Sign the petition here – letcubalive.com
In solidarity with the revolutionary people of Cuba who are fighting the pandemic under the stranglehold of the US-imposed blockade and sanctions – choking its supply of food, medicine and electricity, AIITEU stands with Cuba against the imperialist measures of the United States.
Since the revolution in Cuba for socialism against the military dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista who was serving the trade interests of the United States, the country of over a crore population has been subjected to cruel embargos by the US governments making their survival tougher. To this date, successive US governments have only created a scarcity of resources by toughening sanctions against Cuba and sometimes relaxing to set up their own industries there.
Right now when there is a global shortage of COVID vaccines for which demands are being raised by various organisations including our union, Cuba with its socialised healthcare has developed five vaccine candidates to target a variety of COVID-19 strains. Two of these vaccines whose last phase of the trials are complete, Soberana 02 and Abdala, have been proven to have an efficacy of 91.2% and 92.28% respectively, which ranks them amongst the most efficient of various vaccines developed across the world. Cuba is not only administering the vaccines to its own citizens for free but has also announced free jabs to tourists.
At the onset of the pandemic, 29,000 Cuban doctors had already been working in 59 countries but an additional 55 sanctions since then has resulted in a shortage of medical equipment in the island itself. Apart from this, as a result of the sanctions unemployment has also increased slightly and a food and power shortage is caused. The unrest and protests caused by these have been magnified on social media by the use of bots and also fake images in order to create a narrative against the regime and cause a change, a long term plan of the CIA as per their declassified documents. Such an army of bots that never get approved on Twitter was approved since the narrative was being set by the United States itself.
AIITEU thus calls upon the employees of the IT and ITES sector and the citizens of India to stand in solidarity with the Cuban struggle against American imperialism and to build pressure on them to follow the mandate of the UN General Assembly which has voted to lift the Cuban sanctions 29 years in a row. We condemn the undemocratic misuse of technology to make it serve cruel imperial interests.
We are also signing a solidarity campaign as our union named Let Cuba Live! It is the title of an open letter addressing US President Joe Biden, signed by 400 prominent intellectuals, academicians, activists, unions and progressive civil society organisations across the world, demanding the lifting of the blockade. You can find this letter and endorse it with your signature at letcubalive.com.