Archive for May, 2009
US-Cuban Immigration Talks to Resume
The process of normalizing relations between the US and Cuba continue to move forward. Two of the issues at hand involve immigration and mail service. According to AP:
Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the Obama administration on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States and direct mail service between the two countries, a State Department official said Sunday.
The communist government notified the U.S. on Saturday that it had accepted an administration overture made May 22 to restart the immigration talks, suspended by President George W. Bush after the last meeting in 2003. Cuba also expressed a willingness to cooperate with the U.S. on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane disaster preparedness.
Latin American Countries Want US to do More in Normalizing Relations with Cuba
Latin American leaders have been upset with the lack of progress since the Summit of the Americas in April. While there seems to be a more diplomatic conservation emerging, the upcoming Organization of American States conference on June 2 in Honduras may raise questions for the Administration. According to NYTimes:
A majority of the organization’s members is expected to support lifting a provision that was used to expel Cuba from the organization in 1962, citing its alliance with “the Communist bloc” that broke “the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere.”
But the Administration doesn’t agree:
Administration officials reiterated this week a long-term American determination to keep Cuba out of the organization until it demonstrated a willingness to adopt the democratic principles that are a part of the organization’s charter.
Robert F. Kennedy Never Supported Travel Ban According to Daughter
Writing in the Washington Post Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, says her father never supported banning or prosecuting US citizens travel to Cuba. During the time the senior Kennedy was Attorney General:
In December 1963, the Justice Department was preparing to prosecute four members of the Student Committee for Travel to Cuba who had led a group of 59 college-age Americans on a trip to Havana. My father opposed those prosecutions, as well as the travel ban itself.