Cubanos en Reino Unido demandan fin del Bloqueo

Carta enviada a El Honorable Sir Alan Duncan, Ministro de Estado en la Oficina de Relaciones Exteriores y la Mancomunidad Británica.
voto contr el bloqueo

29 October 2018

Estimado Sir Alan Duncan MP

Una vez mas el próximo 31 de octubre del presente ano, la República de Cuba presentara ante la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas el  proyecto de resolución “Necesidad de poner fin al bloqueo económico, comercial y financiero impuesto por los Estados Unidos de América contra Cuba”.

En el año 2017, de los 193 países miembros de la ONU, sólo Estados Unidos e Israel votaron en contra. Agradecemos al gobierno Británico por votar contra bloqueo de EE.UU, que a causado innumerable daños económicos y humanos por casi 60 años, esperamos que el Reino Unido continúe apoyando la resolución presentado por Cuba.

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Kenyan doctors lose appeal to block Cuban specialists working in country ?? ??

Kenyan doctors have lost their appeal to the Employee and Labour Relations Court after attempting to block the deployment of Cuban doctors across Kenya.

kenya first batch of cuban doctors arrive in the country
Kenya first batch of cuban doctors arrive in the country

About 100 Cuban specialist doctors are in Kenya, following an agreement between the Cuban and Kenyan governments. The Kenyan doctors' union has opposed the hiring of foreign doctors, saying there are 171 local specialists without jobs.

The Kenyan government say they resorted to this move due to the doctors' protest in 2017 that lasted for over three months, which caused a massive crisis in a shortage of working doctors during that period.

Al Jazeera's Catherine Soi reports from Nairobi.

Sent! a piano to Cuba

Dear Friends

We are very happy to announce that the grand piano we donated to Cuba has finally arrived at the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldan in Havana. Massive thanks to everyone who contributed and supported this project. We are very grateful for your solidarity and hope we can collaborate in the future. With great satisfaction we are sharing these pictures and videos of the piano’s installation. Please share them with your friends. We lost contact with all the project’s donors after GoFundMe closed our crowdfunding account because of the US blockade of Cuba.

Cubanos en UK

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Estimados/as amigos/as

Estamos muy felices de anunciar que el piano de cola que donamos a Cuba finalmente ha llegado al Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán en La Habana. Muchas gracias a todos los que contribuyeron y apoyaron este proyecto. Estamos muy agradecidos por su solidaridad y esperamos poder colaborar en el futuro. Con gran satisfacción compartimos estas imágenes y videos de la instalación del piano. Por favor, compartan con tus amigos. Perdimos contacto con todos los donantes del proyecto después de que GoFundMe cerró nuestra cuenta de Crowdfunding debido al bloqueo de los EE.U.U contra Cuba.

Cubanos en UK

piano to cuba1

piano to cuba2

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piano to cuba5

piano to cuba4

piano to cuba6

piano to cuba7

piano to cuba8

piano to cuba9

piano to cuba10

piano to cuba11

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Cubans in the UK demand protection from the US blockade

cuba uk britain

Letter to the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

29 October 2017

The Rt. Hon Sir Alan Duncan MP
Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH
www.gov.uk/fco

Dear Sir Alan Duncan MP

Subject: GoFundMe and Stripe block funds that ‘benefit’ Cuba or Cubans

I am writing to draw your attention to another violation of an elementary right of Cuban residents in the UK to help our country of origin.

For the second time our community project ‘Send a piano to Cuba’ has been victim of the extra-territorial implementation of sanctions of the United States Blockade against Cuba, and companies operating in United Kingdom, such as Eventbrite, GoFundMe and Stripe have obstructed our fundraising campaign.

On 19 March 2016 our association Cubanos en UK (Cubans in the UK) wrote to the Foreign Secretary and the FCO to report the confiscation of £360 by the company Eventbrite from the sale of tickets for a fundraising classical music concert. Eventbrite argued that this was: ‘pursuant to US Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) regulations and sanctions program’.

In a letter dated 5 July 2016, Jonathan Williams, Head of the FCO’s Mexico, Cuba and Central America Team Americas Directorate replied to Cubanos en UK:

‘The UK, along with the rest of EU, has consistently voted in the UN General Assembly against the embargo. We also support the EU’s position that US sanctions should not apply extraterritorially, including here in the UK.

On 19 April, FCO Minister of State, the Rt Hon. Hugo Swire MP, raised our objections about the extraterritorial effect the US embargo on Cuba was having on trade and investment between the UK and Cuba, with US Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson. In January FCO and HM Treasury officials met the Financial Conduct Authority to discuss what we could do to support British entities, such as Cubanos en UK, experiencing difficulties conducting financial transactions with Cuba. We will continue to raise our objections with the US, and to discuss this issue with officials at HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.’

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The United States’ interest in the Cuban market

cuba bio tech

by Jesús Arboleya

HAVANA — Cuba is not China; that, we all know. What’s to explain, then, the unusual interest of U.S. companies in the Cuban market?

A U.S. producer of grain gave me an answer years ago: “It’s the only country in the world that delivers the daily bread to 11 million people.” Nevertheless, as true as this assertion is, it’s insufficient to explain what goes on. The matter is a lot more complex.

In a world where the development of commerce depended in good measure on the military domination of territories, the United States — during the first century of its existence — tried to expand within its own land borders. Attempting it beyond the seas was barred to the U.S. by the scant development of its naval force.

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We call on Philip Hammond to take action against Eventbrite

Philip Hammond and bruno rodriguez
British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond with his counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla in Havana, April 2016.

Letter sent to Philip Hammond


 

Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
King Charles Street,
London, SW1A 2AH

22 May 2016

Dear Philip Hammond

Eventbrite UK confiscates funds that ‘benefit’ Cuba or Cubans

During your official visit to Cuba in late April you confirmed the British government’s opposition to the United States blockade. Consequently, we are calling on you to intervene in this important issue directly.

