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Latest update: 15/01/2011
- Cuba - travel - USA
US eases restrictions on travel, remittances from Cuba
US President Barack Obama on Friday eased the rules on granting visas, remittances and travel to the United States by Cuban citizens in a bid to "help promote their independence from Cuban authorities", the White House said in a statement.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - President Barack Obama on Friday eased restrictions on visas, remittances and travel under the US embargo on Cuba, in a bid to weaken the long grip on power of the communist Havana government.
The move will expand religious and educational travel between the United States and Cuba, allow any airport to offer charter flights to the country and restore cultural initiatives suspended by the previous Bush administration.
"These measures will increase people-to-people contact, support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities," the White House said in a statement.
"The president believes these actions, combined with the continuation of the embargo, are important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens.
"These steps build upon the president’s April 2009 actions to help reunite divided Cuban families; to facilitate greater telecommunications with the Cuban people; and to increase humanitarian flows to Cuba."
Obama's move means that religious organizations will be able to sponsor travel to Cuba under license and will allow higher educational institutions to send students to Cuba and restore licenses of educational exchanges.
Staff and students will also be allowed to attend conferences, seminars and workshops in Cuba and there will be more scope for journalists to travel to Cuba, according to the White House.
In another move, Obama will restore a license allowing any American to send remittances of up to 500 dollars per quarter to people in Cuba are not part of their families, as long as they are not senior Cuban government or Communist Party officials.
Obama also ordered that all US international airports will be able to provide charters to and from Cuba.
Currently, only New York, Miami and Los Angeles airports have that privilege.
The US embargo on Cuba was partially imposed in 1960, just after Fidel Castro staged his revolution, became law in 1962 and is now the biggest remaining hangover from the Cold War. The United States bans trade with and most travel to Cuba.
But Obama has the power, under legislation passed in 2000, to regulate 12 categories of authorized travel to Cuba.
He used his presidential authority in 2009 to reverse the Bush administration's tightened restrictions on immediate family travel and allowed Cuban Americans to send remittances to relatives.
But he cannot lift the embargo on Cuba unless the move is authorized by Congress, an unlikely prospect.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, born in Miami to Cuba American parents who fled Castro's revolution, condemned the decision to ease restrictions.
"I strongly oppose any new changes that weaken US policy towards Cuba. I was opposed to the changes that have already been made by this administration and I oppose these new changes," Rubio said.
"It is unthinkable that the administration would enable the enrichment of a Cuban regime that routinely violates the basic human rights and dignity of its people."
Another Cuba-American in Congress, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also criticized the moves.
"Loosening these regulations will not help foster a pro-democracy environment in Cuba," said. "They certainly will not help the Cuban people free themselves from the tyranny that engulfs them."
But Democratic Senator John Kerry called the actions "an important step" and said they "open the way for the goodwill of citizens of both countries to forge deeper ties that are in our national interest today and in the future."
"After 50 years of embargo against Cuba... it's time to try something different," Kerry said.
A senior US administration said that the actions represented "not an engagement with Cuban government, this is an engagement with Cuban people."
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Comments (3)
The real embargo
There can not be a direct engagement with the people as Cuba is a totalitarian socialist country, the Communist Party of Cuba is the only legal party and absolute control is exercised over the centralized economy, labor market, the media and stringent food rations. Despite the so called Cuban Trade Embargo, the United States is Cuba's fifth largest trading partner. Visitors to Cuba know that the real embargo is enforced by the Cuban government as anyone who has sent packages to Cuba can attest. The order is placed through an affiliate company approved by Cuban authorities, and then a cable is sent there with your choice to be filled, out of Cuban warehouses, for delivery to the recipient in Cuba. Each Cuban family gets a basic ration of staples such as rice, beans, cooking oil, salt, sugar and bread. They also get in limited quantities: 1 piece of soap, 1 toothbrush, and 1 tube of toothpaste. Milk is only given to children below the age of six. This ration is only sufficient for 15 – 20 days so additional food must be bought in the government controlled black market at overly inflated prices. As if this were not enough, there are two currencies in effect in Cuba. The convertible peso created for tourists and visitors only and non convertible peso for the Cuban population. A 10% surcharge is levied to exchange US dollars to the convertible peso; but does not apply to other monetary assets, in an effort to foster using Euros, Pounds and Canadian currencies rather than US dollars in Cuba but in many tourism related places Euros are generally accepted for many transactions. Foreign visitors can purchase all sorts of goods sold only in special tourist shops, but the Cuban people are forbidden entry in these shops. But even if access was not barred to them, they could not afford anything sold there, as they are paid a pittance in monthly salaries.
So, why would it surprise anyone that American companies are so eager to go there? Only to exploit the Cuban workers worse than they are now, who will continue to be paid miserly poverty level salaries in non convertible pesos which place these basic items beyond their reach. There is no question that all of the money spent in Cuba by tourists perpetuates an oppressive regime which systematically represses its citizen's right to free speech, freedom of assembly, the right to strike, form unions, or to act in a way that opposes the government. Travel to Cuba supports the torture of real human rights activists and continues the exploitation of the Cuban people and does not help establish any kind of change in Cuba. No Egyptian freedom spectacle will ever take place there, the Prompt Response Brigades will violently repress any demonstrations against the entrenched Socialist government as the voice of Free Cuba continues to fall on conveniently deaf ears which remain indifferent to this evident reality just 90 miles from our shores.
J. Herrera
Cuba
Mind our own business..??? LOL why dosent cuba clean up their 'bloddy' society and stop breaking ALL LAWS to get here????? God help you.
Cuba
Why doesn't the USA mind its' own bloody business and leave Cuba alone? Oh right, Obama has learned to read and has been reading up on the Monroe Doctrine. God help us,he, Rubio and Clinton could start a whole new Cold War.
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