About 300 faith-based organizations, churches, believers and activists from 23 nations signed a petition asking US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Among the signatories of the petition are the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Japanese nun Filo Hirota, members of the World Council of Churches, the Communion of Reformed Churches of Cuba, and Chris Ferguson, reverend of the Reformed University and pastor of the United Church of Canada.
The International Christian Service in Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, and the Rev. Whit Hutchison of the United States Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church of Colombia, also signed the petition.
“We want to make a prophetic request to the Government of the United States, on the occasion of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Colombia on Monday, October 3, to remove Cuba from the list of ‘state sponsors of terrorists,’” the signatories stated in a statement.
They also urge the Biden Administration to change its perspective, and life before aggression against the peoples.
“Cuba has already been a historical victim of blockades and inhuman sanctions that affect the lives of its inhabitants, many of them sisters and brothers in faith, particularly at times like the current one where Hurricane Ian has left victims in Cuba, as well as in Florida, with the difference that their resources are scarcer for the attention of the victims”, they declared.
The believers express their adherence to the recent call of the World Council of Churches that “Cuba be removed from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and that the churches be accompanied as prophetic voices of peace, hope, cooperation and mutual respect”.
Likewise, they support the call of Pope Francis in his speech at the meeting of Popular Movements in October 2021: “I want to ask the powerful countries in the name of God to cease aggression, blockades, unilateral sanctions against any country anywhere in the world. Earth. No to neo-colonialism”.
They also welcome in the petition the acknowledgment of gratitude that the government of Gustavo Petro made to Cuba on August 11 for hosting the peace processes between the insurgencies and the Colombian State for more than 40 years, and its rejection of being classified as “sponsor of terrorism”.
(With information from Prensa Latina)