Jesse Jackson says US should end embargo on Cuba
United States civil rights leader Jesse Jackson urged the
United States to end its decades-old sanctions regime on Communist Cuba,
official media said Sunday.
Jackson made the remarks at Ebenezer Baptist church in
Havana's Mariano neighborhood, the official news agency Prensa Latina reported.
The United States has had a full economic embargo clamped on
Havana since 1961.
The US sanctions have outlived the Cold War and have not
brought down the Communist Cuban government now led by President Raul Castro,
82.
The United States has said that when Cuba has multiparty
elections, it will engage with that government. But the current Cuban
government rejects any suggestion of a multiparty system.
On his third visit to Cuba, it was not immediately clear if
Jackson would meet with Cuban authorities.
But on Saturday he agreed to a request from Colombian
guerrillas to help mediate the release of a US military veteran the rebels
captured in June.
In a statement published on the website of the daily El
Tiempo, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, asked Jackson to help
expedite the release of Kevin Scott Sutay, who was captured in the
central-eastern Colombian region of Guaviare when he traveled through the area
as a tourist.
Jackson inserted himself in the matter two weeks ago during
a global forum of black leaders in Colombia, when he called on the guerrillas
to free the American.
In Havana, Jackson said he accepted the request. On a visit
to the Cuban capital where FARC rebels are negotiating with Colombian
government representatives, Jackson said he would mediate in a bid to help
Sutay, "his family and our nation."
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