On 3 May, hundreds of Cuban students rallied on the steps of the University of Havana, a historic site of revolutionary student protests, in defence of Palestine and in support of the student encampments, starting in the US and spreading internationally, to demand that universities divest from the Zionist state of Israel. The Cuban students were joined by university staff, athletes, musicians, military personnel, artists, and workers.
Uniquely, the Havana University students were not protesting against the actions of their government, which has a long history of solidarity with Palestine, including political, military and development assistance. The rally was called in solidarity with US students who are opposing their own university management and the US ruling class. The Havana rally was called by the Federation of University Students (FEU), an organisation founded by Cuban revolutionary communist Julio Antonia Mella in 1922. Since its inception the FEU has represented the aspirations of Cuba’s revolutionary youth. Now in its 102nd year it proudly commits to ‘honour the example of Fidel Castro’.
Speakers at the rally included Palestinian doctor and representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Watan Jamil Alabed who studied at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which has trained young people from across the globe since its founding in 1999. Over 400 Palestinians, many from Gaza, are studying medicine in Cuba. Alabed, who is on a paediatrics placement at a Havana hospital, condemned the genocide and the complicity of the United States, stating that ‘students are the vanguard who believe in the victory of our cause because they know that to fight for Palestine is to fight for the world’.
There is a long history of solidarity from Cuba’s revolutionary state for the Palestinian national liberation struggle, established when Che Guevara visited Gaza in 1959 and reiterated continuously since then. This solidarity is echoed from the head of state to Cubans in the street. In November 2023, a month into Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza, President Miguel Diaz-Canal headed a march of thousands of Cubans in solidarity with Palestine. The previous week, the President met with 144 Palestinian students studying medicine in Cuba, 53 of whom are from Gaza. On 13 May, Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, denounced the arrests of students and teachers in the US. The Cubans recognise that in defending Palestine, and withstanding violent police repression, US students are opposing US imperialism; the same force which has punished the Cuban people for their own struggle for national liberation, and socialism, since the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
The Rector of the University of Havana, Miriam Nicado, spoke at the student rally on 3 May, proclaiming that the university leadership fully supports US students in their fight ‘against war, against genocide, and against murderers’. In contrast, university presidents in the US and Britain, such as Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, Manchester University President Nancy Rothwell and SOAS director Adam Habib have refused to discuss the students’ demands. Shafik invited police forces onto campus where they violently attacked students.
FEU president Ricardo Rodriguez condemned the attacks on US student protesters and the hypocrisy of US imperialism, which calls itself a ‘defender of the freedom of expression’. He echoed Fidel Castro’s 1953 court trial defence statement, stating that ‘history will absolve the cause of the Palestinian people’ and urged the US student movement to continue its struggle. Cuban students are equipped with the lessons of the historic student movement on the island, which faced terrible repression before the Cuban revolution. They recognise the importance of this movement and what it can achieve.
Saman Faiz
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 300 June/July 2024
