NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES MOBILIZATION TO OPPOSE U.S. INTERVENTION IN CUBA

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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD

132 Nassau Street, Ste. 922

New York, NY 10038

Tel:  212.679.5100

www.nlg.org

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,    August 2, 2006

 

Contact:           Michael Avery, President, 617-335-5023

Heidi Boghosian, Exec. Dir., 212-679-5100, ext.11;

 

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES MOBILIZATION

TO OPPOSE U.S. INTERVENTION IN CUBA

 

The National Lawyers Guild called today for all Americans who support the rule of law to mobilize to oppose any intervention by the United States in the internal affairs of the government of Cuba.  The Guild declared that the plans that the Bush government has made plans to spend $80 million dollars in a "post-Castro transition" violate international law and the sovereignty of a foreign country. 

NLG President Michael Avery stated, "The country of Cuba has every right to choose its own government and the United States has absolutely no right to interfere with that choice.  If Cuba chooses to continue its socialist experiment it has an absolute right to do so.  Such a government poses no security threat to the United States and we have no legitimate basis to attempt to subvert it.  In the event that Fidel Castro does not survive his current illness, it is for the people of Cuba to choose his successor, not the government of the United States."

The National Lawyers Guild called for the United States to normalize its relationship with Cuba by ending the boycott against trade and travel. NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian stated, "We should be enjoying peaceful trade with, and travel to a Cuba that determines its own future, rather than preparing an intervention in that country's affairs that will lead to bloodshed in Cuba and destabilization in all of Latin America." 

Founded in 1937 as the first racially integrated national bar association, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States, with more than 200 chapters. Over 5,000 volunteer lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers work together "in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests," as members of the National Lawyers Guild.

 

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