Washington: The New York Times newspaper published today a letter signed by more than 400 personalities asking US President Joe Biden to repeal the unilateral measures against Cuba approved by the previous administration.
The text, supported by intellectuals, artists, politicians, academics, religious and jurists, constitutes an ‘urgent public call’ to undo the ‘cruel’ regulations implemented during the term of Donald Trump (2017-2021), who added 243 new santions to the blockade against the Island.
The document, available on the Let Cuba Live platform, includes signatures such as that of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, as well as American artists Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo.
Likewise, the call against the blockade has the backing of the British Jeremy Corbyn; Reverend Jim Winkler of the United States Council of Churches; the Brazilian theologian Frei Beto; the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel; and from organizations like Codepink and Black Lives Matter.
?It seems inconceivable to us, especially during a pandemic, to intentionally block remittances and Cuba’s use of global financial institutions, something necessary for the importation of food and medicine to the Antillean island?, the letter underlines.
“We support the Cuban people,” Biden said on July 12 and the personalities remind him in the letter published today in the New York newspaper that, if that is the case, he must reverse Trump’s restrictions and stop treating Cuba as a existential enemy instead of a neighbor.
Resume the opening and begin the process of ending the blockade, they suggest while warning about how on June 23 the majority of UN member states voted to lift sanctions on the island.
Finally, they urge the current head of the White House to resume the path promoted by former President Barack Obama, who in the last years of his mandate promoted a process of normalization of relations between Washington and Havana.