Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper released a letter signed by him and 34 other former presidents from Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia.
In the letter, the former leaders asked President Joe Biden to remove Cuba from the list before the end of his term in office and asked him to heed this humanitarian call to alleviate the situation of millions of innocent people. ‘No country should compromise the seriousness of the fight against the scourge of terrorism for political ends,’ the document concludes.
Former President Samper also announced that ‘it makes no sense that a country like Cuba, which has worked for peace in the world and which has helped us Colombians to sign the Peace Agreement with the now defunct FARC, should be included on the list of countries that support terrorism and as a consequence subject them to immoral, illegal and inhumane sanctions’.
The letter states that ‘maintaining Cuba's inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism constitutes a coercive measure that is difficult to justify in the 21st century, when equality between states should be a reality. This unjust decision also affects the universal charter of human rights, the ethical pillar of contemporary international relations, as it has an impact on the most vulnerable sectors of the Cuban population that have been hit recently by the harmful effects of the pandemic, exacerbated by the lack of medicines and equipment to deal with the emergency’.
(CubaMinrex)