On January 15, 2022, the organizations Puentes de Amor, The People's Forum and CODEPINK sent a cargo plane loaded with 15,000 pounds of powdered milk from Miami to Cuba. Representatives of the organizations travel to Cuba with the shipment. The aid will be received by the Martin Luther King Center in Havana. It will be distributed to pediatric hospitals in Havana.
Since the pandemic and the disruption to food supplies it has caused, there have been shortages of powdered milk in Cuba, which is normally provided free of charge by the state to children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with medical needs. Due to the reluctance of US companies and banks to deal with Cuba for fear of running afoul of US sanctions, Cuba buys imported milk, at an inflated cost, from as far away as New Zealand and Uruguay.
The funds raised for the milk and the charter flight came from a large number of individual donations from people across the United States, including many Cuban-Americans. It is an expression of the growing rejection of the American public opinion to the economic policies of his government destined to strangle the Cuban economy.
This Food for Cuba campaign is added to the November 15, 2021 shipment of 18,000 pounds of food that the Martin Luther King Center distributed mainly to children's centers and nursing homes in the eastern provinces of Holguín, Granma and Guantánamo. It also follows the tremendous success of the Syringes for Cuba campaign, through which a coalition of U.S. groups raised more than $500,000 to purchase 6 million syringes for Cuba's COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
“Once again, Cuban-Americans show their solidarity with their brothers and sisters on the Island,” said Carlos Lazo of Puentes de Amor. “With this gesture they express their desire to build bridges of love between the peoples of Cuba and the United States. ”.
The donations are a response to the dire economic situation in Cuba, which is largely the result of the COVID-induced shutdown of the tourism industry and the tightening of the embargo under Trump. Reversing the gains made by the Obama-Biden administration in normalizing relations with Cuba, Trump added more than 200 restrictive measures, including limiting the remittances Cuban-Americans can send home to their families, suspending U.S. flights to all cities except Havana, a ban on cruise ships docking in Cuba. ports, and add Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Despite candidate Joe Biden's promise to “quickly reverse Trump's failed policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights,” President Biden has continued Trump's policy. of maximum pressure and promotion of “regime change”.
“It is tragic and infuriating to see how President Biden's policies are hurting millions of Cubans and exacerbating tensions on the island, especially at a time when Cuba's economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Medea said. Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK. "Our donation is a sign that many people in the United States reject these aggressive actions and instead want to extend a helping hand to our neighbors."
“Our donations in no way compensate for the damage caused by the US blockade,” said Manolo de los Santos, executive director of Foro de los Pueblos. “But they show our desire to prevent our government from trying to strangle the Cuban economy and make people's lives miserable. It shows our desire to let the Cuban people determine their own future, free from US interference." The groups that send the aid are also lobbying the administration and Congress to lift the blockade.
Source: The People's Forum