There has not been any new hurricane,
earthquake, or tornado this year, affecting our dear Cuba. But there has been a combination of two
things: a plague and an intensification of the viciousness of panicked
imperialism.
This combination is compelling friends of Cuba to take some urgent
action to help Cuba to alleviate the burdens being piled onto the island. Revolutionary Cuba has always been blessed
with leaders who know how to think, to think with compassion about the
interests of their own people and with extraordinary generosity about
others. That attribute has gone a long
way to keeping the country buoyant, spiritually and materially. Cuba knows how to multiply whatever help it
gets. These qualities have evoked in
frustrated imperialism the most flagrant manifestations of imperialist hatred.
Hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes lack this cruel emotion which
imperialism with its present leader is now displaying. U.S. imperialism with its control of the world's
reserve currency is able to print as much money as it wants to and to purchase
the compliance of some of its own citizens and of others in other parts of the
world, in the ugliest schemes devised by its government in the attempt to
frustrate Cuba's principled defiance of oppression.
One of the Revolution's great achievements in education has made it
possible for Cuba to produce a therapy to combat the new corona virus,
COVID-19: its Interferon Alfa 2B. The
Trump administration's answer to this success is to launch an intense campaign
to dissuade countries, desperate to help their people, from purchasing this
desired source of reasonably priced medicine.
Already as of March 29, 45 countries have requested Cuba's inhalant
Interferon. This includes Brazil, which, in a moment of Balsonaro's extreme
irrationality and mimicking imperialist propaganda, had expelled Cuban doctors
from Brazil calling them terrorists.
6,000 Cuban doctors will now be redeployed to repentant Brazil. But the provocations will not end. The U.S. keeps arbitrarily imposing sanctions
against the island and its stalwart allies, such as the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, whose president it now, in a preposterous gesture of war promotion,
attempts to demonize as a narcotrafficker.
Firstly, we have to let Cuba's achievements be known. Interferon Alfa 2B has a high profile right
now, but the lung cancer vaccine known as CIMAvax—developed by Roswell Park
Comprehensive Cancer Center based in Buffalo, New York, and Cuba's Center for
Molecular Immunology, and produced at the first-ever joint venture between an
American hospital and Cuba, launched in September 2019 in Cuba under the name:
Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance, S.A. —may soon be seen as equally important.
Secondly, we have to help Cuba not
only to continue providing for a healthy life for its heroic people, but to go
further in fulfilling the potential of its educational and social systems so
that it can contribute even more amazingly to human well-being and development.
We will recognize the crucial importance of helping Cuba at this time by
initiating a vigorous fundraising campaign, to support Cuba’s humanitarian
efforts in this fight against COVID-19.
The CNC is launching this Cuba Against COVID-19 campaign. 100 percent of all funds raised will be sent
to Cuba. Cheques should be made out to
the Canadian Network on Cuba and mailed to:
Sharon Skup, 56 Riverwood Terrace, Bolton,
Ontario L7E 1S4.
Unfortunately, we are still not able to provide charitable tax receipts,
although we send receipts for the funds donated, together with our thanks for
your support for science in Cuban culture.
Keith Ellis, Coordinator
CNC
Cuba Against COVID-19 Campaign
