UK Campaigners Protest Against US Blockade Of Cuba

Members of the UK's Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) marched on Saturday in central London to protest against the US blockade of Cuba, ahead of next week's UN General Assembly vote on a resolution demanding the end of the almost 60-year-old unilateral measure against the small Caribbean island nation

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th June, 2021) Members of the UK's Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) marched on Saturday in central London to protest against the US blockade of Cuba, ahead of next week's UN General Assembly vote on a resolution demanding the end of the almost 60-year-old unilateral measure against the small Caribbean island nation.

The activists were joined by Cuban residents as they walked along Thames Embankment to Trafalgar Square, carrying Cuban flags and chanting "blockading is hating, send Cuba love."

"We're here in advance of the United Nations' vote on Cuba, which is coming up on Wednesday next week, and we're calling for an end to the illegal and unjust blockade of Cuba that has been going on for nearly 60 years," CSC director Rob Miller told Sputnik.

Miller said that they also wanted to call on US President Joe Biden to roll back 240 measures and sanctions against the island that were implemented by the previous Donald Trump administration, as they are directly affecting the Cuban people.

"It's a humanitarian call at the moment, particularly at this time of humanitarian crisis," he said.

Similar marches against the US blockade of Cuba were held in Manchester and Sheffield on Saturday, as part of the monthly caravans of car and bicycle cavalcades that have been organized worldwide under the banner "Puentes de Amor" (Bridges of Love).

In the UK, CSC supporters have also raised almost 70,000 Pounds (around $97,000) in the past 12 months to supply medical aid to help Cuba fight COVID-19 at home, treat patients and deliver their vaccination program.

In May, Labour lawmaker Grahame Morris, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba, sent a letter to President Biden asking him to reverse sanctions imposed under the Trump administration and to permit humanitarian aid and family remittances to be allowed into the country in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Cuban government, the US economic, financial and trade blockade has caused the country economic losses estimated at more than $144 billion.

The non-binding resolution on the need to put an end to the unilateral measure imposed by Washington in 1962 that will be put to vote at the UN General Assembly on June 23 has been passed in 28 consecutive votes since 1991.