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Washington – President Biden said on Monday that the United States “stands firmly” with the Cuban people and “their clear call for freedom” after thousands of Cubans mounted the biggest events against the Communist government for decades.
“The Cuban people courageously claim fundamental and universal rights. These rights, including the right to demonstrate peacefully and the right to freely determine their own future, must be respected,” Biden said in a statement. “The United States calls on the Cuban regime to listen to its people and meet their needs at this vital time rather than enrich themselves.
The President said the United States stands “with the Cuban people and their clear call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and the decades of repression and economic suffering to which it has been subjected. by the authoritarian regime of Cuba “.
In a White House meeting with state and local leaders to discuss gun violence later in the afternoon, Biden said Cuba had not seen anything like it for a long, long time. if ever.
“The United States stands firmly on the side of the Cuban people as they assert their universal rights. And we call on the Cuban government to refrain from all violence in its attempt to silence the voice of the Cuban people, ”he said.
Protests against the Cuban government erupted on Sunday as thousands took to the streets of Havana and across the island amid the country’s current economic crisis and as it battles a wave of cases coronavirus and hospitalizations.
In addition to suffering the impacts of a decades-old trade embargo imposed by the United States, punishments promulgated by former President Donald Trump just before he left office remain in place.
In a televised address Monday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the United States of pursuing a “policy of economic suffocation to provoke social unrest in the country,” according to the AFP news agency. Díaz-Canel, who took office three years ago, blamed the country’s economic crisis on U.S. trade restrictions and sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
Sunday, Julie Chung, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, support offered for the dozens of protesters, tweeting “Peaceful protests on the rise in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern over increasing COVID cases / deaths and drug shortages. We welcome the many efforts of the Cuban people to mobilize donations to help neighbors in need. “
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also Express support for “freedom of expression and assembly across Cuba”. The United States, he continued, “would strongly condemn any violence or any targeting of peaceful protesters who are exercising their universal rights.”
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