Tema: Lift the Cuba Embargo?

The Cuba regime has settled expropriation claims with the governments of four countries (France, Canada, Switzerland, Spain). In some cases, like with Spain, part of the payment was in trading goods. The regime is unlikely to have the means to make cash payments to the US that would come close to the principal alone, without interest and inflation included. Besides the settlement of the claims will not be possible until the military tyranny is removed from power. So far the regime hasn’t given any indication to negotiate without preconditions a settlement of the claims. Until the problem of expropriation claims is solve, there should not be changes in the US and the Cuban regime relationship.

There are thousands of Cuban nationals expropriation claims that have never been addressed. Until there is transition to a democratic system, there is no way to resolve the problem of those whose property was seized by the military regime. These claims according to Alonso and Lago have “an approximated value of 7 billion U.S. dollars. Considering 6% annual simple interest over 47 years, the amount of these claims raises to 26.740 billion U.S. dollars”

One option, after a democratic government is in power, would be to go after the stolen assets and acquired properties by the Castro clan and the power elite around the world. Those whose claims are recognized should be compensated with restitution or monetary compensation, while the interest of third parties in Cuba should be also recognized and protected. Nobody in Cuba should be evicted of their homes.

dissidents decry us bill to end cuba travel ban
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100617/...cuba_us_travel


by will weissert, associated press writer will weissert, associated press writer– thu jun 17, 6:46 pm et
havana – five days after his release for health reasons, a former cuban political prisoner added his name to a letter signed by nearly 500 opposition activists decrying proposed legislation that would lift the u.s. Travel ban to their country.

The letter, e-mailed to foreign reporters in havana on thursday, took the opposite approach of a statement last week supporting the same bill and signed by 74 dissidents, many with international notoriety — including cuba's top blogger yoani sanchez, and elizardo sanchez, who is not related to yoani but heads the island's top human rights group.

The bill in question was introduced feb. 23 by rep. Collin peterson, a minnesota democrat, and would bar the president from prohibiting travel to cuba or blocking transactions required to make such trips.

It also would halt the white house from stopping direct transfers between u.s. And cuban banks. That would make it easier for the island's government to pay for u.s. Food and farm exports, which have been allowed for a decade, despite washington's 48-year-old trade embargo.

Thursday's letter said, "to be benevolent with the dictatorship would mean solidarity with the oppressors of the cuban nation." it featured 492 signers from all over cuba, but most were little-known, even among the island's small and divided dissident and political opposition community.

One exception was ariel sigler, a 44-year-old who is paralyzed from the waist down and who was freed to much fanfare saturday. He was released to his home in matanzas province after serving more than seven years of a 25-year sentence for treason.

Sigler was among 75 leading opposition activists, community organizers, dissidents and independent journalists rounded up in march 2003 — when the world's attention was focused on the start of the iraq war — and charged with taking money from washington to destabilize cuba's government. Those imprisoned denied that, as did u.s. Officials.

Sigler went to prison a boxer in excellent shape, but became confined to a wheelchair while behind bars.

His release and the recent transfer of 12 other prisoners of conscience to jails closer to their homes is the result of negotiations between the roman catholic church and the government of raul castro to improve the plight of political prisoners.

Other signers of the letter include jorge luis garcia perez, or altunez, an afro-cuban dissident who has used hunger strikes in the past to protest the treatment of political prisoners in cuba, and reina luis tamayo, mother of prisoner of conscience orlando zapata tamayo, who died in february after a lengthy prison hunger strike.

While travel to cuba is technically not illegal, u.s. Law bars most americans from spending money here. Cuban-americans, journalists, politicians and a few others can visit with special permission from the u.s. Government.

Peterson's bill must pass the house committee on agriculture before it can go to a vote by the full house, and thursday's letter was addressed to members of that committee as well as all members of congress.

a string of similar measures to expand travel to and trade with cuba have died without reaching a full vote by either the house or senate in recent years.

Lifting the travel restrictions and allowing direct transfers between U.S.. And Cuban banks, will most certainly lead to allowing cuba credit for its purchases, specifically from agricultural states where farms and other agricultural businesses are heavily subsidized by the us tax payer. When the regime defaults on those credits, the responsibility for repayment will fall upon the american taxpayer.

