U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee raised her voice on Monday to demand Joe Biden’s administration to lift sanctions against Cuba in the face of a national energy emergency and the impact of Hurricane Oscar in the eastern part of the island.
“Millions of people in Cuba are without electricity because of Hurricane Oscar. And it is no secret that U.S. policy has directly contributed to Cuba’s energy problems,” Lee said in his account on the X network in allusion to the ravages of the embargo in the electricity sector, among many others.
On Thursday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed Washington for the collapse of the national power grid due to the financial and fuel persecution to which it subjects the island within the broad spectrum of sanctions implied by the embargo in force since the early 1960s.
“All this happens because of the currency; currency that we do not have because of the financial persecution and fuel that we do not have because of the energy persecution, and it is the blockade, it is the intensified blockade of these times,” the president said.
The U.S. said that the situation is due to the government’s mishandling and mismanagement during decades of planned economy.
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Likewise, the representative for California’s 12th congressional district added in her message that “the United States is a world leader in providing humanitarian aid and now is the time to help the Cuban people”.
In August, Lee, who became a member of the lower house of Congress in 1998, called the U.S. embargo on Cuba “obsolete” and “harmful”.
The legislator, who has traveled dozens of times to the island since 1970, reiterated that she will work to achieve a more intelligent and humane policy towards the Caribbean country, reported Prensa Latina.
Born in 1946 in Tuff, Texas, Lee recalled that she has made efforts to change U.S. policy towards Cuba for four decades, and that she is committed to lifting the “failed embargo”.
“The United States must support the efforts of the Cuban people to build a peaceful and prosperous society that can meet the hopes and needs of the Cuban people. And we see the Cuban people organizing to achieve that,” the Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman (2009-2011) stressed in a statement.
The current vice chairwoman and member of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, opined that the “U.S. policy continues to be based on the idea that punishing Cubans is somehow helping them.”
