Fidel Castro’s speech at the University of Havana

The following is the text of Fidel Castro’s speech this morning to a mass rally at the University of Havana:

My dear comrades:

I asked that we meet early, before the heat of our sun becomes too intense.

This stairway, to which I never imagined I would be returning, keeps some indelible memories of the years when I began to become aware of our era and our duty. One can acquire knowledge and awareness throughout one’s lifetime but never in any other stage of one’s existence will a person again have the purity and selflessness with which, being young, one faces up to life. At that age, I discovered my true destiny.

Comrade Sa’adat transferred to Eshel prison as PFLP calls for prisoners’ freedom

The following is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was once again moved from one prison to another, this time to the isolation unit at Eshel prison from the isolation unit in Ramon prison. The PFLP immediately condemned this action as part of an ongoing, and failed, attempt to undermine the morale and steadfastness of Comrade Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinian prisoners.

The PFLP statement, issued on February 16, 2010, said that these arbitrary measures fall within the context of an official policy of pressure, attempted intimidation and reprisals against Comrade Sa’adat that has continued since the moment of his abduction from Jericho prison through his continued forced isolation.

Israel’s new strategy: “sabotage” and “attack” the global justice movement

The following article by Ali Abunimah is from Electronic Intifada:

An extraordinary series of articles, reports and presentations by Israel’s influential Reut Institute has identified the global movement for justice, equality and peace as an “existential threat” to Israel and called on the Israeli government to direct substantial resources to “attack” and possibly engage in criminal “sabotage” of this movement in what Reut believes are its various international “hubs” in London, Madrid, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

The Reut Institute’s analyses hold that Israel’s traditional strategic doctrine — which views threats to the state’s existence in primarily military terms, to be met with a military response — is badly out of date. Rather, what Israel faces today is a combined threat from a “Resistance Network” and a “Delegitimization Network.”

PFLP: Arab and international pressure to return to negotiations plays into the hands of the Zionist enemy

The following is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for a total rejection of Arab and international pressure to return to negotiations, saying that such negotiations only play into the hands of the Zionist enemy.

Comrade Mizher, speaking with Aljazeera.net on January 4, 2009, said that a return to the futile and harmful negotiations that even the Palestinian Authority leadership itself have recognized are unsuccessful would only serve Israeli interests. He said further that relying on the U.S. administration, which is fully aligned with the occupation, is betting on mirage and illusion. Comrade Mizher called upon Arab countries to support restoration of Palestinian national unity and put pressure on the occupation, not pressure Palestinians to serve the interests of Israel.

Open letter to AFL-CIO President Trumka: Boycott Israeli Apartheid

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following letter, written by Labor for Palestine to the President of the AFL-CIO, urging support for the campaign to boycott Israel.

Open Letter from U.S. Trade Unionists to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Boycott Apartheid Israel

Issued by Labor for Palestine – laborforpalestine.us@gmail.com

“Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves. But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” –Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987

“We call on other workers and unions to . . . do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.” –Congress of South African Trade Unions, February 3, 2009

“We urge all international trade unions to heed the call of Palestinian civil society, including the trade union movement, by endorsing BDS. We further urge all trade unions and trade union federations to sever their links with the Histadrut, a Zionist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel’s war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.” –Palestinian Trade Union Movement Unanimously Confirms Support for BDS, November 25, 2009

PFLP: One year after aggression, resistance is necessary to break the siege on Gaza

The following is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

The resistance and steadfastness of the people of Gaza remains powerful and strong one year after the criminal war and aggression on Gaza, said the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on December 26, 2009 in a statement marking the first anniversary of the assault. The occupation massacres claimed the lives of nearly 1500 Palestinians and wounded and displaced tens of thousands, demolishing tens of thousands of homes which still await reconstruction today.

The Front’s statement said that “it is clear to all, month after month, and year after year, that the words of the United States about ‘peace’ and ‘negotiations’ are nothing more than meaningless sweet talk, false promises, and cheap attempts at bribery of our people while the occupation steals our land, violates our rights, slaughters our people.” At the same time, the noise of the so-called ‘peace process’ only hides the crimes of the occupier and serves as a mechanism of the Zionist occupation and its strategic ally in Washington to block our Palestinian internal efforts to end the division, restore national unity, and uphold our national rights, said the Front.

Gaza stands resisting and steadfast one year after occupation massacres

The following article is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

Comrade Mizher: Gaza stands resisting and steadfast one year after occupation massacres

A rally in Ezbet Abed Rabbo, one of the most devastated areas in last year’s Zionist assault on Gaza, organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine marked the one-year anniversary of the aggression on December 25, 2009. Thousands of residents of Abed Rabbo and members and supporters of the PFLP rallied in the village, amid the ruins of destroyed homes, waving Palestinian flags and PFLP banners.

Unity and steadfastness: Over 70,000 rally in Gaza for PFLP 42nd anniversary

The following article is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist organization that has now been waging armed struggle against Imperialism, Zionism, and Arab reaction, and for socialism and national liberation, for 42 years. They fight for a singular, secular Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine. The PFLP’s General Secretary, Ahmad Sa’adat, is currently imprisoned by Israel. Please see also the PFLP’s 42nd anniversary statement, “Time for a new political era of resistance and national liberation” and the statement of solidarity to the PFLP on their 42nd anniversary from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

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Unity and steadfastness: Over 70,000 rally in Gaza for PFLP 42nd anniversary

Over 70,000 cadres, members and supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the people of the Gaza Strip, converged on Palestine Stadium for the 42nd anniversary rally of the PFLP on December 12, 2009, spilling into the surrounding streets and carrying Palestinian flags, PFLP banners and posters of the Front’s martyrs and leaders.

42 years of the PFLP: Time for a new political era of resistance and national liberation

The following statement is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist organization that has now been waging armed struggle against Imperialism, Zionism, and Arab reaction, and for socialism and national liberation, for 42 years. They fight for a singular, secular Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine. The PFLP’s General Secretary, Ahmad Sa’adat, is imprisoned by Israel.

PFLP statement on 42nd anniversary: Time for a new political era of resistance and national liberation

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stands today, 42 years from its founding on December 11, 1967. The PFLP was founded in response to the defeat of regimes and ideologies in the June 1967 war, and took action to initiate resistance in all forms on a strategic, long-term basis, mobilize the masses of the Palestinian Arab people to fight, neutralize the technological advantage of the occupation war machines through lightning attacks, and defeat the enemy and the entire Zionist and imperialist colonial scheme.

Looking at the anniversary of the founding of our Front, it was a culmination of the historic experience of our people throughout generations of confrontation of successive colonialist and Zionist attacks. It was an extension of this existing struggle and a quantitatively new expression that transformed and upgraded the movement, intellectually, politically and organizationally, growing from the glorious experience of the Arab Nationalist Movement, led by the founder of the ANM and the PFLP, Comrade Dr. George Habash.

PFLP congratulates Bolivian people and President Evo Morales on re-election

The following is from the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine congratulates the people of Bolivia, the Movement Towards Socialism, and President Evo Morales on his re-election on December 6, 2009. The re-election of President Morales is another proud step by the Bolivian people to build social justice, resist U.S. imperialism and hegemony and determine their own destiny.