December 2018
Dear Compañeros
Photo: Bill Hackwell
2017 has been an extremely difficult year for our peoples fighting for a better world. We have seen how social protest has been criminalized, with many imprisoned and murdered. The big media has taken away the possibility of opinion beyond what’s “official”, exemplified by the murders of journalists in Mexico which is the highest in recent years.
The attempts of imperialism to devour our economies, impose puppet governments, destroy the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, intensify the criminal blockade against Cuba that grinds on daily and includes a huge setback in the incipient relations with the US with the clear objective of annihilating the Cuban Revolution.
Two former progressive presidents such as Lula and Cristina Fernández are under threat of jail in rigged legal proceedings. Washington’s contempt for the region exposed itself dramatically with its neglect of Puerto Rico, when hit by the hurricane, using natural disaster as a way to reinforce colonization. Honduras is showing the fascist mirror in which any other Latin American nation could see itself in. The aggression against the Mapuche people and the tribal lead struggle to stop the pipeline at Standing Rock demonstrates the racist and ancestral hatred they have towards indigenous communities everywhere.
The maneuvers attacking ALBA, CELAC and undermining the peace agreements between the FARC and the Colombian government do not stop. The last imperial provocation to close this year has been to unilaterally and arbitrarily declare the city of Jerusalem as the Capital of the Zionist State of Israel, causing destabilization throughout the Arab world, greater repression and suffering for the heroic Palestinian people.
Despite all this the peoples resist and in that resistance is our hope. There will continue to be men and women with the dignity and courage of Berta Cáceres, Santiago Maldonado, Oscar López Rivera, the Cuban 5 Patriots, Rasmea Odeh, the political prisoners in Latin America, the United States and the Palestinians in Israeli prisons. We will continue to find grandchildren in Argentina and demanding the trial and punishment for the perpetrators of genocides. The brave people of Chávez and Maduro will continue to exist.
And the Cuban Revolution will fulfill this January 1, on the star of Fidel, its 59 years since its heroic victory of resistance right under the nose of the empire.
We will continue denouncing, resisting and struggling in the streets, solidifying our alternative information as one of our most important combat weapons, which are based on truth and dignity. We will continue to resist this immoral, unjust, destructive order that threatens the planet and all of humanity.
We toast to each one of you, for those who fight and resist, and for the prompt recovery of those, our compañeros, who face serious health problems even from prison. We toast for the indispensable unity that must fill every space of our work for peace and justice.
We toast to you, our compañeros, in the hope and joy of verifying every day that they have not and will never be able to defeat us.
Happy New Year, Happy 2018!
International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity
Resumen Latinoamericano – Cuba and North American Bureaus