Cuba Gets Ready for Colorful, Compact May Day Parade

A call for this May Day parade to be compact, colorful and combative was made in this capital on Monday, during a plenary meeting on the occasion of International Workers' Day.

Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and secretary general of the Cuban Workers Confederation, called upon the labor movement to express in this parade its support for the Revolution, as well as its commitment and responsibility in boosting the new economic model.

The meeting was also chaired by Mercedes Lopez Acea, member of the Politburo, vice-president of the Council of State and first secretary of the PCC in Havana, who urged to show on May 1st the honorable, humane and solidarity values of Cuban workers.

The enthusiasm of members of different sectors of the economy and the services that will march to the emblematic Jose Marti Revolution Square on Friday was expressed at Havana's Lazaro Peña Theater, venue of the meeting.

Arletys Barasal, leader of the Union of Health Workers in the province, said the over 50,000 professionals that will open the massive parade in this capital, headed by about 100 members of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade who fought the Ebola epidemic in Africa, are ready for the march.

Representatives of other trade unions and the Havana municipalities that will take part in the great celebration for the day of world proletariat also tackled initiatives they will bring to the march, which be closed by members of the Young Communists' League.

The upcoming May Day parade, under the slogan "United in the Construction of Socialism", is also motivated by the presence on the Caribbean island of the Cuban Five who were unfairly incarcerated in the United States for fighting terrorism.