Letter to US Senate president calls to lift blockade against Cuba

More than 140 organizations and individuals from Maryland signed an open letter to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Monday calling to end the blockade against Cuba.

 
The letter, addressed to US Democratic Senator for Maryland, Ben Cardin, current chairman of the influential Committee, urges him to work for lifting the economic, commercial, and financial siege and “advance the normalization of relations between our two countries.”

The signatories recalled that the blockade had been in place for more than 60 years, “during this time its main effect has been the massive suffering of the Cuban people.”

“By its nature, the blockade hinders Cuba’s economic development and affects the entire population,” with a cost of 159 billion dollars since its imposition, according to the Cuban Government, the text stressed.

It pointed out that the effects of that extraterritorial coercive measure “are felt in all aspects of daily life, especially in vulnerable communities.

The blockade, the document stresses, “hinders access to essential goods such as food, water, and medicines; exacerbates food insecurity and malnutrition; contributes to fuel and energy shortages; reduces access to agricultural and industrial inputs; undermines essential public goods such as health and education.

Ultimately, those hostile policies “violate fundamental human rights,” it stressed.

Every year for more than three decades (except in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic), the United Nations General Assembly has voted almost unanimously to call for an end to the blockade.