World leaders are expressing their support for the Cuban people after Sunday\u2019s demonstrations across the island. <\/P>
The foreign minister for the European Union, Josep Borrell, urged the Cuban government \u201cto listen to these protests of discontent\u201d during a press conference Monday in Brussels after meeting with EU foreign ministers. <\/P>
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, called Sunday\u2019s protests \u201ca historic day for Cuba\u201d while expressing concern over reports of \u201cinternet blackouts, arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force \u2014 including police firing on demonstrators\u201d as well as \u201ca long list of missing persons.\u201d <\/P>
Guevara-Rosas called on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his government to \u201caddress the social demands of its citizens, given the economic crisis, the shortages of food and medicine, the collapse of the health system \u2014 which is not responding to the current COVID-19 crisis \u2014 and the accumulation of historical demands for respect of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.\u201d<\/P>
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Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador told reporters in Mexico City Monday that a \u201ctruly humanitarian gesture\u201d would be for the United States to lift the five-decade economic embargo of Cuba. <\/P>
\u201cNo country in the world should be fenced in, blockaded,\u201d he said. <\/P>
In the United States, the mayor of Miami, Florida, called on the Biden administration to lead an international effort to help Cubans, who are suffering under the island\u2019s long-serving communist government, he said. <\/P>
\u201cThe government of Cuba is an illegitimate government,\u201d Mayor Francis Suarez told reporters Monday. \u201cAnd the people of Cuba are starving. They\u2019re in need of medicine. They\u2019re in need of international help. And frankly, unless the Cuban military or the Cuban police turns on the Cuban government, the Cuban people will continue to be repressed without any hope of freedom in the future.\u201d <\/P>
Miami is home to a large community of Cuban exiles who fled their homeland after Fidel Castro seized power in the 1959 revolution. <\/P>
Another Florida political figure, Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, praised the demonstrations, characterizing the events as \u201chistoric, peaceful and organic protests that arose throughout Havana and other provinces in Cuba\u201d in a letter to President Joe Biden. Senator Rubio urged the president to take a number of steps to help the Cuban people, including identifying those involved in \u201cacts of violent repression inside Cuba\u201d and banning them from entering the United States. <\/P>
Democratic U.S Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the chamber\u2019s Foreign Relations Committee, called for the \u201cviolence and repression\u201d against the Cuban people to end. <\/P>
\u201cThe world\u2019s eyes are on Cuba tonight and the dictatorship must understand we will not tolerate the use of brute force to silence the aspirations of the Cuban people,\u201d he said in a statement issued late Sunday. <\/P>
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Press and Reuters. <\/P>
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Source: Voice of America<\/P>
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