By Cindy Domingo
Chair, Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee

WILPF’s Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee stands in solidarity with the Cuban people in condemning the Trump administration’s latest escalation of its war against Cuba. On March 19, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act was allowed to go into effect, which allows US nationals who owned property in Cuba that was seized by the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution to sue US and foreign companies for profiting from their former properties.

The infamous Title III has been waived every six months by every US president since Helms-Burton, one of the cornerstones of the blockade against Cuba, came into effect in 1996. Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on March 4, 2019, saying that it “rejects in the strongest terms the new escalation in the US aggressive behavior against Cuba.” The statement concludes by stressing that this “decision imposes additional obstacles to our economic development and progress goals, but the United States will keep on failing to achieve its main purpose of submitting by force the sovereign will of Cubans and our determination to build socialism. The majority feelings of the peoples of Cuba and the United States in favor of improving relations and establishing a civilized and respectful coexistence shall prevail.”

Read the full statement at the National Network on Cuba website.

Through the strengthening of the economic sanctions against Venezuela and now Cuba, Trump, John Bolton, and Marco Rubio will try to strangle their economies to accomplish regime change in both countries.

Please contact your Congressional representatives to urge them to support continuing to waive Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and to support loosening trade restrictions by allowing US farmers to expand agricultural exports to Cuba by cosponsoring S.275/HR.525.

For more information, contact:  cindydomingo@gmail.com