(Birminghem) *%
Over the weekeend of the 27the28th. there were two meetings protesting agai.st the threatened U.S. aggression in Cubae The first one was held on Saturday night at 8 peme in the Bil Ring ( a local meeting place in the City centre) It should 2 noted that right up to the time of the meeting it had bee1 raining very herd ar there were fears that it might have been cancelled . However the meeting cid start on time. It was orgaiiised by ‘the Birmingham CND and had » number of speakers « ‘om Birmingham and district, one of whom was Rey Garner of Wolverhampton, who had just finished a six week tour with the CND Caravan, When the meeting stavfed there wuvre about five hundred psople present, ut this swelled to over one thoususiui by the time it closed, Considering the weather this was quite a gocd turn out,
The meeting itself was overwhelmingly in support of the Cuban peoples rirht to freedom. The only disruption came from a few young men who claimed to be members of the British Action Party. At the start of the meeting they tried to rush the platform, waving a Union Jack and shouting "you'r all Cpmmunistss Mowever before any fighting could start the police hustlea them away end the mecting went on undist1* bed, At the clyse of the meeting, those gathered formed up and heid a torch -light procession tnrough the main streets of the City. Most of the banners had some reference to Cuba, and this is an important point because the demonstre’ion was organised by CND“and shows thet events are making CND political, and the issue of the bomb cannot be only argued on moral groundse
The second meeting was held on Sunday afternoon at the Digbeth Institute, this was called by the 'No War with Cuba Committee', which has only been formed a few days before, mainly from Students , YCND etc.The main speaker at this meeting was Julius Silverman M,P. This meeting was attended by about three hundred people, whs supported the Cuban revolution, A collection of twenty pounds was taken so that further meetings could be held. All in all, despite the smellness of the numbers at both meetings ( for a city the six2 of Eirmingham ) it has been show that the City is not lagging behind the rest of the country in demanding"HANDS OFF CUBA."