U.S. and international actions demand #UnblockCuba

On Sunday, Jan. 30, Miami Cuban-Americans and their supporters gathered at City Hall to caravan with bikes and cars to a rally at the statue of Cuba’s national hero, José Martí. Nearly two years since the election-campaign-filled months of 2020, throughout all of 2021 and now into 2022, these Miami actions have birthed a caravan movement across the U.S. and internationally on the last Sunday of the month – including in the streets of Cuba. 

This international outpouring of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and its right to sovereignty and self-determination was especially noteworthy, as Feb. 7 marks 60 years since the effective date of President John F. Kennedy’s Proclamation 3447, prohibiting “the importation into the United States of all goods of Cuban origin and all goods imported from or through Cuba.”  

Also 60 years ago, on Jan. 31, 1962, under U.S. pressure, the Organization of American States expelled Cuba. Only Mexico withstood the U.S. demand to isolate the revolution. How the situation has changed in 60 years!

In the U.S., caravans kicked off the new year in Miami, New York City, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Tempe/Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Cars and – where temperatures permitted – bikes took to the streets. Outreach tables, pickets and educational online programs informed public gatherings about the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba. 

In Miami, large posters displayed Cuban-American demands to undo some of the most painful of the 243 new economic blows imposed under Donald Trump and now continued and even expanded by President Joe Biden: reopen the U.S. Embassy in Havana; reunify families; restore direct flights from U.S. airports to provincial Cuban airports; and restore remittances, the right to travel and cultural-scientific cooperation between the two countries. 

In pre-pandemic Canada, pickets regularly reminded U.S. consulates that the Canadian people oppose the U.S. starvation schemes imposed on Cuba. Jan. 30 car caravans carried on the tradition in Montreal, Quebec, plus Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. 

Information on the U.S. caravans are posted by the National Network On Cuba at NNOC.org/calendar with starting times and locations during the week before the last Sunday of the month. Local organizers can send details, images or Facebook event links for posting to SundayCaravan@NNOC.info 

Support mobilized from many countries as shown in this tweet.