Call to New Zealand artists, intellectuals and cultural workers 

WE MUST STAND WITH OUR CUBAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS

The recent hurricanes have left Cuba devastated e.g. half a million houses have been damaged, water tanks destroyed, power and communication infrastructure taken out, crops,  poultry farms and forests ravaged, schools and health centres destroyed or damaged, ports crippled... It will take billions of dollars for Cuba to recover.

Of course Cuba doesn't feature in the news.

Nor are we told that the recovery programme is made hugely more expensive and problematic because of the hypocritical US economic blockade of the country. For some reason, Cuban's 'human rights failings' (which includes presumably their ability to cope with these hurricanes with less loss of life than any of the other countries afflicted, including the US) means that this small but significant country,  must be punished further, now that they have been punished so severely by the politically indifferent hurricanes.

And to top it all in terms of hypocrisy, they are forced to host the most extraordinary abuse of human rights currently in existence: Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre.

Cuban artists and intellectuals have put out a request to their international colleagues to call on the US to lift the economic blockade, so that building materials etc can be bought from the US, rather than be shipped form Europe or Canada. It seems to me, a reasonable request.

You can sign on to our Cuban bothers and sisters petition here

BUT WE CAN DO MORE - ASSERT OUR SOLIDARITY

The petition we are sponsoring is here

Let us, as a national grouping, assert solidarity.

 This petition was initiated by:

Jean Betts, Russell Campbell, Mark Derby, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Wanjiku Kiarie, Paul Maunder, Dean Parker, Rolando Olmedo, Martyn Sanderson and the Equuslive Collective.

The petition reads:

Dear Prime Minister,

As artists and intellectuals we have been pleased to add our names to the international petition organised by our Cuban colleagues, in which they call for the US to lift the economic blockade of their country, so that the huge task of restoring their infrastructure can take place without the additional costs caused by that rather senseless and vindictive embargo.

We would go further, as a national grouping, and call on the NZ Government:

(i)  to actively urge the US to lift the blockade,

(ii) to grant Cuba immediate aid,

(iii) and to be willing to support NGO agencies in the usual manner, if any wish to activate an aid programme with Cuba.