REPORT OF CSC GROUP STUDY TOUR OF EASTERN CUBA 2004

Water shortages and power cuts are just a few of the difficulties visitors share with the Cuban people still coming to terms with the replacement of US dollars with the convertible peso yet the determination to resist in the face of increased US aggression is infectious when it comes to solidarity.

Nowhere is this more evident than when visiting a CDR and they really rolled the carpet out in Santiago with a street party to remember. Rousing speeches in honour of the Miami Five and a presentation by the local children were accompanied by a generous buffet although we were told that the most difficult part was obtaining a Union Jack in our honour!

The tour got off to a good start with visits to a pediatric hospital and music school in Holguin where the group was welcomed by the school orchestra giving us a preview of a concert they were going to give the following day to celebrate their silver jubilee. Both visits were covered by local and national television which really put us on the map.

A couple of mini-buses were hardly ideal for travelling the long distances between the places visited yet they managed to manoeuvre the pot-holed roads to be found in more remote locations and afforded beautiful views of the scenic coastal route from Manzanillo to Santiago.

A couple of stops along the way at La Plata and El Uvero where Fidel and his small band of guerrillas made their first bold attacks on Batista’s garrisons prepared us for later sites of historical interest in this Cradle of the Revolution with visits to the farmhouse in Siboney, Moncada barracks, the Museum of the Underground Struggle and Santa Ifigenia cemetery.

A meal overlooking the US naval base in Guantanamo bay was a sobering experience in the light of recent allegations of prisoner abuse by the occupying power but a two-day stay in Baracoa lifted the group’s spirits once again with memorable visits to a rural primary school and polyclinic.

Celebrations for Granma Landing Day on December 2^nd had been moved forward to November 23^rd so it was left to Julio A. Mella primary school in Old Havana to mark the occasion with a presentation by the children that included John Lennon’s song “Imagine”. Apparently the Young Communist League was holding its Congress but by this time the seventeen strong group had come to appreciate the Cuban reality from the inside which was the whole purpose of the tour and understand the real meaning of solidarity.

Geoff's next Group Study Tour to the western part of Cuba will be 5 - 19 November and details can be obtained from Simon Bull of CSC, 127 Seven Sisters Road, London N7 7QG 0207 263 6452.