Wed. Mar. 18: Tom Hayden in Berkeley with new Cuba book‏

Tom Hayden has published his latest book, “Listen Yankee: Why CUBA Matters” (Seven Stories Press), a personal historical view of U.S.-Cuba relations. Hayden engages his audience with a fascinating first-hand narrative as a radical student activist, the influence Cuba’s revolutionary triumph had on his generation, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his experience as one of the Chicago 8 defendants.

Unique to the book are his close conversations with veteran Cuban diplomat Ricardo Alarcón, whose revolutionary life began as a youth inspired by Fidel Castro and the July 26th Movement. Alarcón’s accounts are insightful, filling in many gaps for Cuba solidarity activists and scholars about transcendental events in Cuba’s revolutionary history.

Hayden offers fresh insight about one of history’s most enigmatic of relationships between nation states, from one of America’s best known voices of political and social activism. Chapters are devoted to Che Guevara, C. Wright Mills; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Weather Underground; the assassination of JFK; the strong historical links between Cuba and Africa; the Carter era; the Clinton era; Cuban 5; and Elián González.

Gloria La Riva is a longtime Bay Area activist with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, and has served as coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five since its founding in 2001.

As you are aware, President Barack Obama recently declared a “National Emergency” with respect to Venezuela, and increased sanctions on that country. Governments and people throughout Latin America and the world have condemned U.S. interference in Venezuela, including its part in the most recent coup attempt. We urge everyone to join us online, in the streets, and everywhere, standing with Venezuela and against U.S. aggression.

Statement of the Government of Cuba:

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba has learnt of the arbitrary and aggressive Executive Order issued by the President of the United States against the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which declares the country a threat to its national security, in reprisal for the measures adopted by Venezuela in defense of its sovereignty against the interventionist actions of the U.S. Congress and governmental authorities.

How does Venezuela threaten the United States? Thousands of kilometers away, without strategic weapons and without employing resources nor officials to plot against U.S constitutional order, the statement is unbelievable, and lays bare the intentions of those who have come up with it.

However, such a statement during a year in which legislative elections will be held in Venezuela reaffirms once again the interventionist nature of U.S. foreign policy.

The severity of this executive measure has alerted the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean who, in January 2014, at the Second CELAC Summit in Havana, declared the region a Zone of Peace, and these countries repudiate any act prejudicial to this, as they have accumulated enough experiences of imperial intervention throughout their history.

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba reiterates once again its unconditional support and that of our people for the Bolivarian Revolution, the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros and the heroic sister nation of Venezuela.

Nobody has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign State or to declare it, without grounds, a threat to its national security.

Just as Cuba was never alone, Venezuela will not be either.

Havana, March 9, 2015