A follow-up to Local Campaigns 2016-19, Update 2020, 2021, and 2022
Resolutions Tool Kit Available Here
May 16, 2023. Breaking News! Washington DC City Council Passes Resolution to End the Blockade
From Resumen-English.org: “May 16, 2023, Breaking News! The Washington DC City Council has just passed a resolution that adds its voice to the growing chorus of more than 80 city and state legislatures calling on President Biden and Congress to end the blockade on Cuba and remove the country from the State Sponsor of terrorism list.” The official record on “Sense of the Council on the Restoration of Cuban American Relations Resolution of 2023,” at lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/PR25-0113, includes the full resolution here.
Bloomington, Indiana and Enthusiasm Mark the Opening of 2023 Campaigns
On Wednesday, January 18, Bloomington, Indiana, became the first municipality in the new year to pass a Cuba resolution with its City Council calling for an end to the Embargo and including a condemnation of the U.S. “designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism [SSOT] creating devastating results for Cubans.” (Common Council meeting packet, pp. 40ff; vote in minutes)
The city of 80,000, 50 some miles south of Indianapolis, has a Cuba activist profile, perhaps in part as the home of Indiana’s flagship campus, certainly for its sister city relationship with Santa Clara, Cuba, created in 1998 through a project known as “CUBAmistad” whose web site published the draft resolution which The Indiana Daily Student reported “unanimously passed,” noting that CUBAmistad was established in 1998 and “continues to advocate for an end to the embargo on Cuba and normalization of U.S.- Cuban relations.”
As posted on the National Network on Cuba members’ list, Cheryl LaBash’s report on the Resolutions support group’s first meeting of the year reflects an enthusiasm for all the activity going on: “There was an inspiring Resolutions Committee meeting last night!” Highlighting Bloomington and upcoming resolutions calling for Cuba to be removed from the SSOT list by the Sacramento Labor Council and Minneapolis City Council,* she goes on:
Work was also reported from New York City where a general resolution against the blockade is gathering co-sponsors — up to 20 at last report; from Washington DC where two meetings have been held to introduce a general + SSOT resolution following work done in 2019 that was cut short by the pandemic; from Los Angeles [where] activists are getting resolutions passed by the Neighborhood Councils and discussing a public postering/outreach campaign to get Cuba off the SSOT.
And there is more underway in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and [calling out to other members] where you are? Let us know so we can be stronger together. Juntar y Vencer!
Resolution campaigns have widened to include a wide range of organizations; there is follow-up support not only for more resolutions but additional possible activities such as recruiting youth and developing local and special group Cuba trips. The upcoming US-CubaNormalization Conference in NYC in March features a special session on developing local resolutions and working with elected officials and, in a development holding unusual promise, four localities, Portland, the SF Bay area, Los Angeles and Boston, are pulling together collaborative programs integrating streaming portions with local development, planning, and organizing sessions.
We will continue to provide updates to the committee’s current list of bodies that have passed resolutions (from last November 22) as they become available (the February 1st list is here), along with links to the resolutions themselves as has been provided since our coverage begin with the movement in 2016, plus related local, labor and other organizational resolution news.
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* A letter dated January 2023 signed by all 13 members of the Minneapolis City Council to Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, “recalling its unanimous resolution of 2021, urges President Biden…to remove Cuba from the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism.” The recollection was to the point, as the 2021 resolution ended with a call to reverse the “recent” designation of Cuba as such.
july26.org 