According to the president of the Cuban Association of the United Nations (ACNU), Norma Goicochea, “local civil groups, social players, networks and movements” signed a letter with these demands to US President Joseph Biden.
Among the signatory organizations of the document are the Council of Churches of Cuba, the José Martí Cultural Society, the Cuban Association of Artisans and Artists, the Martin Luther King Memorial Center, the Nicolás Guillén Foundation and the Arab Union of Cuba.
The letter was also endorsed by the Christian Students Movement, the Cuban Society of Cardiology, the Network of Lesbian and Bisexual Women, the Afro-feminist Articulation, the projects La Granjita Feliz, Palomas, Angeles de la Noche and Turbante, among others, up to 130 groups.
In a press conference, Goicochea assured that a representation of the societies that penned the document had requested to deliver the letter to the US Embassy in Havana, “but no response has been” from the diplomatic mission.
“However, we also sent it to friends in the United States and we have proof that it has already reached the hands of President Biden,” she said.
The ACNU chief commented that the request, “dated November 8,” is pertinent to express a few days before the end of the Biden administration, because “the president has a group of prerogatives” to reduce the severity of the sanctions against Cuba.
Donald Trump included our country in the State Sponsors of Terrorism list nine days before leaving the White House, she recalled, and insisted that Biden can and must exclude Cuba from that classification.
“Repealing the blockade policy, stopping all other sanctions and removing Cuba from that spurious list will be a fair, correct, and humane decision,” she stressed.
Present at the press conference were representatives of several civil organizations, who outlined the damage caused by the US Government’s sanctions to the health system, women, people with disabilities, entrepreneurs, community projects, and the cultural development of young people.
They also agreed that the economic, commercial, and financial blockade, in addition to being an economic war, is a genocidal policy, and considered that Cuba’s inclusion among the sponsors of terrorism was illegitimate.
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