The Communist Party of Canada condemns the attack at 2 am May 1st on the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC, and calls on the Canadian government and Parliament to do likewise.
While the gunman has been arrested, police have yet to announce who was behind the attack and why the Embassy was not protected from attack by the US government as required under international law.
The fact no-one was killed or injured among Embassy staff still resident in the building is sheer luck.
The Trump administration is at least partly responsible for the attack, which followed in the wake of Trump’s rabid political attacks on Cuba which are escalating as the US election gets closer.
The catastrophic death toll and enormous rates of infection in the US, due to the country’s lack of preparedness for the COVID 19 virus, and reliance on a private, for-profit healthcare system have turned public opinion against Trump and his administration, threatening his re-election hopes in November.
Further, the massive job losses in the US have left millions of people without any income or supports to get through the current crisis, let alone the crisis to come once the pandemic passes and the reality of a global economic depression sets in.
As is usual in US politics, incumbents in this unpopular position have often resorted to war as a means to mobilize public support through national chauvinism and xenophobia dressed up as patriotism.
Trump is no different, launching his vitriolic assaults on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua while amassing a fleet of warships in the Caribbean Sea on the coast of Venezuela, not far from Cuba.
His slanderous characterization of Cuba as a terrorist state rings hollow as real US terrorists attack the Cuban Embassy in Washington, and US warships prepare to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Canada must speak out against this attack and the military and economic aggression by the Trump administration against sovereign states. The US actions are an invitation to a bloodbath that Canada must oppose.