Everything has been tried in the fight against the blockade, except for a mass movement using new technologies and including the everyday US-American, the US voter whose decisions and loyalty matter to senators and congressmen.
So claims Cuban American activist Manuel Tejeda, editor-in-chief of the Diario Latinoamericano (Latin American Journal) and the page administrator for NoBloqueoCuba.com, an initiative that has an increasing number of supporters.
We are talking about the No Embargo Cuba Movement (No Embargo Nemo in English) that advocates different approaches from the internet in order to unite members, manage a legal status and sensitise the US voter, the co-founder of the project said today.
In statements to the press, he explained that groups with less than six figures in number of activists go unnoticed in popular, academic and politic imagination in the North American country.
Hence why it was important that the group reached 100,000 members in 100 days, he explained.
According to Tejada, Nemo seeks to attract media attention.
“No Facebook group has reached 100,000 members in 100 days without spending a penny in advertising, with more than five million responses and almost 700,000 comments. This demonstrates momentum and activity”, he emphasised.
Moreover, Tejeda highlighted that, only 45 days after its launch, NoEmbargoCuba.com (NoBloqueoCuba.com in Spanish) is listed in the Alexa ranking among the 100,000 most popular websites in the United States.
“It’s not difficult to understand that we plan to use those numbers and figures to intensify our work in educating the US voter and it serves as cover letter for the contacts we want to establish in Washington”, he guaranteed.
The project seeks to highlight the significant social impact this struggle has before the vote at the United Nations on 23 June on the resolution presented by Cuba regarding the need to end the blockade.
They also bet on growing even more until September, when President Joe Biden must sign, or not, the Trading with the Enemy Act, one of the laws that weighs the most on the continuation of the siege against the island.
Tejeda pointed out that they need the support of millions [of people], “however Rome wasn’t built in a day and in order for it to be a completely independent, people-to-people movement that emerged without resources and funding from anyone, we are happy with what has been achieved”.
Now begins the structuring stage of the movement, of giving it a legal identity, raising funds to open the office in Washington and beginning our work there.
“We won’t stop until the blockade is lifted”, he said.
According to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the fence represents the biggest obstacle against national development and a violation of human rights.
The damage accumulated over six decades totalled $144,413,000 and between April 2019 and March 2020, this caused losses of more than $5 billion, a record figure for one year”. (PL)
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