Resolution against blockade

By Maria Josefina Arce

While President Joe Biden extended for one more year the prohibition for U.S. vessels to enter Cuba, in that neighboring country the rejection of the hostile policy against the Cuban people, object for more than 60 years of a cruel economic, commercial and financial blockade, has been growing.

Precisely in the last few days, a new resolution was approved demanding the lifting of that unilateral measure, even intensified in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic and which hindered the fight against the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

The Council of the District of Columbia, in Washington, acknowledged that with the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House in 2017, 243 measures were adopted, which increased the siege and reversed the progress in the normalization of bilateral relations, registered during the mandate of his predecessor Barack Obama.

The resolution approved by that body is in addition to the almost 70 adopted by city councils, state legislatures, school boards, unions and other organizations in the United States.

The condemnation of the U.S. blockade is a reality on U.S. soil that Washington cannot hide. Throughout the years there have been many expressions of solidarity towards our people.

Emigrants of Cuban origin, but also countless Americans have taken part in numerous actions to raise awareness in society about the genocidal nature of the blockade, which threatens the lives of an entire people and causes pain and suffering to families.

Citizens living in the northern country have joined forces to alleviate the effects of the economic siege on such sensitive areas as health and education, which includes special education for children and young people with other needs.

Donations of food, medicines and other supplies arrived from that territory to help COVID 19 and also to guarantee treatment for children and adults with certain ailments.

Humanitarian initiatives such as Bridges of Love and the Cuba-U.S. Friendship Caravans, organized since 1992 by the ecumenical organization Pastors for Peace, have been joined by more and more Americans and citizens of other nationalities.

But they have also developed numerous actions to continue sensitizing the American public opinion and that of the whole world against Washington's aggressive policy, which only in the first 14 months of the Biden administration caused losses of more than 6 billion dollars to the largest of the Antilles.

The blockade has been condemned on 30 occasions by the UN General Assembly. It is a worldwide demand which, however, the United States has preferred to ignore, even when it threatens the right to life of millions of Cubans.