By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
President Joe Biden, on Monday, July 12, issued a clarion call for freedom in Cuba.
“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,” President Biden asserted in a statement issued by the White House.
“The Cuban people are bravely asserting fundamental and universal rights. Those rights, including the right to peaceful protest and the right to freely determine their own future, must be respected.
“The United States calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves,” President Biden concluded.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed American trade sanctions for creating “economic misery” in Cuba.
“The order to combat has been given. Revolutionaries need to be on the streets,” the island nation’s president declared.
The tens of thousands of residents in Cuba protested the lack of food, medicine, and supplies in the country, much of it attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and sanctions placed on the nation by the United States.
The protestors chanted “freedom,” and Reuters News Service reported that most called on President Díaz-Canel to step down.
