Solidarity signatures in Brazil to remove Cuba from terrorism list

Cuban Ambassador to Brazil Adolfo Curbelo received the guest book corresponding to the Cuba Lives and Resists international campaign, which is demanding the Caribbean island's removal from Washington's State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

The delivery of the book to the diplomat took place in the context of the so-called National Camp of the Countryside Youths, the Waters and the Forests, held in Brasilia from October 13 to 17.

Present at the ceremony were Brazilian Ministers Paulo Teixeira, (Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture) and Marina Silva (Environment) and Sonia Guajajara (Indigenous Peoples).

Lawmakers from several political parties, including Erika Kokay, from the Workers’ Party, who, together with peasants from all states and organizations from the Landless Rural Workers Movement and Via Campesina, showed their solidarity with Cuba, also attended the event.

The call began in August and was led by the Trade Union Confederation of Workers of the Americas, the Sao Paulo Forum, the International People’s Assembly, the Continental Day for Democracy and against Neoliberalism, the World March of Women, ALBA Movements, Vía Campesina and the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Network.

The call says that for more than 60 years, “the United States Government has promoted a hostile policy against Cuba with a clear political intention of isolating the Cuban people through a cruel and inhumane blockade.”

It charges that in amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the administration of then US President Donald Trump tried to further damage the Cuban economy not only by reinforcing the blockade with 243 new sanctions, but also by including Cuba on Washington’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

The text adds that this designation prevents Cuba from carrying out transactions using international banking systems and, ultimately, from acquiring the goods necessary for its people on the international market.

The action focuses on asking the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, “why does he continue to support this disastrous Trump policy? Do you really believe that Cuba is a State sponsor of terrorism?”

For the organizers, international pressure and knowledge of the truth regarding the consequences can put an end to these measures.

The Cuba Lives and Resists campaign aims to collect more than one million signatures to demand that the United States Government exclude Cuba from the unilateral State Sponsors of Terrorism list and unconditionally lift the blockade, repudiated by the entire international community.