of the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 41 years ago, the official government newspaper said Saturday. The Communist Party daily Granma said participants in the march Wednesday morning to the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here, "will express to the world their profound and indignant rejection against the monstrous genocidal policy applied against our people." It called the embargo, imposed shortly after Castro's rise to power, "the most prolonged blockade that has existed in history. "We will show the world that the Cuban people, far from tiring, will increase their struggle in the coming months and years to end the grotesque imperialist aggressions!" Granma said. The announcement comes amid growing moves in the U.S. Congress to ease the trade sanctions, as well as travel restrictions on Americans, which were imposed 38 years ago. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 301-116 Thursday to stop enforcing provisions that ban U.S. food exports and limit sales of American medicine to Cuba and four other nations - Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. The U.S. Senate passed a bill the same day to permit food and medical sales to the five countries. The Senate measure also prevents a president from blocking such shipments without congressional approval. Cuban officials have not commented on the latest votes. After the Wednesday march, separate national celebrations will be held in two other cities: the central provincial capital of Santa Clara and the western provincial capital of Pinar del Rio. The yearly ceremony marks the disastrous July 26, 1953, attack by Castro and his comrades on the Moncada army barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. The attack launched the revolution against the dictatorship of then-President Fulgencio Batista. Although the attackers were all either killed or jailed, the movement later regained strength and triumphed on New Year's Day 1959 after Batista fled the country.
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