More than 15 million of tourists which have visited Cuba over the past decade, haven’t been able to influence a political and economic opening of Castro’s totalitarian regime, nor will be the millions of American tourists that will visit Cuba. How is possible to believe that tourism and trade with the United States can do it?

The majority of tourists in the island stay at hotels located in isolate places, where their contact whit the ordinary Cuban population is very limited. The hotel workers are prohibited to interact with foreigners outside of their workplace. The regimen has put in place a tourist apartheid system.

The lifting of the travel restrictions shall not be base on the incorrect assumption that a large number of US tourists will trigger a clamor for democracy in Cuba. James Cason, former chief of the US Interests Section in Havana, said: ''Tourism has not brought down a totalitarian regime anywhere in history.''

Nobody really cares about the dissidents plights and only seek cordial relations with the Castros regime. Tourists and investors won't remove Cuba from their itinerary due to the harsh conditions of the political prisoners.

Has the Cuba travel ban ever had its intended result? Yes, because tourism is the main source of income for the regime, which is operated by the military. The US sanctions against tourism in Cuba prevent the increase in funds for Castro repressive military regime.

You can fly to Cuba via a third country like Canada, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Caiman Islands, ect. Cuban authorities won't stamp your passport, and you won’t be counted among the visitors to the island. You have to bring cash or have a credit card issued by a bank in another country.

Congressman Collin Peterson just wants the farmers from his state Minnesota to be able to sell their grain on easier terms to Cuba. He doesn’t care if the Castro regime defaults on the payment, because the American taxpayers will be ones picking up the bill, since the Federal Government guarantee the farmers sale in case of default.

The article “COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CUBAS GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT” (http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm), makes a comparison of Cuba GDP and the GDP of another 4 countries before and after Castro, reaching the conclusion that Cuba’s economy should has growth like the others countries. It is a good summary of incontrovertible data that contradict the lies about the island under-development before 1959. The author shows how Cuba with a per capita equal to Chile in 1958, in 2000 the per capita was 6 times less.

The approval of credits to the Castro brothers’ regime by the United States would only replace the Soviet subsidy that they no longer receive. This will has the effect of delaying the transition to democracy in the island guaranteeing additional decades of subjugation and suffering. Castro brothers’ military force and the repressive security service then will be sustained by the credits from the U.S. government.

When Cubans escape from Castro brothers’ workers paradise, they are voting with their feet. So far there are 1.8 million Cuban-Americans living in the US (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Social and Economic Suplement, 2010). Another 700,000 are living in other countries. This amounts to a total of 2.5 million. Since the actual Cuba population is 11.24 million (source: Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, Cuba http://www.one.cu/. http://www.geohive.com/cntry/cuba.aspx), the 2.5 million living abroad account for 20% of the population in the island.

The effect of the US embargo is minimal on the regime economy, it only represent 6% of the regime commerce with the rest of the world

What the regime is after are loans and lines of credit guaranteed by the US. These credits and loans will not be paid and the US taxpayers will be the ones to pick up the debt, as it happens at the present time with the taxpayers of other countries. The regime has a staggering debt of $80 billion with other countries.
The regime problems are not the result of the embargo; they are due to the corruption and ineffectiveness of a military dictatorship that is against private property and free enterprise. These and no others are the real reasons of the problems.

Lifting the embargo and travel ban, without meaningful changes in Cuba, will guarantee the continuation of the current totalitarian structures, strengthen state enterprises, since money will flow into businesses owned by the Cuban military dictatorship, and lead to greater repression and control by the Castro brothers and corrupt military leadership to counteract U.S. influence in support of a transition to democracy on the island.

US sales to Cuba in 2008 reach $801 million. Import totaled $14.25 billion (http://www.one.cu/aec2008/esp/08_tabla_cuadro.htm)
This represents 5.62% of the regime commerce with the rest of the world. Without the embargo the debt with the US could be similar to the debt of 30 billion with the EU countries.

