[News] Black Alliance for Peace says new U.S. sanctions against Cuba are being used to attack its efforts toward self-determination

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<https://blackallianceforpeace.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5845ddb951de35b8eb11e0eee&id=479eb6c8f4&e=f578133edc> 


*The Black Alliance For Peace Denounces Biden Regime’s New Sanctions on 
Cuba and Stands with the Cuban People*

For Immediate Release

Media Contact

communications at blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

Various right-wing groups across the Americas are preparing 
demonstrations in support of the one-year anniversary of the exaggerated 
and media-manipulated protests that took place in Cuba on 11 July 2021. 
In perfect lockstep, the Biden administration has issued further 
sanctions on Cuba—visa restrictions on 28 Cuban officials whom they have 
declined to name. The Black Alliance For Peace (BAP) denounces these 
efforts to smear the Cuban process and continues to stand in 
revolutionary solidarity with the peoples of Cuba.

“It remains clear,” says BAP South member, Salifu Mack, “that the 
enemies of African people and the Cuban Revolution will not rest until 
total death and destruction are visited upon the island, all in the name 
of white supremacy and U.S. imperialism.”

In announcing the 28 new sanctions on Cuba on 9 July 2022, U.S. 
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is quoted saying that the sanctions 
have been implemented to "support greater freedom and economic 
opportunities for the Cuban people." The Biden administration has 
declined to name the 28 Cuban officials that they claim these sanctions 
have been applied to. BAP understands that sanctions targeted toward any 
person or group of persons, especially in a country like Cuba, which has 
struggled under the weight of 60 years of a U.S. economic blockade, 
severely limits the country’s ability to advocate for itself on the 
international stage. The U.S. economic blockade 
<https://blackallianceforpeace.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5845ddb951de35b8eb11e0eee&id=ff8db8148f&e=f578133edc>already 
excludes Cuba from international trade and banking, punishes countries 
which try to circumvent it, and overcomplicates immigration from the 
island.

“We have seen how sanctions have been used to attack efforts toward 
self-determination in countries like Libya, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea,” says 
Austin Cole of BAP Haiti/Americas Team. “And we have also seen recently 
how sanctions against Russia backfire as the U.S. and NATO attempt to 
maintain hegemony in Eastern Europe.”

Of the 28 new sanctions being imposed upon Cuba, Blinken remarked that 
this measure is aimed at those who, in his opinion, allowed or 
facilitated violent and unjust arrests, false trials and prison 
sentences for those involved in the riots that took place in July of 
last year. As a continued strategy, U.S. imperialism is leaning into the 
trope of “critical support to political prisoners.”

Today the United States holds more than 2 million people within its jail 
cells, the equivalent of roughly 25% of the world’s prison population. 
Among that prison population is an aging demographic of political 
prisoners, like Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal, Joseph Bowen, Veronza 
Bowers, Kamau Sadiki, Ruchell Magee, Leonard Peltier, Ed Poindexter, and 
Rev. Joy Powell. While the enemies of the Cuban revolution attempt to 
make heroes out of Cuban citizens who now face the consequences of 
collaborating with U.S. imperialism, African freedom fighters are 
rotting away in prisons, being denied life-saving medical treatment, and 
are only strategically released on their deathbeds.

Additionally, there is an extreme irony in a country that supports 
reactionary riots throughout the world, yet regularly brutalizes 
protestors seeking justice within its borders and is helpless to stop 
its epidemic of mass shootings.  As U.S. hegemony continues to weaken, 
meeting formidable challenges across Latin America and the Caribbean, 
its violence returns home and compounds against its domestic colonies.

The week to come is certain to be filled with the same circular and 
baseless attacks using “anti-Blackness” in Cuba as a tool to turn 
Africans in the U.S. away from support of the Cuban Revolution. BAP is 
clear that anti-Black racism, a development of colonialism, will only be 
eradicated with the defeat of colonialism. While U.S. non-profits and 
NGOs pour billions every year into toothless “diversity and inclusion” 
and “anti-racist” marketing schemes, we have faith in the people of Cuba 
to lead their own processes, without U.S. interference, in establishing 
a world where People(s)-Centered Human Rights—based on materialist 
reconfigurations of land, healthcare and education—are at the forefront.

When Black people in the U.S. repeat the same positions and talking 
points of the U.S. government they are not helping Afro-Cubans in Cuba. 
They are giving cover to the regime change agenda of U.S. imperialism.

The Black Alliance for Peace calls on all serious anti-imperialists in 
the U.S. to continue standing with the Cuban Revolution. We must be 
clear that sanctions and other forms of U.S. interventions are an 
affront to national sovereignty and the right to self determination. It 
is the duty of African people living within the belly of the beast to 
remain vigilant against opportunism and co-optation.

*No Compromise! No Retreat!*

###

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Black Alliance for Peace
P.O. Box 1756
Bronx, NY 10451-9998
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