Christian leaders condemn US blockade against Cuba

José Aurelio Paz, HAVANA, Cuba, October 30, 2003

Cuban Christian leaders, including Evangelical leaders, condemned the US trade blockade imposed against Cuba more Taxi Heathrow Airport than 40 years ago.

The Rev. Raul Suarez, director of the Martín Luther King Jr. Memorial Center cited the prophet Isaiah when he said: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.”

He added that the Church, as part of the people, is not an institution that is distant from the problem affecting society.  “We have also been victims of this policy of harassment against our nation on the part of Yankee imperialism,” he said.

The president of the Cuban Council of Churches, Dr. Reinerio Arce Valentin expressed his gratitude for the possibility to meet with government authorities to debate a problem that has brought so many difficulties to the Cuban people and read Psalm 85 that states: Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other…”

The statements were made during a series of encounters held in Cuba with different sectors of the population, prior to the upcoming UN vote about the US blockade against the Island.

During the meeting held in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Marianao, Havana a group of Christian leaders met with the head of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada and the vice minister of Foreign Relations, Fernando Ramirez de Estenoz in order to analyze what the US government measure has meant for the country and its people.

Ramírez de Estenoz gave a conference about the economic impact that “some people have erroneously called an embargo when it is clearly a blockade.”

According to Ramirez de Estenoz, in 2002 alone it impeded US$1.6 billion from entering the country and conservative estimates indicate that some US$72 billion has not entered Cuba over the course of the blockade.

He then offered a series of examples of how different sectors of society have been affected.

For example, he said that the country was unable to purchase Braille writing machines in the United States, something he considers a human rights violation.

Alarcón de Quesada, asked that the Bible be removed from the pulpit during his presentation “because it would be a blasphemy to place this other book on it that is not Holy in any way.”

He was referring to a volume he presented that contained secret documents from the US government in the 1960s that confirm that the blockade was an economic war. The documents were declassified in 1991.

He pointed out that there are still incomplete paragraphs or parts that were completely eliminated.

 After a detailed explanation about the genocidal nature of the US measure, the head of the Cuban Parliament concluded by stating, “We have heard the economic figures but no one can calculate the human and psychological damage that has been caused, because the life of a child or elderly person cannot be given a value, human life has no price.”

The event concluded with a moment of prayer when participants asked God to allow the elimination of the blockade. The UN debate will take place while the US senate discusses projects cared toward eliminating laws that impede trade and travel to Cuba.