US sales to Cuba in 2008 reach $710 million. (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\02\13\story_13-2-2009_pg5_13
US sales to Cuba in 2008 reach $801 million. Import totaled $14.25 billion (http://www.one.cu/aec2008/esp/08_tabla_cuadro.htm)

Why Lift the Travel Ban to Cuba Now?
Capitol Hill Cubans: Why Lift the Travel Ban to Cuba Now?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575328953766272336.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ( require registration to read)s

Waves of Canadian, European and Latin American visitors haven't changed a thing.

BY MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
June 28, 2010

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Honduran Supreme Court's decision to order the arrest of Manuel Zelaya, a power-hungry Hugo Chávez acolyte who tried to remain president for life.

It's something to celebrate: Thanks to the bravery of the court and the Congress, which voted to remove him from office, democracy was saved.
Yet a nagging question remains: Why were the Obama administration and key congressional Democrats obsessed, for seven months, with trying to force Honduras to take Mr. Zelaya back? Why did the U.S. pull visas, deny aid, and lead an international campaign to isolate the tiny Central American democracy? To paraphrase many Americans who wrote to me during the stand-off: “Whose side are these guys on anyway?”

Such doubts about the motivations of the party in power in Washington will be hard to ignore this week as the Democrats try to put U.S. Cuba policy back on the legislative agenda. Specifically, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson will try to pass a bill in the House Agriculture Committee that would lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba without any human-rights concession from Castro.

The end of the Cuba travel ban would mean a bonanza in tourism to the island at a time when Fidel and Raúl are in desperate need of new revenue. But the push to lift the ban has anti-Castro supporters too. They argue that it is isolation that preserves the dictatorship and that a barrage of gringo tourists would weaken the dictatorship.

Proponents of the ban point out that a wave of European, Canadian and Latin American visitors since the mid-1990s hasn’t changed a thing. They worry that American sun-seekers will only prop up a dictatorship that is most famous for slave labor, jailing dissidents and sowing revolution in the hemisphere.

With so much risk involved, any policy change will depend heavily on being able to trust the motives of U.S. leaders. Recall that it was Nixon who went to China. That’s why efforts to change policy that are being led by the current crop of Democrats make so many Americans uneasy. After all, if Mr. Peterson wants to boost commerce why not push for passage of the Colombia free trade agreement? Why is he so interested in doing business with a dictator?

The dictatorship is hard up for hard currency. The regime now relies heavily on such measures as sending Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for marked-down oil. But according to a recent Associated Press story, “Cuba’s foreign trade plunged by more than a third in 2009,” perhaps because Caracas, running out of money itself, is no longer a reliable sugar daddy. A sharp drop in nickel prices hasn’t helped, and neither did three hurricanes in 2008, which devastated housing.

Cuba owes sovereign lenders billions of dollars, according to the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, and according to a June 23 Reuters report, it is so cash-strapped that it had “froze[n] up to $1 billion in the accounts of 600 foreign suppliers by the start of 2009.”
Now there is a serious food shortage. This month the independent media in Cuba reported that a scarcity of rice had the government so worried about civil unrest that it had to send police to accompany deliveries to shops.

This has the regime scrambling. Several sources reported to me that the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega, was on a secretive trip to Washington last week to lobby for an end to the travel ban. One of his meetings was rumored to be with the State Department’s assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela. The State Department declined to tell me if this was true or not.

Other sources said that the cardinal reached out to members of Congress, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staffer Peter Quilter. I queried Mr. Berman’s office but got no reply. Regular readers of this column know Mr. Quilter’s politics. As I reported in April, he traveled with Sen. John Kerry’s staffer Fulton Armstrong to Tegucigalpa to warn Hondurans who backed the removal of Mr. Zelaya that they are still in the doghouse.

While Castro relies on the embargo to explain Cuban poverty, he does, it seems, badly need gringo tourism, which he could control. And if Cardinal Ortega has decided to intervene on behalf of the regime’s needs, it would not be surprising. He has long been viewed by human-rights advocates—such as former political prisoner Armando Valladares, a practicing Catholic—as more a tool of the regime than a champion of the oppressed. A kinder assessment of the cardinal suggests that he’s trying to boost the Church’s power on the island. In either case, acting as an emissary to Washington right now would make sense.

