The EFF Welcomes the release of the Cuban five and calls for end of trade embargo on Cuba

19 December 2014

The Economic Freedom Fighters welcomes the USA government's decision to release the remaining three of the Cuban Five who had been illegally held in US prisons since 1998. The USA is finally coming to accept that it cannot go on living as if Cuba does not exist and it expressed its intention to "normalise" diplomatic ties with Cuba.

The EFF held is First National Peoples Assembly, which ended on the 16 December 2014 and called on the release of the Cuban Five, including the ending of the illegal trade embargo. The EFF has also made this call inside the parliament of South Africa. Thus the greatest demonstration of USA's "normalisation" of diplomatic ties with Cuba is yet to be seen and can only so with the completed end of the trade embargo.

The USA must fully wake up from the illusion that a country of so great a people and that has demonstrated so much humanity to the whole world is "state sponsor of terrorism". If Cuba has sponsored anything it is love for humanity, often with nothing in return.

With the little resources at its disposal, Cuba has been the leading country in the world to pledge solidarity with liberation movements and take practical action to liberate many parts of the world. The decisive actions of Cuban soldiers led to the decolonisation of Namibia and one of the critical factors why the apartheid government negotiated with the liberation movement for a political transition.

Just recently, Cuba sent medical doctors to fight Ebola in east Africa in a manner that surpasses many other countries better resources than Cuba.

The EFF, whose birth date is the 26 July 2013, takes inspiration from the July 26 Movement which is responsible for the socialist revolution of the Cuban people. We look to Cuba as a model for what internationalism should entail.

Finally, the USA must not use this opportunity to infiltrate Cuba and its people with capitalist counter revolution, instead it should allow the people of Cuba to decide their own fate. The USA must also not use this opportunity to demand the re-imprisonment of the revolutionary Black Power Movement leader Assata Shakur who has been granted asylum by the Cuban people.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, December 19 2014

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