'End All Sanctions Against Cuba!' - Join Picket Outside United States Consulate on Saturday

The Auckland Cuba Friendship Society invites members of the public to join them in calling for the United States government to lift all its sanctions against Cuba.

There will be a protest picket on Saturday, April 17 outside the United States Consulate, 23 Customs Street East, from 11am to 12 noon.

“In the last four years, the US government has imposed more than 240 new measures against Cuba, which have had a devastating economic impact. We are calling on the Biden administration to withdraw all the crippling and scandalous sanctions against this small nation,” said Fiona Taler, for the Cuba Friendship Society. “This includes removing Cuba from its list of terrorist states.”

The Cuban people and their government are setting an example of how to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing healthcare to those who need it both within Cuba and internationally. The economic war being waged against them extends to denying access to medicines, medical equipment, and PPE.

In 1959, millions of Cubans, led by Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement, overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and carried out a socialist revolution. In 1962 the United States government imposed an economic, financial and commercial embargo of Cuba aimed at starving the Cuban people back into submission. Twelve successive US administrations have continued this policy.

The picket will also oppose the New Zealand government’s complicity in enforcing the embargo, particularly in banking, postal, and shipping services.

The date of the protest coincides with celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón) defeat. This was an attempted invasion of Cuba by a US-backed mercenary force in April 1961, aiming to overthrow the government and the gains of the revolution.

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