*Black Lives Matter is catching heat for calling on the US government to lift the trade embargo against Cuba.
The organization issued the statement via Instagram amid protests in the country against the government. BLM urged political leaders in the US to “immediately lift the economic embargo” against Cuba.
“Since 1962, the United States has forced pain and suffering on the people of Cuba by cutting off food, medicine and supplies, costing the tiny island nation an estimated $130 billion,” BLM wrote.
“Black Lives Matter condemns the U.S. federal government’s inhumane treatment of Cubans, and urges it to immediately lift the economic embargo,” the organization added.
The group went on to say that “the people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination,” adding, “United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades.”
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“Instead of international amity, respect, and goodwill, the U.S. government has only instigated suffering for the country’s 11 million people- of which 4 million are Black and Brown,” BLM wrote.
Many on social media criticized the civil rights advocacy organization for supporting Cuba’s communist government.
As reported by MSN, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) wrote: “The extortionist ring known as the Black Lives Matter organization took a break today from shaking down corporations for millions & buying themselves mansions to share their support for the Communist regime in #Cuba.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro shared BLM’s statement on Twitter and added the caption: “Reminder: BLM is a horrible communist organization and always was.”
Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, a Cuban associate professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania, said she was “deeply hurt by the #BLM statement on Cuban protests.”
Casamayor-Cisneros added, “They are blind and deft to the Cuban ppl, to their demands. With whom is their solidarity? Certainly not with the people in the streets. LISTEN to us.”
“A similar education and awareness that #BLM rightfully demands for white people is what I ask for them. I ask BLM to put aside their preconceptions abt #Cuba and listen to the Cubans on the island, their reality not the speeches #BLM wants to believe,” she added.
American Conservative Union (ACU) chair Matt Schlapp also weighed in.
“In siding w Communist overseers in Cuba BLM Inc has laid bare to the world that it was never about race so much as destroying America and pushing Marxism,” Schlapp wrote.
“Siding w Castroism over oppressed Afro Cubans is a tipping point. But maybe BLM got a beachfront house out of the deal.”
