US blockade condemned

US blockade condemned

[The following letter by distinguished British academics appeared in the August 9 Guardian Weekly.]

We would like to draw your readers' attention to a matter which we believe deserves their concern: namely the embargo imposed by the American government on all trade with its small non-threatening socialist neighbour, Cuba. Imposed 30 years ago, the US blockade has now been relentlessly tightened by a ban which forbids any vessel that has docked in Cuban ports from putting in to any American port. This — on top of other drastic trade and travel restrictions — has meant a virtual state of siege for Cuba, resulting in shortages of every kind from petrol to medicine, machine parts to laboratory instruments. Russia no longer sends the oil formerly exchanged for sugar and though China has helped to mitigate the petrol shortage by sending thousands of bicycles, the transport situation is now lamentable.

The lack of medicines and equipment is a very serious handicap for the once excellent Cuban health service. In May, the director of a leading medical research institute in Havana sent British friends an urgent request for various strains of influenza A virus, to enable this team to carry on their important research. There is also a list of basic drugs, supplies of which are required immediately if health standards are not to drop.

The Cubans are immensely and justifiably proud of their public health record, and want to carry on the great advances made since 1959; they also want to trade freely, on an equal footing with every other nation. They view the US embargo as an act of war and cannot understand why it is tolerated by the international community.

We suggest that our own government should protest against the embargo to the American government, to the United Nations and to the European Community: Cuba is being treated most unfairly by having sanctions imposed — sanctions which deprive innocent people of the basic needs for a decent life, all in the name of freedom and democracy!

Patrick Collinson, F.B.A. (Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge)
Stephen Hawking, C.H. C.B.E. F.R.S. (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge)
Joseph Needham, C.H. F.R.S. F.B.A.
M.R. Pollock, F.R.S. M.D. (Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Edinburgh).

From GLW issue 68