Political Affairs Podcast #109 – Happy Labor Day 2009
It's September 7th, 2009. On this episode, we celebrate Labor Day by playing a portion of our recent interview with Labor historian and activist Rosemary Feurer, author of the groundbreaking book Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950.
Journalists, television outlets, radio and digital sites around the world recall each year the events of the September 11, 2001 when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., with images of people throwing themselves from the Twin Towers due to the agony of the fire.
The incident moved the international community. However, the world press forgets that Cuba was has also had sad Septembers as a result of terrorist actions orchestrated by extreme right-wing Cuban-American elements supported by successive US administrations.
A look back at the daily Revolution dated September 12th, 1964, allows us to read the following headline: “US government responsible for barbaric attack against Sierra Aranzazu.” Or another that read: “Ministry of Armed Forces denounces cowardice of pirate crime.”
Statements made by the leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro were right when he said on the occasion of the tragic event against the Spanish vessel Sierra Aranzazu: “the United States does not have the right to invade Cuba,” and then carried out a detailed analysis on the actions against the island.
The vessel was attacked by armed speed boats belonging to counterrevolutionary elements based in Miami and related to other terrorist activities against the island only five years after the triumph of the Revolution.
The Sierra Aranzazu was not carrying military equipment or weapons. Its cargo, as seen in photos of the time, shows burned dolls that would have offered the Cuban girls the joy of a new toy. The children’s innocence was affected by the villainous act.
The captain of the ship, Pedro Ibargurengonitia, paid with his life while undertaking the noble task of bringing food and inoffensive articles to a blockaded and attacked country by the US government and other fascist organizations still operating in that country.
It was a sad September. There were several wounded among the crew members who received medical assistance in Cuban hospitals.
The pirate attacks against the Sierra Aranzazu took place only 75 miles north of Maisi in the easternmost province of Guantanamo, and after learning the news the Cuban authorities towed the still burning vessel to the eastern region.
Other terrorist actions against Cuba took place in September: for example, the assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez, who was accredited to the United Nations in New York. It happened on the 11th, but in 1980.
This assassination was left unpunished and the killer, Pedro Crispin Remon, like Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for other crimes like the death of young Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo after a terrorist attack on September 4th, 1997, in a Havana hotel, is walking the streets of Miami with the protection of the US government.
Coincidentally, on September 12th, 1998, five young Cubans, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, were arrested after infiltrating extreme right wing Cuban American groups based in southern Florida in an attempt to prevent terrorist attacks against the Cuban people.
Tried in 2001 during a judicial process in Miami under the harmful anti-Cuban environment, they were condemned to harsh and disproportionate sentences. Today, international solidarity groups and their people demand justice.
