12-08-05, 8:52 am

Circulated at the Athens Meeting 18-20 November 2005

For forty-five years and as part of their systematic policy of hostility and aggression, ten successive US Administrations have applied a cruel economic, financial and commercial blockade on Cuba, a blockade that has been intensified under the present Republican Administration of President George W. Bush. Up to now, it has caused economic damages that amount to $ 82.764 billion, a total figure that does not include more than $ 54 billion imputed to direct damage caused to Cuba's economic and social objectives by acts of sabotage and terrorism stimulated and funded from the United States.

The policy of the US blockade - whose main objective is to destroy the Cuban Revolution and impose US colonial domination on the island, an ambition clearly stated in the so-called Bush's Plan for the Annexation of Cuba - qualifies as an act of genocide and a violation of the principles of international law. And, as an evidence of the isolation of this criminal policy of the US Administration, the international community has expressed its increasing and almost unanimous rejection of the US blockade by voting - for 14 consecutive years - in favour of the resolution that Cuba presents to the United Nations General Assembly to demand the end of the US blockade. However, in addition to this act of interference, the US Government is also involved in the organization, support and funding of terrorist activities against Cuba and, as a consequence, the Cuban people have mourned the loss of more than 3 478 human lives.

One of the most atrocious crimes committed against that nation was the mid-flight blowing-up of a Cuban civil aircraft in October 1976, a terrorist action that caused the death of all the 73 people on board. The mastermind behind that horrendous crime was the notorious terrorist and self-confessed criminal Luis Posada Carriles. Nowadays the Bush Administration refuses to extradite him to Venezuela, thus violating international as well as US laws.

And while it supports and protects this kind of terrorists, five courageous young Cubans: Antonio, Fernando, Gerardo, Ram?nd Ren? who were risking their lives every day in the struggle against terrorism - were unjustly condemned to serve long sentences in prison as a result of a fraudulently rigged trial that was turned into a political vendetta against the Cuban Revolution.

The cause of the Cuban Five has brought about a growing movement of solidarity in the world and there are already thousands of voices that are demanding their immediate release and that the real terrorists, who are freely walking by Miami streets, to be brought to justice.

On May 27, 2005, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights declared that the imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters is arbitrary and illegal and urged the US Government to release them. More recently, on August 9, the 11th Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals handed down the unanimous ruling of three of its judges revoking the sentences and annulling the rigged trial of the Cuban Five in Miami. Since they are innocent of the crimes they were accused, this would imply their immediate release.

However, while the Cuban Five are still kidnapped, harassed and punished in US maximum-security prisons, in the case of the notorious Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the US Government insists in obstructing the course of justice and does nothing to stop the unpunished terrorist actions of the Miami Cuban-American mafia.

The kidnapping of the Cuban Five and the US Government's complicity with the notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles are an evidence of the immorality that characterizes the Government of George W. Bush, who is seeking to set himself as the leader of the international campaign against terrorism, a campaign that has been turned into a new crusade against the Third World peoples' right to sovereignty and self-determination.

For all the above-mentioned reasons, we, the Communist and workers' parties gathered here today, demand the immediate release of the five Cuban young heroes who have been kidnapped for seven years in US prisons, as well as the end of the genocidal US blockade imposed for 45 years on the heroic Cuban people.

Likewise, we express our deep rejection of all terrorist acts committed in every form and against any people in the world, including state terrorism like the one waged against the Cuban people, and also demand the extradition and trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in Venezuela.

Signatories:

PARTIES 1. Communist Party of Albania 2. Algerian Party for Democracy & Socialism, PADS 3. Communist Party of Argentina 4. Communist Party of Australia 5. Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain 6. Communist Party of Belarus 7. Workers Party of Belgium 8. WCP of Bosnia & Herzegovina 9. Communist Party of Brazil 10. Communist Party of Britain 11. New Communist Party of Britain 12. Bulgarian Communist Party «Georgi Dimitrov' 13. Communist Party of Bulgaria 14. Communist Party of Cuba 15. Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia 16. AKEL, Cyprus 17. Communist Party in Denmark 18. Communist Party of Denmark 19. Communist Party of Egypt 20. Communist Party of Estonia 21. Communist Party of Finland 22. Communist Party of Macedonia 23. Unified Communist Party of Georgia 24. German Communist Party (DKP) 25. Communist Party of Greece 26. Hungarian Worker' Party 27. Communist Party of India (Marxist) 28. Tudeh Party of Iran 29. Iraqi Communist Party 30. Communist Party of Ireland 31. The Worker's Party of Ireland 32. Communist Party of Israel 33. Party of the Communist Refoundation 34. Party of the Italian Communists 35. Worker's Party of Korea 36. Socialist Party of Latvia 37. Lebanese Communist Party 38. Socialist Party of Lithuania 39. Communist Party of Luxembourg 40. Party of the Congress for the Independence of Madagascar (AKFM) 41. Communist Party of Malta 42. Party of the Communists of Mexico 43. Popular Socialist Party of Mexico 44. New Communist Party of Netherlands 45. Communist Party of Norway 46. Palestinian Communist Party 47. Philippine Communist Party-1930 48. Communist Party of Poland 49. Portuguese Communist Party 50. Romanian Communist Party 51. Socialist Alliance Party, Romania 52. Communist Party of Russian Federation 53. Communist Party of Soviet Union 54. Communist Workers Party of Russia - Party of the Communists of Russia 55. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia 56. Communist Party of Slovakia 57. Communist Party of Spain 58. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain 59. Sudanese Communist Party 60. Communist Party of Sweden 61. Syrian Communist Party 62. Syrian Communist Party 63. Communist Party of Tadjikistan 64. Communist Party of Turkey 65. Communist Party of Ukraine 66. Communist Party, USA 67. Communist Party of Venezuela 68. Communist Party of Vietnam