Global Exchange launched our first travel challenge to Cuba in 1990 under the Freedom to Travel campaign with the following three demands of the U.S. Government:
- End the U.S. Blockade on Cuba;
- End Travel Restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba;
- Remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorist countries.
As you know all too well, after thirty years most of these demands remain in place. Tell Biden the time is now to end the blockade!
Recent protests over widespread food and medicine shortages in Cuba have drawn world attention, but the narrative we are hearing turns a blind eye to the brutal 60 year economic war waged by the US against the island. And as the news on these protests flood social media channels and public airwaves, Biden tweets his concern for the Cuban people and their suffering, all while continuing Trump’s strategy of economic warfare. The U.S. blockade against Cuba is designed precisely to create the shortages Cubans are now experiencing and to encourage social unrest on the island.
As the pandemic magnifies the devastation of the U.S. blockade, the blockade has in turn made it harder for Cuba to grapple with the pandemic. In July 2020, a UN special rapporteur concluded the blockade was “obstructing humanitarian responses to help the country’s health-care system fight the COVID-19 pandemic.” Among other things, the blockade stopped medical aid and money transfers from overseas companies and humanitarian organizations, denied Cubans the ability to use Zoom, prevented the country’s purchase of ventilators, and caused a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Now is the time for U.S. citizens to ensure that the next many years of Cuba/U.S. relations will benefit the people of both countries and be free from the Cold War ideology which clouded our mutual self interests.
Cuba and the Cuban people have suffered too long. It is time to end the blockade and fully normalize relations with our neighbor! Take action with us today.