On March 14 and 15, the City University of New York hosted a U.S.–Cuba normalization conference titled “Cuba Under Siege: Strategies for Resistance and a United Response.” At the gathering, activists praised Iranian drones, touted Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, and outlined an “action plan” centered on sustained street protests.
The heart of the conference was an “Action Plan” that called for keeping “street protests and public visibility” at the forefront of efforts to lift the U.S. embargo. The plan directed participants to support the Cuba solidarity work of organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, the National Network on Cuba, ACERE, the Latin America Working Group, and Code Pink.
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The event drew more than just ideological hardliners. Participants included a New York state senator, a New York City councilmember, Cuban government officials, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and individuals with past ties to the Cuban intelligence services. Former Black Panther and movement elder Rosemari Mealy captured the spirit of the conference when she said, “Cuba is the force that unites us all.”
Participants in the discussions rarely, if ever, criticized the Cuban government. Corinna Mullin, one of the four CUNY faculty members fired (and subsequently rehired) after participating in anti-Israel encampment protests, played a vital role in securing the Graduate Center as the venue. She told the conference, “we must in our messaging defend the Cuban revolution,” explicitly praising it because it “expropriated the wealth of the expropriators.” Danny Valdes of the Democratic Socialists of America—former co-chair of DSA’s Cuba Solidarity Working Group and founder of the newly formed “Not in Our Name” Cuban Americans for Cuba group—told the conference that “the question about whether Cuba is a dictatorship . . . is completely irrelevant.”
A week after the conference, both Valdes and Mullin participated in the Nuestra América delegation to Cuba, which featured celebrity left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, among others. Though Mullin is perhaps best known for her pro-Palestine activism, she is also linked to high-level Cuba work, moderating a panel several months ago that featured Mariela Castro, Fidel Castro’s niece, on “The Undefeated Struggle for Palestinian Liberation.”
Sara Flounders of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party wove praise for the Iranian regime into her Cuba advocacy. Fresh from a vigil for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, she said, “every drone Iran fires in self-defense is also a defense of Cuba.” She praised efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to supply Cuba with solar panels, adding that “Cuba needs both our aid, our solidarity, and China’s aid.” Flounders characterized these efforts as “people’s resistance” and “a shock to U.S. imperialism.”
Onyesonwu Chatoyer, acting as co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, urged participants in her workshop to “follow the lead of the Cubans,” citing their “politically conscious population” and “highly advanced intelligence apparatus.” Such remarks are especially noteworthy, given concerns expressed by both U.S. intelligence agencies and Cuban defectors that political-outreach organizations like the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP, Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos) are deeply intertwined with Cuban propaganda and intelligence operations abroad.
Indeed, ICAP leadership participated in the CUNY conference, via a video message from its current president, Fernando González Llort, one of the Cuban Five who served prison time in the United States on espionage-related charges before being released as part of a prisoner exchange with Havana. ICAP’s Leima Martínez Freire, who participated in both days of the conference, noted that “worldwide anti-capitalist organisation” Progressive International used ICAP and its travel agency, Aminstur, to organize the Nuestra América delegation.
In a legal workshop sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild, speakers offered advice that appeared to suggest ways of skirting the boundaries of the law. Margaret Kunstler, an attorney known for her work with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, pointed out that sanctions enforcement could be reduced by overwhelming the system’s capacity to uphold the law. “[E]nforcement is more and more difficult with more and more people going against the regulations,” she said, adding that “the ability to enforce the restrictions was overcome by the number of people fighting the restrictions.”
Kunstler praised the work of Global Health Partners, a key partner of DSA and Code Pink. She suggested that one of the reasons modern material-aid campaigns—such as the syringe and suture drives organized by Global Health Partners, or the post-hurricane relief efforts led by the Hatuey Project, whose financial sponsor is The People’s Forum—are effective is that they leverage the Department of Commerce’s “drawdown” system, which allows advocacy organizations to apply for large-scale export licenses for humanitarian aid to Cuba, covering multiple shipments. Kunstler described the use of such systems as a “tremendous victory,” noting that large charities had previously been reluctant to commit time and resources to secure separate licenses for each material-aid shipment.
Gloria La Riva, a longtime ANSWER Coalition organizer and former Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate, described how historically, “Pastors for Peace had a policy: no licenses. We’re just going to break an immoral law.” La Riva explained that she obtained a license following the Matanzas fire, receiving approval in just nine days, far faster than the typical 45, because, as she noted, the Department of Commerce “recognized that was a crisis.” She now holds eight licenses. At another panel, Global Health Partners’ vice president and executive director, Bob Schwartz, reported holding 65 licenses, underscoring how widespread and normalized the practice has become.
The conference’s proceedings and attendees—including officials linked to a designated state sponsor of terrorism—raise questions, at the very least, about what is going on under CUNY’s roof. And the organizers’ commitment to an “action plan” suggests that the discussion is not merely theoretical. It appears to be part of an active agenda meant to dismantle the embargo.
Americans have recently been inundated with convoy propaganda that whitewashes the very regime these activists spent two days defending. The pressing question is whether the United States will continue subsidizing—through nonprofit status, receipt of export licenses, and other government benefits—those who are clearly aiding the Cuban regime under the false banner of humanitarianism.