Link to Herald Article
I'm curious to to hear everyone's opinion on where the line should be drawn as to who can and cannot travel to Cuba.
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5 comments:
It's an intelligent decision. The idea was that the state should add additional burdens beyond what the federal government has already imposed to restrict Cuban-Americans from visiting their families who continue to reside on the island.
How absurd and ridiculous it is for anyone in the United States of America to talk about bringing "freedom" to Cuba when people in the United States don't have the freedom to travel to Cuba.
All the more so now after a massive hurricane when people need friends and family to help them in rebuilding after Hurricane Gustav.
It is neither absurd nor ridiculous to draw a distinction between travel to Cuba by Cuban-Americans visiting immediate family on the island and travel for academic purposes (assuming of course that the travel is legitimately for these purposes) and travel by American tourists (including Cuban-Americans). The latter will serve no purpose other than to further line the coffers of a regime where a privileged few live handsomely while the Cuban people continue to suffer and lack basic political freedoms. Although I generally support academic travel and travel for family purposes, it is clear that it is open to abuse by many and therefore, should be appropriately regulated. I, for one, support a restriction on the use of taxpayer funds to finance academic trips to Cuba given that there is an economic embargo in place.
In response to Mr. Lippmann's comment, Americans do travel to Cuba through the countless loopholes already in existence. Perhaps, before attacking the embargo as a failed policy,we should analyze the volume of trade and travel that actually goes on between the US and Cuba. Is it the embargo itself that has failed or is it lack of enforcement that has led to its failure?
As for the people of Cuba and Hurricane Gustav, we should not forget that it is the Government of Cuba that has primary responsibility for providing the supplies and other resources needed by its people to rebuild after such a catastrophe---not the U.S. or Cuban-Americans. Perhaps the Castro brothers and their inner circle should move some of the cash from their offshore accounts back to the island for this purpose...
Now that Hurricane Gustav has done so much damage, how about opening up travel and remittance limits so Cuban-Americans can help their friends and families who continue to live on the island?
The following was sent out today by the US Interests Section in Havana:
Cuba dissidents ask Bush to suspend embargo for storm relief
Havana, Sep 4 (EFE).- The dissident group Agenda para la Transicion asked U.S. President George W. Bush to suspend Washington's economic embargo against Cuba "at least for the period of two months" to help those people affected by Hurricane Gustav, which slammed the communist-ruled island last weekend.
In a letter released Thursday in Havana, Agenda leaders Martha Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca confirmed that the basic objective of the request was to "give a little respite to those who are suffering."
"Excellency, you will agree with us that any family member abroad would like to be able to have physical contact with those who are going through this difficult situation," they said in the letter to Bush.
The group also sent another letter to Cuban President Raul Castro in which they informed him of the message they sent to Bush and asked him to accept the help of the United States and the countries of the European Union or allow "non-governmental organizations ... to contribute to alleviate the difficult situation" after the passage of Gustav.
They said that "the intransigence of the Cuban government with respect to humanitarian assistance with the passage of any atmospheric phenomenon across the island has deprived the people of the benefit of the said aid" and they hailed the acceptance of humanitarian assistance provided by Russia and which on Thursday began arriving in Havana.
Gustav made landfall last Saturday in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio as a Category 4 hurricane packing sustained winds of almost 230 kph (145 mph).
Cuban authorities reported no fatalities from Gustav and only 20 people injured, none of them seriously. But the storm damaged more than 120,000 homes in Pinar del Rio, knocked out the region's power grid and telecommunications network and ravaged farms.
"At this time the residents of that affected zone of the country need for hates and resentments to be set aside as well as for the existing situation to be depoliticized to convert it into what it really is: a humanitarian problem for all Cubans," Roque and Roca said in their letter to Bush.
Meanwhile, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Efe the Bush administration advised Havana on Wednesday that the United States was prepared to aid storm victims on condition that the assistance was channeled through non-governmental organizations rather than the Cuban government.
"Also, we're offering to send an evaluation team to Cuba to help determine the level of the humanitarian needs," Sara Mangiaracina said Thursday in Washington.
Another official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the government was going "to work through appopriate non-governmental organizations to deliver aid provisions in the most rapid and most direct way possible."
Dan Restrepo, who advises Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Latin America, told Efe Thursday that the Illinois senator supports a proposal pushed by a sector of the Cuban-American community to lift for a minimum of 90 days the 2004 restrictions governing the sending of remittances and relatives' trips to the island.
