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Barack Obama
President of the USA
Receive our fraternal greeting of Peace and Goodwill.
We hope that your work as President of the great country that you represent can help to affirm paths of peace and unity among all peoples. Humanity needs to generate change in order to meet the challenges of our day, end the wars, conflicts, and famine, and preserve nature.
Once again I am writing to you to ask that your government decide, in a spirit of true openness, to free the three Cubans of the Group of 5 who are still detained in the US, and to lift the blockade that the people of Cuba have supported for over 50 years.
Year after year, the UN General Assembly demands the lifting of the blockade and unfortunately, it is not heard by your government.
For the life of peoples, it is necessary to end injustice, recognize that might does not make for reason, and accept that the greatest challenge of our time is to work to build a more just and fraternal world where rights and equality for all reign in the ways of peace.
You are surely aware that the injustice imposed on Cuba by the blockade and the situation of the Cubans held prisoner in your country for 16 years, affects the entire continent.
We do not ignore the pressures you face nor the interests of sectors – veritable merchants of death – that seek to maintain these situations of injustice. The choice is yours to confront them. We only ask that you have the courage to take decisions that are just and fair: that you hear the cry of people everywhere who demand freedom for the Cuban prisoners and the lifting of the blockade against Cuba.
You have to choose. It has been said that there are only two parties in the world and you have to opt between them. One is the party of fear, the other the party of hope.
The former is a party of slaves who act under fear of punishment. You well know that a person who is enslaved rather than decide, only obeys.
The latter is the party of free men and women who decide to transform reality knowing that another world is possible; people who face reality and assume their responsibility despite the pressures.
Dear Barack, to which party do you belong?
We await your answer in words and deeds. We are hopeful that you will know how to opt for Truth and Justice.
My fraternal greeting of Peace and Goodwill to you and the people of the USA.
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
(Translation from original in Spanish.)