But for those interested in Cuban freedom it is bizarre. For the first time in history the Castros are cornered. Yet rather than negotiate from a position of strength, Democrats seem to want to give relief to the dictatorship.

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com

Mary A. O'grady makes a sound assessment about the lift of the travel band. Some members of the administration that are trying to pass a bill to remove the travel ban, seem more interested in their agenda than the plight of the Cuban people. For 51 years they have suffered a great deal under the boot of the Castros the military regime. The band should be lifted after the regimen make human-rights concession and show disposition to adopt a democratic system.

Those US citizens who want to go to Cuba and provide moral and financial support to the regime do so. They go to Mexico, Canada or other Caribbean countries, and from there, without their passports being stamped by the regime authorities, they flight to Cuba. Around 34,000 US citizens sneak into Cuba that way each year. It is estimated that 50% of the tourist from other countries that go to Cuba are sex tourist.

According to Cuba Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez about 296,000 Cubans living abroad came back in 2009. Since 70% of the Cubans living abroad live in US, the number of Cuba Americans visiting the island amount to 210,000. The figures of theOficina Nacional de Estadísticas (ONE), reported that 52,455 US citizens legally visited the island. If we add the 25,800 US citizens that illegally traveled to Cuba in violation of US law, the total number of US tourist visiting Cuba in 2009 amount to 288,200. This makes the US the second largest supplier of visitors to Cuba.

During the last 10 years 20.6 millions of tourist from around the world visited Cuba. Around 9.5% of those visitors were from the US, close to 2 million tourists. All those millions of tourist visiting Cuba didn’t have a visible impact on the system; they haven’t been able to influence a political and economic opening of the Castro brothers’ tyrannical regime. So much for the argument of the US tourist power to bring about change.

The regime confronts a cash crunch to by foodstuffs from the US. Due to the world wide economic downturn the agricultural imports from the US have been reduced. Lifting the ban on travel restriction to Cuba by American citizens, would have the effect of increasing the demand of foodstuffs from the US due to tourist consumption. Cash revenue from tourism will allow the regime to by agricultural products from the US.

The motivation behind this attempt to remove the travel restrictions to Cuba, is not about democracy, is not about the Cuban people, is not even about the rights of Americans to travel; it is about cash. Nothing more, nothing else, just cash.

According to estimates by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, some 20,000 Americans visit Cuba each year without the Treasury Department's permission (http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/905.cfm)

Cuban Minister Manuel Marrero said that “in 2009 Cuba received 2.43 million tourists”

Total tourist in 2009 2,429,809 . Canada 914,844; England 172,318; US 288,200

Total tourist from 2000 to 2009: 20.6 million

While American tourists traveling to Cuba without a license and Cuban-Americans traveling with Cuban passports are not included in the official statistics as originating in the U.S., both groups are included in Cuba’s total visitor arrivals. Cuban-Americans (along with other Cuban nationals residing outside the island in places other than the U.S.) traveling to Cuba with Cuban passports are categorized as “other Caribbean” makes the U.S. at least the second largest supplier of visitors to Cuba. While travel to Cuba isn't banneda U.S. citizen without government approval violates the law when they spend money on Cuban soil.

Persons of Cuban origin who are nationals of other countries need a Cuban passport to travel to the island. The regimen does not recognize dual citizenship. They have to solicit, through a non refundable pre-pay petition, permission to return to the country of their birth. The permission stamp in the passport is valid for 21 days only. The Cuban passport need be renewed every two years at a cost of $100 dollars. This has a double purpose, to generate revenue and screen who are not allow to enter the country.

"Mules" stretch limits of U.S. trade embargo on Cuba
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67A34T20100811

By Esteban Israel

HAVANA | Reuters) - It all starts with a description given over a mobile phone: "Look for a woman with long blonde hair, blue jeans, silver heels and a black T-shirt arriving on the next flight from Miami."
When the woman emerges from Havana's international airport pushing a cart loaded with bulky black duffel bags, she is greeted effusively by a man she has never seen before.

"They hug as if they had known each other all their lives. Once in the parking lot, the woman hands over the bags and says goodbye," says Yanet, a Miami resident.