"At no time has Obama said that the embargo should be lifted at this point, but he feels that the restrictions in effect limit the capacity of Cuban-Americans to help their relatives on the island," Restrepo said.
"The restrictions should be lifted to allow the sending of humanitarian packages, because very little aid can be sent now," he said, after noting that the Cuban people were confronting the challenge of "recovering from the hurricane under a failed regime."
Currently, the restrictions only allow Cuban family members abroad to send $300 to their relatives on the island every three months and to pay one family visit to Cuba every three years, he said. EFE jlp-mp/bp
FLORIDA TODAY
EDITORIAL
September 9, 2008
Sept. 9
(Melbourne) Florida Today, on how the devastation in Cuba caused by hurricanes Gustav and Ike should lead to open ties with the island:
Hurricane Ike is continuing its rampage across Cuba, bringing more suffering and misery to the island's 11 million impoverished residents.
What makes the heartbreaking tragedy worse is it comes just two weeks after Hurricane Gustav tore through Cuba, damaging 100,000 homes and causing billions in losses in a country where the average salary is only $20 a month.
Gustav's devastation drew a call from the Cuban government for the U.S. to finally end its half-century economic embargo to help speed relief a call likely to turn into a plea following Ike's assault.
But the Bush administration, like every Republican and Democratic administration dating to President Dwight Eisenhower, is saying no.
That's a travesty, and another example of why the U.S. should normalize relations with the communist state and end the isolation.
The ban is as much a catastrophe as the rule of Fidel Castro and now his brother, Raul, because it continues to hurt ordinary Cubans. But it stays in place because of the political power of Miami's Cuban community.
No president has had the courage to put U.S. and humanitarian interests ahead of the exile community's hatred of Castro, as Bush is proving again.
The policy's insanity is evident considering that communist-ruled China is America's top trading partner and Bush last month attended the opening of the Olympics in Beijing.
The economic ties have significantly boosted the standard of living of countless Chinese and turned China into a modern nation that, at least economically, is capitalist.
Meanwhile, 90 miles from Florida, Cuba continues to be treated like a pariah, even though opening trade would bring the cleansing breeze of free markets and ideas to the island.
It would also bring major economic benefits to the U.S., including Florida and the Space Coast.
Fortunately, the political problems are not stopping hurricane experts in both countries from working together on Gustav, Ike and other storms.
Scientists at the National Hurricane Center in Miami and their counterparts in Havana have a superb, decades-long relationship and share vast amounts of information, including the Hurricane Center having access to all weather radars in Cuba.
Policy makers in Washington can learn something from those hurricane trackers: Namely, that close U.S.-Cuban ties makes all the sense in the world, while continuing the embargo does not.
Bishops Ask U.S. to Permit Remittances and Travel to Cuba Given Hurricane Crisis
Last update: 5:11 p.m. EDT Sept. 10, 2008
WASHINGTON, Sept 10, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The U.S. bishops asked the U.S. government to lift its ban on remittances and travel to Cuba, even temporarily, in light of the crisis caused by recent hurricanes.
The request was made in a September 10 letter from Cardinal Francis George, OMI, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to President George Bush. The letter follows.
Dear Mr. President:
In light of the devastation and humanitarian disaster caused by recent hurricanes in Cuba and the efforts of extended families, friends and organizations to reach those in need, I urge you to suspend -- even temporarily -- Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by American citizens and assistance by not-for-profit organizations.
At times of crisis, there are simple and basic acts of charity on which people rely. Churches, as well as governments, urge people to reach out and respond with generosity to those in desperate need. The United States has a tradition of such assistance for which it can be rightly proud. At this time, all should be done to facilitate humanitarian assistance, be it through institutions like Catholic Relief Services, or through the generosity of individuals moved by the misfortune of their brothers and sisters. Removing restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba are a necessary step which I urge you to take without delay.
USCCB has long-opposed U.S. sanctions on Cuba because of their failure to foster greater freedom, democracy and respect for life. In our judgment, restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba, especially by family members, are onerous and counterproductive. Under current circumstances, they are particularly unjustifiable and need to be relaxed.
In prayerful support for your efforts to assist all those affected by these ongoing weather emergencies, I remain.
Sincerely,
Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago
President
SOURCE U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved End of Story
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