blockade - Global Exchange

Call the White House to take Cuba off of the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list!

U.S. sanctions and State Sponsor of Terrorism List designation is an attack on daily life in Cuba. Access to food, medicine and basic supplies are being blocked. Cuba deserves the right to self-determination, and it’s on us to hold the U.S. government accountable.

The Biden administration must fully normalize relations with Cuba NOW – this means ending the blockade and taking Cuba off the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

The Cuban people are suffering one of the most severe food and medicine shortages, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is a consequence of the ongoing U.S. blockade, continued impacts of sanctions on freedom to travel, and downturn in tourism from the coronavirus pandemic.

Join us along with many organizations across the country for “White House Call-In Days” to tell Biden to take Cuba off of the State Sponsors of Terrorism List today and tomorrow (March 15 & 16) from 11am – 3:00pm EST. You can call (202) 456-1111.

202-456-1111

Click here for a suggested SCRIPT created by our friends at Massachusetts Peace Action to make it easy. If for some reason you can’t get through you can use www.whitehouse.gov/contact to send a message.

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 harmful Cold War ideology. Cuba and the Cuban people have suffered too long.

P.S. Support Cuba through travel. Join an upcoming Reality Tour! Travel to the island not only supports the local economy but also builds important people-to-people connections, building solidarity and understanding between our two nations

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).

If Biden truly cares about the Cuban people, ending severe shortages in food and medicine must be his top priority. Biden needs to end this erroneous blockade.

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.

54 years ago, the Cuban flag flying above the Cuban embassy in Washington D.C. was abruptly taken down, as the United States cut official ties with Cuba approaching the height of the Cold War. For the next half century the flag remained that way, and a relationship of isolation and hostility prevailed between the two neighboring countries.

Today, July 20th, 2015, the Cuban flag is once again flying above that embassy building in Washington D.C. after being hoisted in a dramatic morning ceremony symbolizing the restoration of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations for the first time since 1961.

It’s a momentous day, especially for those like Global Exchange who have been working to restore ties between the U.S. and Cuba for the past few decades. Without a doubt, it is a major milestone in de-thawing a relationship that has remained frozen far too long past the end of the Cold War.

But while a welcome announcement, and certainly cause for celebration, we should remember that it’s just the first step towards normalization, as the restoration of official diplomatic ties in no way means that relations are now normal. Indeed, the economic blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba in 1962 remains firmly in place, and requires several difficult hurdles to be overcome in Congress in order to be lifted. Meanwhile, the blockade continues to cost Cuba (and the U.S.) billions of dollars annually, and remains the single largest obstacle to mended US-Cuba relations.

Also important is the return of the Guantanamo Naval Base to Cuba, its rightful owner, as well as an end to USAID-funded regime change programs that are still in place. Washington should also immediately lift the senseless restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens and residents.

There is still a long road ahead to mending the US-Cuba relationship. While restoring diplomatic relations is a start, issues like the blockade, travel ban and Guantanamo still require our vigilant attention and may take much more time to overcome. But for now, let’s celebrate the importance of today’s step, while keeping an eye on the many more steps that still need to be made.

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Click here for more information on traveling to Cuba with Global Exchange!

Last week, the United States and Cuba formally announced they will restore full diplomatic relations and re-open embassies in Havana and Washington respectively on July 20th. Without a doubt, it is a momentous milestone in de-thawing a relationship that has remained frozen far too long past the end of the Cold War.

While a welcome announcement, it is also long overdue, and there still remains much to be done to end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions that continue to harm both Cuba and the United States.

Just a week prior to this historic announcement of re-opening embassies, Global Exchange sent Princeton University’s track and field team on an 8-day trip to Cuba that included stops in Havana, Mantanzas, Varadero and Santa Clara, as well as two international competitions with Cuban teams. In addition to the track meets, the itinerary included a meeting at ICAP (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos – “The Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples”) for a discussion on US-Cuba relations, a CDR block party with a local neighborhood, and visits to various organizations, community leaders and artists.

Princeton Track and Field at Estadio Panamericano, site of the 1991 Pan American Games

I was lucky enough to go along with the Princeton group for this trip, my first such trip to Cuba. Having traveled quite a bit through other Latin American countries, nothing could really prepare me for the reality of Cuba. While holding a lot of similarities to other Latin American countries, there are also many other aspects of Cuba that simply cannot be compared. Cuba is distinctly Cuba, largely because of its history. For example, its music and dance may bear resemblance to other parts of Latin America, but its 1955 Chevys and large Soviet-style public squares certainly do not.

While traversing the Cuban countryside, walking the narrow streets of Old Havana and mingling with Cubans of many walks of life, I continually reminded myself and others that we were experiencing truly historic times. It was, and still is, very recent that Presidents Obama and Castro dramatically announced that the U.S. and Cuba would be taking steps to normalizing relations, something that has not existed since 1961 when formal ties were abruptly cut approaching the height of the Cold War. And it was only a few months ago, in April, that Presidents Obama and Castro met for the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders in more than half a century. While we were on Cuban soil we were witnessing, living and breathing history. We will look back at this period of time 30, 40, 50 years from now as nothing short of groundbreaking, and for those of us on the trip, we can say that we were there.

