Former Latin America Leaders Are Asking Joe Biden To Lift Embargo On Cuba

A group of 18 former leaders of prominent Latin American countries have come together on Wednesday to sign a letter asking President Joe Biden to lift the Cuba embargo at the wake of Hurricane Ian.

The signatories–which includes names like former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, former Colombian leaders Juan Manuel Santos and Ernesto Samper and former leaders from Bolivia to Belize, are asking Biden to also remove the country from the list of “state sponsors of terrorism” due to the country’s involvement with giving a guerilla group in Colombia refuge, according to the AP News.

“We ask you, Mr. President, to take into account this dramatic situation that thousands of Cubans are experiencing and do whatever is necessary to lift those restrictions that affect the most vulnerable,” the letter said.

The letter comes as Cuba experiences a worsening series of “economic, political and energy” crises in the island, largely exacerbated in the wake of Hurricane Ian which ravaged through the western part of the country late last month, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The hurricane had destroyed over 14,000 homes and created long-term damage to the country’s energy grid, and officials from the Cuban government are saying that recovery is much harder with the embargo in place.

The embargo that the United States has against Cuba–which started in 1962 and is entering its sixth decade–is largely unpopular with most countries across the world. The United Nations have condemned the embargo and called for its lifting for 29 consecutive years, and is expected to pass the resolution again for the 30th time this year.

The Obama administration had lifted some of the sanctions, but many were recently put back up in place by the Trump administration, who had used the refusal of the country to extradite 10 leaders of a guerilla group in Colombia to give them the title of “state sponsors of terrorism” and return the embargo.

Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper has said that the letter is not political in nature, but is instead asking the United States to aid in helping the people of Cuba recover faster from the devastating hurricane. “At this moment, what worries us is that the ones paying the cost … are Cubans who are going without food, medicine or electricity,” he remarked.