Intellectuals from different regions of the world, such as Argentinean Stella Calloni and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, today demanded that the US government exclude Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The worldwide demand is in response to an open letter from the Franco-Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet addressed to President Joe Biden, in which he sets forth -with surgical precision- arguments that accredit the Caribbean nation as “promoter of peace, health and education. That is the very opposite of promoting terrorism”.
A noble initiative supported by the Havana-based institution Casa de las Américas through a call that was also echoed by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986; Atilio Boron, Ariel Dorfman, Iñaki Gil De San Vicente, Katya Colmenares, and Ramón Grosfoguel.
Fernando Buen Abad, Luisa Valenzuela, Patricia Ariza, Leonid Savin, Manolo de los Santos, Jorge Boccanera, Fernando Rendón, Marcos Roitman, Patricia Villegas, Sergio Arria, Pascual Serrano, Sara Rosenberg, Mónica Valente, Carlos Margotta, Juan Carlos Volnovich, among many others, also signed the complaint.
In his letter, Ramonet asks the U.S. president to repair the “profound injustice committed on January 12, 2021 by his predecessor, Donald Trump, when, a few weeks after leaving the White House, he decided -with no real legal basis- to re-inscribe Cuba on the infamous list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT list)”.
The also writer and political analyst recalled when President Barack Obama's Administration removed the Caribbean country from that list in 2015, “which represented a very positive step to forge, at last, a more constructive relationship with Havana.”
For 65 years, despite the tensions that may have existed between the United States and Cuba, not a single case of violent action occurred in U.S. territory that has been sponsored, directly or indirectly, by Havana can be cited. Not a single case!” the eminent intellectual specified.
The most atrocious consequences derive from the risk associated with any type of humanitarian aid, business, investment and trade involving Cuba and, by extension, its citizens, he added.
All this added to “the terrible consequences of the cruel and illegal economic, commercial and financial blockade that the government of your country has maintained against Cuba for more than 60 years”.
The current wave of migration of Cubans to the United States, unprecedented in its magnitude, is perhaps the most illustrative example of the devastating impact and suffering caused by the extreme and brutal measures against the Cuban economy, he said.
Mr. President, this situation has to end, Ramonet requested. You know, there is not a single valid and reasonable argument to accuse Cuba and keep its population under an illegal and inhumane collective punishment.
You have the authority, before leaving the White House, to correct such a cruel absurdity and remove Cuba from the SSOT list. Do it now,” said the prominent intellectual at the end of his letter, hoping that Joe Biden knows how to live up to this historic moment.