Havana/Prensa Latina
Intellectuals from various regions of the world, such as Argentines Stella Calloni and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, demand that the US government exclude Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The global outcry is in response to an open letter from French-Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet to President Joe Biden, in which he sets out – with surgical precision – arguments that accredit the Caribbean nation as a “promoter of peace, health and education. That is the very opposite of promoting terrorism.”
A noble initiative supported by the Havana institution Casa de las Américas through a call that was also echoed by the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986; Atilio Boron, Ariel Dorfman, Iñaki Gil De San Vicente, Katya Colmenares, and Ramón Grosfoguel.
The following people also signed the claim: 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, Monica Valente, Carlos Margotta, Juan Carlos Volnovich, among many others.
In his letter, Ramonet asks the US president to repair the “profound injustice committed on January 12, 2021 by his predecessor, Donald Trump, when, a few weeks before leaving the White House, he decided – without any real legal basis – to re-inscribe Cuba on the infamous list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT list).”
The writer and political analyst also recalled when the administration of President Barack Obama removed the Caribbean country from that list in 2015, “which represented a very positive step towards forging, at last, a more constructive relationship with Havana.”
For 65 years, despite the tensions that may have existed between the United States and Cuba, there has not been a single case of violent action that has occurred on U.S. soil that has been sponsored, directly or indirectly, by Havana. Not a single case!, the eminent intellectual stated.
The most dire consequences arise 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 is 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 Cuban migration to the United States, unprecedented in its magnitude, is perhaps the most illustrative example of the devastating impact and suffering caused by extreme and brutal measures against the Cuban economy, he said.
Mr. President, this situation must end, Ramonet said. You know that there is not a single valid and reasonable argument to accuse Cuba and keep its population under an illegal and inhuman collective punishment.
You have the authority to, before leaving the White House, correct such 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 will rise to the occasion of this historic moment.
#World #intellectuals #demand #remove #Cuba #terrorist #list
