Washington, Feb 22 (Prensa Latina) Despite a winter storm warning, activists and community organizers from New York arrived in Manhattan today to show their commitment and support for Cuba in the face of the growing aggression of the United States government.
The group braved the bad weather to make it clear that the American people oppose the ban on oil entering the island following an executive order signed on January 29 by President Donald Trump, who threatened to impose unilateral coercive tariffs against any country that sells fuel to Cuba.
By preventing the supply of oil to the Caribbean country, it is reinforcing the economic, financial and commercial blockade that has weighed on the people of the Antillean nation for more than six decades.
Willie Cotton, organizer of the Cuba Sí coalition in New York and New Jersey, highlighted the resilience of the Cuban people and reaffirmed the need for collective efforts at this special moment.
The group emphasized that this crisis generated by the United States created difficult conditions for Cuba, but also forged “a new commitment of solidarity from people around the world.”
For his part, Ike Nahem, coordinator of the U.S. committee for the normalization of relations with Cuba, declared: “We are here to tell Cuba that we are committed to ending this blockade and allowing the arrival of oil.”
“Similar demonstrations are taking place in cities across the United States and Canada,” he said, “because this escalation has made international solidarity even more necessary.”
The protest in New York took place in preparation for the “Cuba Under Siege” conference, scheduled for March 14 and 15.
The event will bring together a broad coalition of groups and representatives of solidarity with Cuba in the search for a strategy of action to stop the current hostility and threat of military aggression.
SOLIDARITY ALSO IN CHICAGO
Solidarity activists with Cuba gained new support this weekend in Chicago at the national convention of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), the youth section of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
The conference, with 400 attendees, represents YDSA’s affiliates from across the country. Most came from cities and campuses where solidarity committees with Cuba do not yet exist, but there is interest in creating such groups, according to a statement.
At the meeting, books and pamphlets were distributed about the family code, the “Let Cuba Play” campaign to obtain US visas for Cuban Olympic athletes, and Cuba’s role in Africa in defending the liberation movements of that continent.
The speeches of the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla fighter Ernesto “Che” Guevara also aroused the greatest interest.
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