Puerto Rican poet Lola Rodríguez de Tió said “Cuba and Puerto Rico are two wings of the same bird.”
The Philadelphia-Camden Boricua Committee, composed of Puerto Ricans residing in this area of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, wants to state our position about the criminal commercial, economic and financial blockade that the United States has imposed on the people of Cuba for almost 60 years.
We, coming from a colonial system imposed by the United States on Puerto Rico since 1898, know very well the fatal consequences of living under the domination of this imperial country. Right now we are suffering the consequences of the dictatorship of seven members of a Fiscal Control Board imposed on our homeland in 2016 by the U.S. Congress to collect an illegitimate and illegal debt with Boricua blood. The result has been the migration of almost one million people in the last two years due to the precarious living conditions and the dismantling of basic services and programs.
We believe that the blockade, the Helms-Burton Law and its Title III are aimed precisely at the dismantling of the Republic of Cuba, which with its developments in the construction of socialism has obtained enormous advances in the quality of a dignified life for its people. Cuba has not kept these advances for herself and her people, but has shared in the most generous way with the rest of the world, including the United States itself, when preparing medical professionals at its Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), and offering health service aid in times of catastrophes such as during Hurricane Katrina. However, this help was arrogantly rejected by then-President George W. Bush.
The blockade and especially the recent imposition of Title III break all international laws and principles by punishing a whole people and embarking on a totally interventionist policy that exposes the illegal U.S. exercise of intimidation towards other countries that trade with Cuba. The 11 million Cubans deserve a life free of U.S. interference.
If the United States proclaims worldwide its supposed ideals of democracy and freedom, it is time to preach through their example and end so much hypocrisy, from the concentration camps for migrants and the mass incarceration of people of color to the blockade of Cuba.
WE DEMAND ALL THE AGENCIES AND OFFICERS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO CEASE AND DESIST FROM THIS HOSTILE ACTION TOWARDS ITS SOUTHERN NEIGHBOR, CUBA, AND BY EXTENSION TO THE OTHER INVOLVED COUNTRIES.
END THE BLOCKADE NOW!
July 5, 2019
COMITÉ BORICUA PHILADELPHIA-CAMDEN
WePhillyRicans@gmail.com
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