The Cuban Handshake

Havana, September 20 (RHC)– Nearly 600 parliamentarians from 73 countries demanded this Friday that Cuba be excluded from the spurious list of countries sponsoring terrorism, drawn up by the United States Department of State.

Through a joint letter coordinated and published by the Progressive International (PI), the legislators called on their respective governments to take immediate measures to advocate for the elimination of Cuba from that list.

Cuba was removed from the list in 2015 during the administration of former President Barack Obama and was included again in 2021, during the last days of Donald Trump’s presidency.  In addition to the Caribbean nation, Syria, since 1979, Iran, since 1984, and North Korea, since 2017, are also part of the illegitimate list.

The parliamentarians assure that Cuba must be removed from the list in the name of dignity, decency and the integrity of the Charter of the United Nations (UN).

According to UN experts, the inclusion of Cuba has weakened “fundamental human rights, including the right to food, the right to health, the right to education, economic and social rights, the right to life and the right to development.”

The inclusion of Cuba in the list of sponsors of terrorism brings with it atrocious consequences in spheres such as humanitarian aid, business, investment and trade, which severely harms Cuba and Cuban citizens.

Fearful of being accused of instigating terror and the high fines that come with having relations with Cuba, banks, financial institutions and international vendors have stopped facilitating trade.

It also hinders research, since in the United States the use of public funds for travel to or from countries that are included in the list of state sponsors of terrorism is prohibited, preventing research and support for Cuban academics.

Here is the full text of the letter
We, the undersigned parliamentarians from around the world, condemn the designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and call on our respective governments to take immediate steps to advocate for its removal.

The designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the United States is cynical, cruel, and a clear violation of international law.

The designation, withdrawn in 2015 following a thorough assessment by the Obama administration, was reapplied to Cuba in the final days of the Trump presidency as the final act of his economic warfare campaign against the island.

As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to restore the diplomatic relationship fostered by his Democratic predecessor. But as president, Biden reneged—even after the Colombian government dropped extradition charges against members of its National Liberation Army (ELN)—on the original justification for Trump reapplying the “state sponsor” designation.

The designation is therefore cynical, because Cuba, far from sponsoring terrorism, has served as a key intermediary in peace talks between the Colombian government, the ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The current talks mark a decade since Cuba called on CELAC member states to declare the region a Zone of Peace, “based on respect for the principles and norms of International Law.”

The designation is cruel because it is designed to maximize the suffering of the people of Cuba, stifling their economy, displacing their families and even restricting the flow of humanitarian aid. According to UN experts, the designation has weakened “fundamental human rights, including the right to food, the right to health, the right to education, economic and social rights, the right to life and the right to development.”

Finally, the designation is illegal because it weakens “the principle of sovereign equality of States, the prohibition of intervention in the internal affairs of States and the principle of peaceful settlement of international disputes,” according to experts.

September 18 (Belly of the Beast) Marnia Briones is a self-taught Cuban artist with an uncanny ability to turn discarded items into pieces of art. She turns old clothes into canvases, cigar boxes into dollhouses and cans into wind chimes.

Her art has been exhibited in Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, Italy and the United States.

But you can also find it in marginalized neighborhoods in Havana, Cuba, such as El Fanguito.

Learn more about Marnia and her artistic journey here.

Havana, Sepember 18 (RHC)– The President of the United States, Joe Biden, extended for another year the Trading with the Enemy Act, a 1917 regulation under which the blockade of Cuba was imposed — considered the longest in history.

“I hereby determine that the continuation of the exercise of these authorities with respect to Cuba for one year is in the national interest of the United States,” Biden said in the brief memorandum sent to the Treasury Department, published in the Federal Register.

The text stressed that “therefore, consistent with the authority conferred upon me by section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223, I continue for one year, until September 14, 2025, the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba, as implemented in the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515.”

The Trading with the Enemy Act, enacted under President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), during the period of the First World War (1914-1918), empowers the government in power in Washington to restrict commercial activities with any nation that they consider an adversary.

Based on this legislation, on February 7, 1962, Democratic President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 3447, which officially began an economic, commercial and financial blockade that has survived 11 White House administrations. (Source: Prensa Latina)

Havana, September 16 (RHC)– Brazilian writer Leonardo Boff supports the open letter by French-Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet addressed to the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to demand the exclusion of Cuba from the list of States sponsoring terrorism.

Boff, a theologian and philosopher, founder of Liberation Theology, thus joins the more than four thousand signatures that support this noble and just initiative.

The letter was also signed by Belgian historian and economist Eric Toussaint, spokesman for the International Network of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM); by the former member of the European Parliament and Secretary of International Relations of the Communist Party of Spain, Manu Pineda, and by the Dominican researcher Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso, director of the Caribbean Institute of Decolonial Thought and Research.

They were joined by the Puerto Rican professor and sociologist Agustín Lao-Montes; and the Argentine intellectuals Mario Goloboff and Pablo Vommaro, academic secretary of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO).

Through a call, released at the beginning of this month by the Havana institution Casa de las Américas, the battle to exclude the Caribbean nation from that list also has the support of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Argentine Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In his letter, the writer and political analyst also asks the U.S. president to repair the “profound injustice committed on January 12, 2021 by his predecessor, Donald Trump, when, a few weeks after leaving the White House, he decided – without real legal basis – to re-inscribe Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT list, for its initials in English).”

For 65 years, despite the tensions between the United States and Cuba, not a single case of violent action occurring on US territory, sponsored, directly or indirectly, by Havana, can be cited. Not a single case!, the eminent intellectual specified.

The most atrocious consequences arise from the risk associated with any type of humanitarian aid, business, investment and trade that involves Cuba and, by extension, its citizens, he added.

The current wave of migration of Cuban expatriates to the United States, unprecedented in its magnitude, is perhaps the most illustrative example of the devastating impact and suffering caused by extreme and brutal measures against the Cuban economy, he said.

Mr. President, this situation has to end, Ramonet requested. You know, there is not a single valid and reasonable argument to accuse Cuba and keep its population under illegal and inhuman collective punishment.

You have the authority to, before leaving the White House, correct such cruel absurdity and remove Cuba from the SSOT list. Do it now!, indicated the prominent intellectual at the end of his letter, with the hope that Joe Biden will be up to this historic moment.    (Source: Prensa Latina)

Havana, September 13 (Radio Habana Cuba)– The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, denounced this Friday that the blockade imposed by the United States on the island is a crime, an act of genocide and a massive violation of the rights of millions of Cubans.

In his account on X, the Cuban leader pointed out that the destructive impact of the blockade is the result of the unilateral and aggressive policy of the U.S. Government.  “Cuba will not give up its fight,” he assured.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez reported yesterday that as a result of Washington’s siege, Cuba suffered losses of five billion 56.8 million dollars, from March 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024.

He stated this when releasing the report ‘Need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba’, which will be presented next October for approval by the United Nations General Assembly.

“If such a policy did not exist, the island’s Gross Domestic Product could have grown by eight percent during 2023,” he stressed.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs specified that the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in the list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism deepens the difficulties and significantly affects Cuban families.

Since 1992, the international community has ratified its rejection of the blockade, reinforced to unprecedented levels during the impact of Covid-19, with the stated purpose of strangling the country’s economy to provoke a change of government.    (Source: Prensa Latina)