The Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association, joins with the rest of progressive humanity, in demanding that US President Joseph Biden immediately remove Cuba from the spurious list of State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST), as one of the concrete steps towards the lifting of the 60-odd year-old criminal blockade and securing a worthwhile legacy as the 46th president of the US republic.
Our position is taken against a background, of President Biden’s broken electoral promise of 2020, of continuing on the path of building better relations with government and people of Cuba adopted by former president Obama, which he disavowed, while fully embracing the hardening of the illegal blockade by former White House occupant Donald Trump, of which the SST is its center Piece.
It is this same SST and its equally cruel, brutal and dehumanizing blockade, that prevents Cuba from transacting business with foreign companies, buying materials that are necessary for everyday life and which we take for granted such as medicine, food, fuel, education spare parts for machinery, a situation where 80% of the current population was born after the triumph of the revolution, led by Fidel.
We are also deeply aware of the forces who are hostile to progress of the Cuban revolution and who, along with a motley crew, salivates whenever these made-made challenges brought on by an unjust and cruel economic blockade are place in the path of the courageous heirs/ heiresses of Marti, Fidel, Mariana Grajales, such as the recent electrical/power outages in the country, as they yearn for the return of ‘good ole days’ of pre-January 1, 1959.
They seem to forget one simple fact, that since the advent of Dwight Eisenhower who was the 34th president of the USA to the current occupant of the White House Joseph Biden, which is summed up appropriately in the words of Cuban national hero Antonio Maceo: ‘Whoever tries to appropriate Cuba, will collect the dust of its soil drenched in blood, if he does not peris in the struggle’.
Our courageous brothers and sisters in are not alone in their struggle for a better world and can continue to count on the unconditional support of their Jamaican counterparts in the best traditions of our people.