US Rep. Gwen Moore will speak on the need to change US policy towards Cuba this Sunday, June 20, 1pm at the Mitchell Park Domes parking lot. This is part of a send off rally for a car and bike caravan calling on President Biden to reverse over 240 restrictions on the peoples of Cuba and the US related to Cuba, imposed by President Trump.

This national and international caravan movement started in Miami, and highlights the United Nations General Assembly vote on June 23 calling for an end to the decades-long US financial and trade embargo against Cuba.  How President Biden will have the US vote on this resolution is still unknown.

Rep. Moore recently met with the Deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations, and expressed the views of her district in favor of normalized relations with Cuba, as confirmed by the resolutions which were overwhelmingly adopted by the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and the Board of Milwaukee School Directors. She earlier co-led a letter signed by 80 members of the US House of Representatives calling on President Biden to work towards normalized relations with Cuba, and to reverse the harsh restrictions added by the last administration. 

Dr. Raul Galvan, a prominent member of Milwaukee’s Cuban-American community noted: “On the 23rd of June the United Nations will once again discuss a resolution to put an end to the United States Embargo on Cuba.  For 28 years, members of the United Nations have overwhelmingly supported the elimination of the Embargo, with the United States voting against it. I hope that President Biden will act to support the elimination of the Embargo once and for all.”  

Art Heitzer of the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba, asked: “Will President Biden join with the leaders of every single nation he has just met with – including ALL of our NATO allies — in supporting this resolution next week?” 

Heitzer called on President Biden to at least follow the example of the Obama-Biden administration, which abstained on Cuba’s similar resolution in 2016 that passed, 191-0.  He also noted the recent report from Oxfam describing the serious shortage of food in Cuba today, as also cited in an editorial in the Miami Herald, “Migrants are dying at sea off Florida. Why is Biden’s Cuba policy still on the back burner?” “This continued US policy to punish the people of Cuba threatens a new immigration crisis for the US and is killing Cuban people right now,” Heitzer emphasized.
 

At the last caravan on May 30, Milwaukee Veterans for Peace (VFP) and Voces de la Frontera, the state’s largest immigrants rights group, joined in calling for normal relations between the US and Cuba and to end the US economic blockade. In Milwaukee, caravan demands also include justice for all Latino immigrants and their families.

The June 20 FB event is at: https://www.facebook.com/events/345353100339012).