She is describing the tactics of growing numbers of human "mules" who regularly travel between the United States and Cuba carrying in their bags loads of clothes, food, consumer goods, electrical appliances and millions of U.S. dollars to the communist-ruled Caribbean island. They deliver the goods for a fee or free ticket, often to complete strangers.

"The system works beautifully," said Yanet, making her second trip as a "mule" to Havana in less than a month.

"But you have to stage a little show because you never know who may be watching," she added.

This burgeoning informal commerce between two neighbors whose governments have maintained a Cold War-era enmity for half a century belies the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba -- but also reflects recent relaxations of it.

Since 1962, the U.S. embargo's intended aim has been to force the Cuban government to abandon its communist rule.

But informal trafficking of cash and goods to Cuba has boomed since President Barack Obama last year lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to their homeland and significantly increased the amount of money they could take.

His calibrated measures, part of a process of promoting "people-to-people" contacts Washington believes can foster political change in Cuba, also increased the type of consumer items that could be included in gift parcels for Cuba.

Also authorized under a telecoms initiative was the export or re-export to Cuba by visitors of donated personal telecoms devices, such as mobile phones, computers and software.

Travelers to Havana were already able to bring parcels of food and medicines, and the embargo has for some years allowed the export of U.S. farm products to the island.

"MORE TRAVELERS, MORE MONEY"

On the U.S. side, from where daily two-way charter flights ferry more and more Cuban Americans to Cuba on family visits, there is significant tolerance for passengers to load up with consumer goods.

But the mules also need to outsmart tight Cuban customs restrictions, where taxes are levied for baggage over certain limits and luggage contents are frequently inspected.

Chronic scarcity and the high prices of the narrow range of imported goods that are sold in Cuba's state-run dollar stores have prompted thousands of Cubans to use the human "mules" to import everything from clothing to toiletries, electronics and money.

John Kavulich, who monitors commerce between the two nations at the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, says it is impossible to accurately quantify this informal trade.

"But more travelers means more money and more expenditure in Cuba," he said.

Manuel Orozco, a remittances expert with the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank in Washington, says Cuban exiles in the United States sent to the island some $636 million in 2008 and probably slightly less in 2009 due to the economic downturn.

"About 60 percent of that money is sent through informal channels or mules. That is quite a lot," he said.

Bureaucratic requirements in the United States, a lack of competition for services and a charge on foreign exchange charge levied by Cuba on transferred dollars make formal money transfers through financial agencies like Western Union costly.

UNDERGROUND FINANCE

Formal transfers cost 17 percent of the money sent, whereas mules cost around 13 percent, says Orozco, adding they deliver the money much faster.

The mules are part of an emerging underground industry of financial services offering credit and installment payments otherwise unthinkable in Cuba's state-run economy.

There are no figures available for the size of the informal trade in goods, but it has become quite organized. There are even privately run places in Havana where Cubans can shop from catalogues sent by email. They pick an item, make a 50 percent down payment and 15 days later they get their order. All for a 25 percent commission.

Most of these informal businesses are family-run. A Havana resident, for example, sends a list of products to a relative in Miami, who then finds a Cuban American willing to transport them as a mule in exchange for a free ticket.

Cubans are crazy for big brands, says Diana, who sends items from Miami to Havana. "They ask me for instance to send sunglasses that say Dolce & Gabbana or Gucci. They're cheap replicas, of course, but they sell very well because of the brands. Cubans love that," she explained.

Profit margins are striking when it comes to high-end electronics. A flat screen TV bought in Miami for $700 can be sold in Cuba for up to $2,000. Such a television would likely cost $2,500 in a state store, if it were available.

The informal trade also feeds an endless network of informal vendors who receive small commissions.

But the "mule" business is not without risks.

"You need to be careful and make sure you don't bring too many of the same products, because Cuban customs officers are not stupid and if they realize it is for sale they will take it away on the spot," said Yanet.

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Frances Kerry)

This type ofthings are very common, and the regime count on them to get more money. There isn’t too much difference between the traveling “mules” and the countless unnecessary trips to the island, millions of trivial long-distance phone calls, frequent remittances of money and merchandise for non-essential purposes. All of this benefit the regime and help keep it in place.