His Excellency Bruno E. Rodríguez Parrilla
Member of the Political Bureau and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba
Avenida G y Calzada
Vedado, Plaza de la Revolución
Havana
Dear Minister,
On behalf of the Association of Cubans Resident in Jamaica Major General Antonio Maceo Grajales, we wish to congratulate you and through you the people, party and government of Cuba, who have achieved with your firm, dignified and courageous stance, in making the government of the United States of America take the decision to remove Cuba from the spurious list of countries that sponsor and support international terrorism, in which it should never have been included; to suspend the application of Chapter III of the Helms Burton Act, which should never have been enacted; and for the removal of the arbitrary sanctions against Cuban entities and products, all of which have failed in their attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.
The decisions taken by President Biden, although they point in the right direction, are limited and belated, as you rightly explained in your statements in Havana, since what is really needed is the immediate and unconditional lifting of the criminal and illegal economic, commercial and financial blockade applied against our country for more than six decades and which has had extremely serious and painful consequences for our people, contributing to the difficulties and suffering to which they are subjected.
That cruel and inhuman policy must be replaced by the normalisation of relations between the two neighbouring countries, which despite their profound differences also share many common interests and experiences, in our history when Cubans supported the struggles of the Thirteen Colonies for their independence and which are expressed in our common love of sports such as baseball and boxing, music and many other fields, the friendship between our peoples is really indestructible to the point that the North American government has never been able to count on the support of its people to attack and/or take over Cuba, neither in the XIX, XX or XXI century, always to justify their acts directed to serve the imperial interests of taking over our small country, they have had to appeal to deceive their compatriots and justify it before their people, with the excuse that they want to help the Cuban people to liberate themselves; but they never recognised those who fought for Cuba's independence and tried to buy it in the midst of the heroic struggle of our people for their freedom.
Nor did they help other people to free themselves from criminal tyrants like Trujillo, Somoza, Batista, Duvalier, Franco or Pinochet, just to mention a few of the most notorious, they supported them and decorated them frequently. They also refused to support the blockade proposed by African countries at the United Nations against the criminal and racist apartheid regime of South Africa, which, in addition to oppressing its people, attacked its neighbours, hypocritically arguing that it would also affect the South African people.
We Cubans wish to improve relations with our powerful neighbours, but we will not renounce our independence, sovereignty, nor the essential transformations made by the revolution and we will defend them at whatever cost.
Hasta la Victoria Siempre,
Association of Cubans Residing in Jamaica
Major General Antonio Maceo Grajales
January 18, 2025