On 12 March 2016, British-based Cuban pianist Eralys Fernández held a classical music benefit concert, with support from an association Cubans living in the UK, as part of a fundraising project to donate a piano to a music school in Havana. The concert title was: A piano for Cuba – Fundraising Classical Music Concert. To sell tickets for the concert we opened an account with www.eventbrite.co.uk, through which we sold 36 tickets at £10 with an extra £1.74p charged by website for each ticket. Note that while Eventbrite is a US company this website is based in the UK, so its status is not clear to its customers.

Following the concert, Eventbrite informed us that: ‘We were contacted by our bank to let us know that the pay-out we initiated on 17 March 2016 for £360 has been temporarily held’. They wanted to know of ‘any direct or indirect benefit to Cuba or a Cuban in this transaction’. This is blatant discrimination against Cuban people living in Britain, being denied access to services or products based on ethnic or national origin.

A month later, Eventbrite confirmed that the ticket money was withheld ‘pursuant to US Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) regulations and sanctions program’ – in other words the US blockade. ‘In order to have the funds released’, advised Eventbrite, ‘you will need to obtain a license from the US Treasury Department’. Why should we, as British citizens of Cuban origin, apply for a licence from a US institution? There are no sanctions against Cuba in Britain.

In addition, we have been advised by US Attorney General of Iowa, Tom Miller, that:

‘Under current US Government regulations any humanitarian projects with respect to Cuba do not require a specific license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Treasury. Pianos can be donated to Cuba under a "General License", which does not require permission. Furthermore, US laws do not apply to Britain, so there would be absolutely no prohibition for an organization in the UK or Europe donating pianos to Cuba.’

As you are aware, both British and European law regulates against the extra-territorial application of the US blockade. In 1996, the European Council adopted Regulation (EC) No. 2271/96 on ‘protecting against the effects of the extra-territorial application of legislation adopted by a third country, and actions based thereon or resulting therefrom.’ Also in 1996, the British Parliament approved Order No. 3171 relating to the Protection of Trading Interests Act on ‘The Extraterritorial US Legislation’, which enables the British government to penalise any natural or legal person complying with extraterritorial aspects of US blockade on British territory.

In December 2015, the British Treasury responded to a question by Lord Hutton, about the ‘advice…given to UK banks regarding business and personal financial transactions between UK individuals or UK-registered companies and Cuban counterparties based in Cuba.’ The answer was: ‘There are no UK, EU or UN sanctions regimes restricting transactions between the UK and Cuba. The US has economic sanctions against Cuba. EU legislation (Council Regulation [EC] No 2271/96) provides protection against and counteracts the effects of the extra-territorial application of US Cuba sanctions within the EU.’

On 15 March 2016, just prior to President Obama’s visit to Cuba, OFAC announced amendments to controls on financial transactions, including permitting US banks to process Cuba related US dollar denominated transactions where neither the sender not the beneficiary of the transactions are subject to US jurisdiction.

In a similar case very similar to our own, on 20 April 2016, a district court in Dortmund, Germany, issued an order against US payment system PayPal for applying US laws in the country. This legal precedent should be emulated in Britain. We would like to see British institutions finally take a legal and political stand against the extra-territorial application of OFAC regulations, which affects any British citizen or resident attempting to relate to Cuba via any US-linked entity, no-matter where it is based.

Eventbrite have now refused even to return the ticket money to the purchasers. In other words, that money has been stolen. Clearly this is a violation of our rights. We urge you to take action and look forward to hearing the results of that action.

Thank you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Daniesky Acosta
Director of Cubanos en UK
www.cubanos.org.uk

Cuban guitarists to release new album in London

When guitars and generations combine: Cuban guitarists Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas & Eduardo Martín launch a new album called The Bridge - BUY HERE

Release date 29.04.16

The Bridge album

When Cuban guitarist Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas first heard the music of fellow countryman Eduardo Martín he felt euphoric. Martín’s style has an expansive sense of freedom that taps into pre Columbus traditions, jazz, flamenco, pop, Afro and traditional Cuban. The guitar is his favored instrument to mirror the melodic and rhythmic intricacies of the Americas’ cultural diversity.

Before moving to England, Dickinson Cárdenas took lessons with Eduardo and their friendship, idiosyncratic empathy and mutual respect has since transformed into a vehicle that connects, incorporates and juxtaposes their different generations, their musical ideas and ultimately the spiritual journey that drives this unique record.

The album is a compilation of some of Eduardo’s most alluring works for two guitars, where rock merges with son montunos; old Yoruba chants, feel-good rumbas, funk- boleros, new age tunes and cinematic pieces sit alongside Cuban tumbaos with slap bass.

The Bridge is a wondrous display of fluidity, a continuous study of the Latin guitar, past and present.

Ahmed Dickinson Cardenas & Eduardo Martin

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Letter from a young Cuban to the US President Obama

 Obama in Cuba

March 22nd, 2016

Havana, Cuba.

Mr. President,

Almost some hours ago, I had the opportunity to listen to all your speech through our national television channels, and I should recognize, that precisely your words motivated this letter that now, right after I have reflected on what you have said, I decided to write you.

I speak to you from the respect that a young Cuban feels for a man who has been able to change the history of his country, regarding its foreign policy toward Cuba, which will be an indelible merit during all his life, and the best is that it will be a multilaterally attained merit.

It pleases me very much that this new stage is openings itself in our countries, when in Cuba we still have the historic leadership of the Revolution, because you should know, that if it were not so, this process would be much more complicated for United States, because Cubans would still be more distrustful.

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Nación y Emigración