Archive for December, 2008
WSJ: Cuban Myths Will Test Obama
The Wall Street Journal recently posted an article by David Luhnow and Jose Decordoba titled “Cuban Myths Will Test Obama”. The article raised many points and myths about the Cuban Embargo I found interesting. The article reads:
If anything, many in Cuba believe Fidel Castro and his younger brother, Raul, are terrified the U.S. will scrap the embargo and take away their best public-relations tool.
I believe this is true as all dictators hate any freedom or opportunity for people to make up there own mind about anything. However, as Raul ages and Fidel becomes less of a factor, there seems to be a softening and a realization that the Cuban people are suffering. Raul may also have recent memories of Saddam Hussein’s statues being toppled in Central Baghdad and think of his own legacy.
The political costs of the embargo for the U.S. are enormous. No single issue poisons the well more for relations with Latin America. Every year, in what has become an embarrassing ritual for the U.S., an overwhelming majority of countries condemn the embargo at the United Nations. In the latest vote last November, the vote was 185-3. Only Israel and Palau joined the U.S.
And with Vladimir Putin cozying up to Latin America the political cost will continue to mount.
The election of Mr. Obama — a young black man committed to reinventing politics — poses a major challenge to Cuba. It shatters the myth cultivated by Cuba’s ruling clique that the U.S. is a racist, exploitative country. Cuba is a majority black country with few blacks in positions of power.
During his campaign, Mr. Obama promised to loosen some restrictions in U.S. policy towards Cuba, allowing Cuban Americans to send more money to their relatives and visit them with more frequency.
Barack Obama gives the Cuban people the same thing Americans now have, Hope, something we’ve both needed for a long time.
But few foresee major moves to lift the embargo. For one thing, Mr. Obama would have to risk considerable political capital to lift the embargo at a time when he has his plate full of major issues. He may have little to gain in return from the Cuban leadership, which until now has been able to muddle through thanks to billions of dollars in aid from Venezuela and credits from Iran, Russia and China.
After half a century of Cuban communism, Cubans may have to wait at least another few years for real change.
I disagree and take Obama at his word and rely on what he’s said for years. I also believe Obama is pragmatic, there’s almost nobody in his core constituency who believes in the embargo and few Republicans with the political power or even the will to stop anti-embargo legislation. Besides, the Republicans have bigger problems. There is also an economic component, many industries and even the state of Florida will benefit from trade and tourism with Cuba.
What Can You Do? Tell President-Elect Obama to End the Cuban Embargo
US Citizens have another way to let President-Elect Obama know that we’re of tired of failed policy on the Cuban Embargo by signing a petition of support for improved US-Cuban Relations.
John McAuliff is a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and leading the petition, Obama’s Cuba Opportunity.
John writes:
If official US rhetoric is now that the Cubans have to decide for themselves how their society should be organized, the conflict is between those who believe they can only do that if we force them to change in accord with our tenets of democracy and human rights and those like myself who believe they can only do so when the hostile pressures of the last fifty years and the century long proclivity to intervene are ended.
John was in the Peace Corps in Peru and spent forty years involved with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia through the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and is currently heading the Fund for Reconciliation and Development. John visited Cuba in 1971 and has visited Cuba annually for the past decade and is working on travel as the key to normalizing diplomatic, political and trade relations with Cuba.
Cuba Briefs: Latin America Blast Embargo, Russian Navy Visits, Cuba Offers Prisoner Swap
Latin American leaders blasted the US embargo while welcoming Cuba into the Rio Group:
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he hopes Obama will end the embargo. He says it no longer makes political or economic sense.
Cuba recently extended an olive branch by offering to release jailed political dissidents:
Answering a reporter’s question about political prisoners in Cuba, Castro said he would consider releasing some as a gesture to opening talks with the new administration. But he said the U.S. would need to reciprocate by freeing the so-called “Cuban Five,” who were convicted in 2001.
As Putie-Pute continues his communist quest for influence in Cuba by sending Russian Navy Ships, the Bush administration dead-enders near their last days. Their propaganda machine feels the need one last time to spew their hate for the Cuban people by giving a litany of failures of reasons for the embargo.
US Should Fill the Vacuum Before Our Old Nemesis
Power vacuums; why are they always filled by worst element? Take the aftermath of the Iraq War, we were unprepared for governing and Al Qaida filled the Sunni vacuum and the Iranian financed Muqtada al-Sadr filled the Shia vacuum. It took lots of blood, treasure and time to get us back on track.
And Vladimir Putin is no dummy, he sees the new opportunities in Cuba, so he’s moving a group of warships to visit his old pals:
A group of Russian warships will from December 19-23 visit the Communist island of Cuba, a long-time adversary of the United States and Moscow’s ally in the Cold War, the Russian navy said on Monday.
“This will be the first visit to Cuba by Russian warships since the Soviet era,” the Russian naval headquarters said in a statement.
The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two other ships will visit Havana in what the navy described as a “significant practical step towards strengthening and developing ties between the two states’ navies.”
Can’t We Treat Cuba More Like China?
In China we promote open exchanges of commerce and travel, this openness has broken the monopoly of thinking in the communist nation. The average Chinese citizen has much more economic and political freedom than Cubans partially because of the difference between our two respective policies.
In a recent article by David Paul Appell titled As Cuba’s Regime Turns 50, How About Some Common Sense — Finally? David writes:
I started visiting Cuba a decade ago, when a Clinton-era “people-to-people” policy permitted even commercial tour operators to send groups if they could be dressed with the fig leaf of “cultural exchange” or some such. I often witnessed the inequality between foreigners and themselves grating on locals — as when entering one of Havana’s top restaurants, the Café de Oriente, and overhearing a guard muttering, “Jeez, I’d sure rather be dining on lobster instead of the crap they give us.” One friend of mine, once a Communist Party liaison within his university department, was denied entry to a resort area, Playa del Coco, while I, the “imperialist enemy,” was waved through.
Such “tourism apartheid” measures disappeared after Raúl Castro took over in early 2008, but since most Cubans are still too impoverished to take advantage, inequality remains rampant. In this context, imagine a flood of Americans — including many Spanish-speaking Latinos — mingling with locals, infecting them with uncensored information and subversive notions of democracy and free markets. The winning of hearts and minds would far outweigh any financial gain to the Castro government (that hoary objection of exile hardliners and their pet politicos).
Cuban Embargo in the News
It’s possible the United States government may finally change a longstanding policy against freedom to travel and do commerce with the island nation of Cuba.
Business groups are aligning to lobby President Elect Barack Obama for changes to the policy.
This is after a 185-3 vote in the UN on ending the embargo in October. Only Israel and Palau voted with the U.S.
Here at home, more Americans also support ending the embargo.
I look forward to a President Obama who will correct this injustice to both Americans and Cubans.