The US embargo against Cuba must end, and now is the best time to address the issue, says the Caribbean Conference of Churches.

In a December 19 letter addressed to current CARICOM chairman, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, the CCC said it supported the regional body’s call  “for an end to the economic, commercial and financial embargo of the Republic of Cuba”. That call was made in early December during the third CARICOM-Cuba Summit in Santiago de Cuba.

“We support the appeal urging the Government of the United States of America to heed the consistently overwhelming call of the member states of the United Nations to lift the unjust embargo and to cease the application of measures adopted as of 6 May 2004 to reinforce that policy”.

The CCC agreed with a comment made earlier this year by Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, that the embargo was “ethically unacceptable”. It said it was difficult to ignore the significant changes which have taken place, regionally and globally, since the imposition of the embargo 46 years ago.

“More importantly,” the statement added, “it is impossible to deny the damaging impact the measure has had on millions of people, within and outside of Cuba, and on the region as a whole”. 

Noting that it has supported calls to end the embargo over the years, the CCC said the better option would be “meaningful engagement and peaceful negotiation….to overcoming differences and influencing genuine long-lasting change.”

The Caribbean’s main ecumenical organisation ended saying current prevailing conditions “are conducive to the initiation of a new approach to this issue and we therefore endorse the call of the Heads of Government of CARICOM for a reconsideration of this measure by the incoming Government of the United States of America”. 

Full text of the statement can be read at www.ccc-caribe.org