Latin American Solidarity Committee

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LASCwny/

See the Peace Center’s youtube channel for some recordings of previous LASC coffeehouses:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRI8Su7PBnhQcHzhZa9A3A/videos

LASC is a Western New York community-based group committed to promoting human rights and social and economic justice in Latin America.

LASC is dedicated to education and advocacy for our neighbors who are suffering from injustice and oppression. We respond to emergencies involving refugees and natural disasters, We provide material aid in the ongoing. struggle for social justice, human rights, and a life of dignity for all Latin Americans.

After a year of virtual Coffeehouse speakers done in collaboration with our friends at the Rochester Committee on Latin America, LASC is excited to resume in person events featuring coffee from a growers collective in southern Chiapas.

Our LASC Peace Coffeehouses are held on the fourth Monday each month, 7:00-9:00 pm in the Canisius Collage Science Building at Main and Jefferson near the metro.

We also hold monthly planning meetings.

LASC began in Western New York in the 1980s as part of the Pledge of Resistance, with members committed to non-violent civil disobedience if the United States invaded Nicaragua. Members had a shared concern about human rights abuses in Central America and our government’s support of repressive regimes. When the open warfare phase of those conflicts shifted to traditional oppression, the organization broadened its scope to include activities in solidarity with peace and social justice movements all over Latin America. It joined the Western New York Peace Center and became a task group of that organization.

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Here is a link to an interesting progressive site for news on Latin America:

http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

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On July 17, 2021, IFCO/Pastors for Peace invited us to sign a petition on Cuba: we signed on as a group, but individuals can also sign at https://fs24.formsite.com/IFCO7120/ihhyjlyigc/index.html

Dear President Biden:

I join IFCO/Pastors for Peace in un-apologetically standing in solidarity with our Cuban family during this difficult time. We recognize that the combined impact of the devastating pandemic and an economic crisis fueled by the 60-year old U.S. blockade gripping the country is creating tremendous hardship for our Cuban brothers and sisters.

While the mainstream media is painting a picture of severe unrest in Cuba, we know that there have been far more expressions of support by the Cuban people for their revolution and their government all across the island including Guantanamo, Cienfuegos, Las Tunas, and others. It’s not lost on us, that U.S. corporate media covered the recent protests in Cuba involving a few hundred people with the sympathy not afforded the millions of multiracial protesters against lethal police brutality in the U.S.

Immediately, President Diaz-Canel took to the streets to talk directly with the Cuban people. This is not the course of action of a defeated government. Nor is it the action of an unconcerned government. The Cuban president denounced misinformation efforts and foreign interference. He called on all Cuban citizens to take to the streets to defend the Cuban revolution.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joseph Biden, who promised to ease restrictions on Cuba when he was running for President, issued a statement saying he “stands with the Cuban people”. The truth is, if the President truly supported the Cuban people, he would end the cruel, immoral, and illegal blockade that is causing the suffering that the Cuban people are being forced to endure. Both Republicans and Democrats routinely shed crocodile tears for Cubans, even as they dig the knife deeper in their backs by strengthening the longest running military siege in modern history.

It is curious that this undermining of Cuba is happening just after the majority of the members of the UN General Assembly voted again, for the 29th year in a row, to condemn the U.S. for its economic blockade…once again isolating the U.S.

It’s hard to believe that this recent unrest is not a result of outside agitation aimed at fomenting regime change in Cuba. The countless attempts to undermine Cuba since 1959 are continuing. USAID has spent over 20 million and is currently offering grants up to a million dollars to groups who will ‘bring democracy to Cuba’.

Secretary of State Blinken has continued Trump’s ‘policy’ of accusing Cuba of “human trafficking”; claiming that Cuban doctors are subjected to “forced labor” and equated as slaves. A special immigration parole was developed to entice them to defect. This is an obvious attempt to counter the goodwill Cuba has gained by its health internationalism.

Over the past year alone, Cuba has sent 3,700 health workers, in 52 international medical brigades, to 39 countries overwhelmed by the pandemic. Cuba’s international medical brigades have treated patients and saved lives for the past 15 years in 53 countries confronting natural disasters and serious epidemics, such as COVID-19 and the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

The U.S. has discredited Cuba’s international cooperation in the field of health even though its international medical program has been recognized by dozens of governments, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and other international organizations.

In fact, access to healthcare is a human right in Cuba but a daily struggle for 29 million people in the U.S. who live without health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

At least 40 different resolutions have been passed by churches, city councils, labor unions, state legislators and school boards calling for an end to the U.S. blockade against Cuba. These resolutions represent the will of more than 30 million people in the United States.

As the National Network on Cuba has reported, these 30 million people join with these others:

Cuban Americans whose families are suffering and have initiated car and bike caravans in Miami and other cities across the U.S. and around the world.
Generous people who in a few short weeks donated more than $500,000 to send syringes to Cuba so the five COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by Cuban scientists could be administered
A group of dedicated Cuban Americans walking in a peace pilgrimage from Miami to Washington DC to call on President Biden to end the blockade.

It’s time to Let Cuba Live…and the end the economic stranglehold of the Cuban people. U.S. out of Cuba!!