The Cubans we talked with knew this for sure. Almost everyone we spoke with on our trip mentioned the thaw, young and old. It is so clearly on the forefront of Cuban consciousness. And it is certainly now on the mind of many Princeton student-athletes, as it should be for Americans in general. To better understand US-Cuba relations is to better understand US-Latin America relations as a whole, both of present day and the past half century.

A highlight of the trip was watching the intermingling of students and students, coaches and coaches, athletes and athletes. Broken Spanish and English was attempted, and many smiles, handshakes, high fives and hugs were exchanged. It epitomized the essence of a People-to-People exchange and Citizen Diplomacy – the idea that, even if our governments haven’t always liked or talked with each other, that doesn’t mean the people cannot.

I also continually reminded myself, and others, that Cuba has the potential to change more in the next 5-10 years than it has in the previous half-century. The changes that will come to the island, as a result of not just normalized diplomatic relations but an eventual end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, are sure to be swift and transformative. The changes are yet to be fully seen, and it’s hard to tell how things will unfold. But to be sure, an eventual lifting of the blockade and travel restrictions will bring major changes to the island. Time will tell what those changes will look like. But for now, it’s important to realize that anyone traveling to Cuba during this historic time will be witnessing a Cuba that may not exist as it currently does a decade from now.

We knew more news regarding US-Cuba relations would be coming soon, but little did we know that it would be just one week after our return to the States that the embassy openings would be formally announced, nor that it would be just three more weeks from then that the U.S. embassy would actually open in Havana, the first time one has officially operated in Cuba since 1961.

There is still a long road ahead to mending the US-Cuba relationship. While restoring diplomatic relations is a start, the economic blockade and travel ban still face tough hurdles in Congress that may take much more time to overcome. But nonetheless, we are experiencing historic times in US-Cuba relations. Luckily for the Princeton track and field team, and myself, we were able to witness some of these changes in person, walking (and running) the very ground that Che Guevara traversed, while the present day attempts to mend the divisions and hostility of the past.

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Click here for more information on opportunities to travel with Global Exchange to Cuba!

Princeton Track and Field at Estadio Panamericano, site of the 1991 Pan American Games

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Click here for more information on opportunities to travel with Global Exchange to Cuba!

The embargo was already decades old in 1989 when Global Exchange took its first delegation of American citizens to Cuba. As Global Exchange board member Walter Turner recalls, “ I remember being on that delegation and sitting on the top floor of the Hotel Presidente discussing how to begin the process of ending the decades old U.S. blockade against Cuba.”

President Obama signaled the change to come last fall during his state of the union address, saying, “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” It has been (and continues to be) a far longer journey to end the blockade, normalize relations and secure the right of Americans to travel freely than any of us expected. But 26 years later, with a well-publicized handshake and the Obama Administration’s new stance that Cuba poses no “terrorist threat”, we sit on the edge of this monumental change.

For Cuba, there could be no thawing of relations until it was removed from the American “blacklist,” a constant source of humiliation for the island nation. Throughout the hemisphere, the US has been much criticized for its estrangement from Cuba, and it was hoped by the Obama Administration that an agreement could be reached before he headed to Panama for the Summit of the Americas. Three rounds of talks between the US State Department and Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs ended in March leading to Tuesday’s decree by President Obama.

While Global Exchange —and other groups who have toiled in the trenches seeking justice for Cuban relations — applaud this important first step, we know there is so much more to do. As Global Exchange co-founder Medea Benjamin pondered, “Hopefully, the ‘Interest Sections’ in both countries will be turned into embassies… But sadly, not much will change until the economic embargo is lifted. The president himself can make further changes by executive authority, but ultimately the lifting of the embargo must be done by Congress.”

As Felicia Gustin, a journalist with extensive experience in Cuba, points out, there is much to be gained by the people in both countries by lifting the embargo—it’s not just about tourism and access to cigars and rum.

Cuba has long led the U.S. in healthcare, access to education, poverty, disaster preparedness, and sustainability. Gustin adds, “It’s going to take pressure on Congress by those who will benefit most from normal relations — that is, the American people themselves — to bring about these changes.”

Building people-to-people ties is at the heart of Global Exchange’s mission at home and abroad. Global Exchange will continue to pressure for lifting the embargo, emphasize the need to return Guantanamo Bay back to the Cuban people, and push Congressional policy by taking people to Cuba to see what Cuba is truly about.

And now’s your chance to travel with us to Cuba during this historic time of transition.

Travel with Global Exchange to Cuba and see a country rich with tradition and culture, and mark the moment considered the beginning of the Cuban Revolution – the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks lead by Fidel Castro. The Movimiento 26 de Julio became the revolutionary movement which eventually toppled the Batista dictatorship.

Get Cuba Off the Terror List!