Milan, Italy – As Cuba faces a nationwide blackout and energy crisis, the first members of a global aid mission with more than 20 tonnes of food, medical supplies and solar panel equipment arrived in Havana on Wednesday.Organised by an alliance of progressive groups, Nuestra America Convoy to Cuba (NACC) is being pitched as an act of humanitarian support for the island nation and a one-off protest against the United States’ total oil blockade on Cuba.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe convoy includes representatives of European left-wing political parties, trade unions and advocacy groups, who left from Milan on Tuesday.Since the US’s January operation to remove the Venezuelan president and Cuban ally, Nicolas Maduro, Washington has piled maximum economic pressure on Havana with a complete oil blockade, meaning that no foreign fuel shipment has reached the country in the last three months.The activists say this dramatic escalation, which intensifies Washington’s decades-long embargo, has been largely ignored by its traditional allies across the Atlantic.“The European Union, the Italian government, and the British government alike should oppose and put pressure on President Trump to lift this embargo on Cuba,” said Mauro Trombin, one of the delegates who is affiliated with the Italian political party Europa Verde (Green Europe).Prior to the current crisis, the EU had urged the US to end the embargo against Cuba, with most European countries voting against sanctions during last year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Advertisement Iain Wallace, a Scottish member of the Public and Commercial (PCS) trade union and NACC participant, said the oil blockade is “illegal by every measure”.“I would have expected [European] countries to … reify trade relations and cultural exchange with Cuba,” he told Al Jazeera. “Cuba needs fuel … We can take as mu …
