Cuba: dock workers refuse to load ship with rice

Cuba: dock workers refuse to load ship with rice
Posted by rob los ricos on June 24, 2010

Reports are starting to emerge of violent clashes last week between
dockers and secret police in Havana, Cuba over a shipment of rice bound
for Haiti, claiming it should stay on the island instead. Below is a
translation of an article – date 16th June – being circulated in Spanish:

In the last few days we have been receiving reports of a serious
incident that took place in the loading docks in the port of Havana, in
which a large group of dockworkers emphatically refused to sanction the
departure of a cargo of rice, bound for Haiti. The dockers protested
violently, shouting that they were not prepared to assist the loading of
the ship when their children were dying of hunger (rice being
effectively unavailable in Havana).

Confronted with the refusal of the dockworkers, "political police"
arrived at the harbour and detained the most vocal protestors. According
to reports, the ship was finally loaded by reservists from the
Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).

Seeing as how no "independent journalist" (those who report on the
"activities of the opposition") has covered this, we had to find our own
means of proving it. Today, having consulted various sources – including
residents in the neighbourhoods of some of the detained individuals,
such as El Calvario – we can confirm it as true.

The tyranny [dictatorship] has taken a lot of care to ensure that this
protest does not spread and – as is common practice – it is blackmailing
the prisoners' families into silence, promising that if they cooperate,
their detained relatives will be treated leniently.

http://roblosricos.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/cuba-docker-workers-refuse-to-load-ship-with-rice/