“Hands Off Cuba!”: Left Groups in Europe Mobilize Against U.S. Aggression

Hundreds demonstrated in Belgium in solidarity with Cuba as further mobilizations against US imperialism are planned across Europe.

By Ana Vračar, Peoples Dispatch

Hundreds of people joined solidarity actions for Cuba in Brussels over the weekend, protesting the blockade imposed by the United States on the socialist island. Demonstrators, including Latin America solidarity groups, trade unionists, and left politicians, demanded an end to the illegal blockade, the delivery of humanitarian aid and oil, and the continued operation of Belgium’s embassy in Cuba, which the so-called Arizona coalition has decided to shut down.

The first protest took place in central Brussels on Saturday, February 7, followed on Monday by the projection of the message “Hands off Cuba!” onto the European Commission building. “Europe and Belgium cannot remain silent any longer,” the group Cubanismo said on the occasion. “It is time to dare to stand up to Trump’s imperialism and to send aid to the Cuban people.”

Protesters warned about the effects of Donald Trump’s latest decisions to further tighten the blockade on Cuba, stressing that the oil embargo is bringing large parts of the economy and essential services – like hospitals, ambulances, and food distribution – to a standstill. “Cuba is being punished because, since 1959, it has made a different choice: to use its resources for its people, to invest in free education and healthcare, and to show solidarity with other peoples,” Cubanismo wrote on Sunday. “That is precisely what imperialism cannot tolerate.”

“The violence of imperialism does not look the same everywhere,” the group added. “In some places it is visible and immediate, elsewhere, it works slowly and suffocatingly through sanctions and blockades. But the logic is the same: peoples are not allowed to decide their own future.”

“Yet Cuba remains standing tall,” Cubanismo concluded. “Even under blockade, it has sent doctors around the world while others exported weapons. That deserves not silence, but solidarity.”