Photo Above: The late Maria Hilario, RIP
6 March 2025: It is with profound sadness that we heard of the recent passing away of committed pro-communist activist, hard-working supporter of socialistic Cuba and determined defender of the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation, María Hilario. María was the main organiser of monthly vigils in Sydney that opposed the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Among others from many other political tendencies, Trotskyist Platform participated in these vigils. We joined many other participants in these pro-Cuba actions in signing a Statement in honour of Maria Hilario RIP by participants in the monthly Cuba anti-blockade protests.
Another very active participant in the vigils against the blockade of Cuba, Noel Hazard also passed away recently – in July last year. Like María, Noel was a hard-working left-wing activist committed to the struggle for socialism and the liberation of all the exploited and oppressed.
Below is the Statement in honour of Maria Hilario RIP by participants in the monthly Cuba anti-blockade protests:
*************************************************************************
Statement in honour of Maria Hilario RIP
by participants in the monthly Cuba anti-blockade protests
With the deepest sadness we honour the passing last week of María Hilario, a long-term supporter of Cuba’s socialist revolution. For a decade María was co-organiser of the Sydney vigils held on the seventeenth of each month in opposition to the sixty-plus year long and crippling U.S. blockade of Cuba. The vigils also demand the return of Guantanamo Bay to Cuba, an end to U.S.-sponsored terrorist activities against Cuba, and the removal of Cuba from the U.S. regime’s list of “terrorists”. We honour María’s vital solidarity work and humbly salute the fact that she continued to organise and participate in the vigils even when she was struck by – and indeed dying of – cancer. We are people and groups who have participated in those vigils.
For María, defence of revolutionary Cuba was part of a broader commitment to socialism, the struggle against imperialism and the liberation of all the exploited and oppressed. Thus she included in her calls for the monthly vigils such slogans as: opposition to the U.S. blockade of Venezuela and the Zionist blockade of Gaza. It was this view of the Cuban Revolution as part of a worldwide struggle for liberation that caused María to withdraw in August last year from the Australia Cuba Friendship Society (ACFS), of which she’d been an active member for many years. María was incensed that the ACFS leadership knowingly permits Zionist supporters of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people to remain members. In this, María acted similarly to her closest collaborator and co-organiser of the monthly vigils, Amador Navidi, and both withdrew from activity in the ACFS in mid-2024. As María said in a message last August: “I think Ahmad resigned, too. I will ask others, and yes, I will do the same, we can’t accept Zionist, fascistas y nazistas en la solidaridad con Cuba”.
Comrade María understood that allowing Zionists or Nazis or other fascists into a Cuba solidarity group went against socialist Cuba’s entire history of strong support for the Palestinian liberation struggle, the anti-Apartheid struggle and the U.S. black liberation struggle. As far as she was concerned, supporting the Palestinian liberation struggle was not something one could “agree to disagree on” and then happily co-exist in the same organisation. María proved her unflinching commitment to the Palestinian struggle by also marching in the weekly pro-Palestine rallies in Sydney during these last several months – even as she was dying of cancer. We salute her great courage in doing so and seek to emulate it.
Maria’s death comes at a critical time for socialist Cuba. The intensification of imperialist sanctions and other hostile measures by the U.S. regime have caused profound hardship in Cuba and emboldened counterrevolutionary forces there. Cuba now faces new dangers with the advent of the second Trump administration and its extreme overt hostility to Cuba. The new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is the son of anti-communist Cuban expats and a fanatical opponent of socialist Cuba.
Supporters of the Cuban Revolution and Palestinian liberation everywhere need to strengthen solidarity with Cuba and emulate Maria’s tireless work for both. End the U.S. blockade! Long live the Aboriginal people’s struggle for liberation from racist white Australia capitalism! Long live the Palestinian people’s struggle against occupation and genocide! Long live socialist Cuba!
Signatories:
Amador Navidi
Connie Villano
Judith Dark
Nagendra Subramaniam
Viviana Canibilo Ramírez
Wayne Sonter
Vlaudin Vega
Robert Austin Henry
Antiwar West Sydney
Communists West Sydney
Trotskyist Platform
Australia-DPRK Friendship Society – Sydney Branch
Supporters of the Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas
6 March 2025
*************************************************************************
As is evident from the photo, Maria and Co. have been able to mobilise for the action supporters of the Cuban Revolution from a wide range of different political groups including the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia-DPRK Friendship Society. Supporters of Trotskyist Platform also participated in this protest. Our comrades held signs connecting the need to oppose the U.S. blockade of socialistic Cuba with the need to oppose the U.N. sanctions on socialistic North Korea; and asserting the need to resist both the imperialist drive to destroy socialistic rule in Cuba and the imperialist Cold War drive against socialistic China and the socialistic DPRK.
On the right of the above photo is the late Noel Hazard. As well as being a strong supporter of the Cuban workers state, Noel was also a passionate supporter of the Chinese and North Korean workers states. Along with joining a wide range of pro-working class and other progressive struggles organised by a myriad of different groups within the Left and broader workers movement, Noel participated in several Trotskyist Platform-organised actions – including some in defence of socialistic China and the socialistic DPRK. The latter includes the 2 April 2022 rally that demanded that the Australian regime stop its attacks on China and instead begin implementing China’s anti-poverty measures – including a massive increase in public housing, a guaranteed minimum wage for food delivery workers and the nationalisation of the banks (below photo). At this action, Noel is carrying a placard that skewers the anti-China bias of Australia’s mainstream media, which are owned by either the capitalist-serving regime or by capitalist tycoons directly. The placard in full reads: “ABC = Always Bashing China. The Capitalist Regime-Owned Media are Not ‘Independent’.” The reverse side of the placard that Noel was carrying read: “The Media’s Anti-PRC Bias Obscures the Need for PRC-Style Measures to Combat Poverty in Australia”. On the left of the photo, in red outfits, are some of the contingent from the Australian Chinese Workers Association that not only supported the action politically but also put on an enthralling music/dance performance for the rally – which Noel amongst others really appreciated.
Noel Hazard was also a very active part of the, ultimately successful, 2018-2021 campaign to free then pro-DPRK political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi. At the bottom is a photo from the 23 November 2019 action demanding the freeing of Choi and the end to the crippling economic sanctions on North Korea. Noel is on the left of the photo.
Photo credit (below photo): Demi Huang/New Impressions Media
