Dear Cuban workers:
Faced with the growing threats of the United States government, reinforced by the executive order of 29 January, which added an energy siege to the already tightened economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on us for more than 65 years simply for wanting to build a dignified, sovereign and independent nation, there is nothing more important and decisive today than working together and growing as a country.
Amidst this scenario, the Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC), its national trade unions and the National Association of Innovators and Rationalisers (ANIR) call for the celebration of 1 May, International Workers’ Day, under a central and mobilising idea: The Homeland Defends Itself.
Celebrating May Day is demonstrating the unity of Cubans and their patriotism; it is once again «breaking the corojo» as Maceo did in Baraguá when he did not accept peace without independence; it is evoking the ideas of José Martí in his speech «Los Pinos Nuevos», a transcendental declaration of unity of several generations of Cubans around the independence project; it is defending, in the year of the centenary of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, the concept he expressed on 1 May 2000.
We urge you to celebrate it in parades and rallies, in every workplace, village, town, and province, with the rationality we have had to adopt in the face of the restrictions imposed by the tightened blockade.
It is a call to defend the country, from the furrow, the factories, the classrooms, the scientific centres, thermoelectric plants, hospitals, culture, sport; from every combat trench.
We invite Cuba’s friends around the world to join us, as they do every year, to celebrate International Workers’ Day. We thank them in advance for their solidarity and for having the courage to share our fate in the midst of a real military threat, which, far from intimidating us, makes us repeat, with optimism and confidence in victory, the glorious verse of our National Anthem: To die for the homeland is to live.
«For Cuba together we create» is the conviction that will accompany us on this date, driving the priorities defined by the Party; for those of us who prepare for the defence of the Socialist Homeland; who work for the change of the energy matrix; who contribute to food production; who seek solutions to problems every day; it is the conviction of the doctors and teachers who do not give up and continue to defend life; of those of us who are part of the Revolution, not out of dogma or fanaticism, but out of conviction, ideas and deeds.
Workers, Cuban people:
With the vivid colours of our flag, with joy, patriotism, and inspired by the teachings of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, just months before the final sessions of our twenty-second congress, the CTC, its national trade unions and the ANIR call for a 1 May that moves us as a country through unity and the commitment to be useful, to contribute and to defend the project that Martí dreamed of, that Fidel fulfilled, and which, under the leadership of the Party, headed by First Secretary Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez together with the workers, we will not allow to be snatched away.
Long live the Cuban Revolution!
Homeland or Death! We will overcome!
SEE YOU ON 1 MAY
