Tema: Lift the Cuba Embargo?

Lift embargo on Cuba? Not so fast
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/25/lift_embargo_on_cuba_not_so_fast/

By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / August 25, 2010

IS IT time to unplug the American embargo against Cuba? The prospect seems to tempt more people than ever. It ought to be resisted.

The New York Times reported last week that the Obama administration intends to expand opportunities for Americans to visit Cuba, loosening the rules under which academic, religious, and cultural groups can travel there. The new regulations are seen as a signal of presidential support for legislation sponsored by US Representative Collin Peterson that would repeal the travel limitations altogether.

The chorus calling for an end to the travel strictures and an increase in trade with Cuba is considerable. Peterson notes that his bill is backed by a coalition of over 140 organizations, “including Human Rights Watch, the US Chamber of Commerce, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the American Farm Bureau Federation.’’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has “always been a supporter of lifting the travel ban.’’ The Brookings Institute recommends “vastly’’ expanding US-Cuba travel and other “people-to-people contacts,’’ calling them “a strategic tool to advance US policy objectives.’’

Especially compelling is a letter to members of Congress signed by 74 Cuban dissidents who support the legislation. Among them are the noted blogger Yoani Sánchez and Guillermo Farinas, whose 140-day hunger strike earlier this year drew worldwide attention.

“We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government,’’ the letter said, “while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society.’’

But other dissidents take a different view, and 494 of them signed a letter opposing any change in US policy that would reduce pressure on the regime.

“The main problem resides in the absence of liberty for Cubans,’’ they wrote. “At a moment such as this, to be benevolent with the dictatorship would mean solidarity with the oppressors of the Cuban nation.’’ The signers of this letter included Ariel Sigler, a pro-democracy activist who spent seven years behind bars before being exiled from Cuba last month, and Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after fasting for 82 days to protest the abuse of prisoners in Cuban jails.

Clearly, there are men and women of good will on both sides of this debate. And clearly the end of the Castro reign is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But will that day really be brought closer by allowing American tourists, exports, and cash to pour into Cuba?

The argument might be more plausible if Cuba were a Caribbean North Korea, cut off from contact with the world. It isn’t. Ordinary Cubans may live with poverty and repression, but the government has turned the island into a major tourist attraction, complete with deluxe hotels and beach resorts. Some 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba last year, more than 800,000 of them Canadians. For that matter, tens of thousands of Americans make it to Cuba each year, despite the restrictions. Yet for all that exposure to foreign citizens, money, and ideas, the power of the Castro brothers is undiminished.
By the same token, if international commerce had the power to undo the regime, wouldn’t it have been undone by now? The US embargo, after all, doesn’t stop Cuba from trading with any other country in the world. Indeed, even with the “embargo,’’ the United States is one of Cuba’s top five trading partners.

The transformative power of free trade is not to be denied, but trade with Cuba isn’t free. There is no Cuban parallel to the economic openness and flourishing private sector that has transformed China. Jerry Haar, a dean of business administration at Florida International University, observes in the Latin Business Chronicle that one unavoidable fact of life faces exporters to Cuba: “The entire distribution chain is in the hands of the Cuban military and intelligence services.’’ Foreign investors are compelled to deal with the state and its subsidiaries, since they control the “hotels, foreign trade operations, equipment sales, and factories.’’

As long as the Castros maintain their stranglehold on the Cuban economy, enriching that economy enriches — and entrenches — them. The travel ban and embargo have not ended Cuba’s misery, but lifting them unilaterally will only make that misery worse. Rewarding the dictators who keep Cuba in chains is not the way to set Cubans free.

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com

Even after we lift what if left from the embargo, the regime will be repressive. And their left-leaning allies will still blame the US for the failures of Castroism. They will keep calling the dissidents agents of the CIA, and will defend the regime until its demise.

It doesn’t matter how badly or for how long the Castros regime fails, there always be some progressives dreaming about a worker's utopia. But an objective view of the last 100 years will show that nothing raises more people out of poverty than a capitalism system. So far nobody has been able to improve upon a free and open market.

U.S. tourist dollars would only tighten Cuba's grip on power
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-cuba-ban-talk-back-forum-20100901,0,7924159.story

By George LeMieux

The recent Sun Sentinel editorial, "Lifting ban on travel to Cuba best way to push democratic ideals," fails to consider the most important facts regarding U.S. Cuba policy.

First, tourism travel to Cuba represents the Castro regime's foremost source of income — akin to the energy industry being Iran's foremost source of income and thus the main target of sanctions. Few would disagree that Canadian and European tourists have financed the existence of the Castro regime, and therefore their repression of the Cuban people. For the United States to create a tourism bonanza for the regime at this time would provide the dictatorship an economic lifeline.

Second, to argue that U.S. tourists are going to stir the winds of political and economic change by spreading democratic ideals is unrealistic and insensitive. What could tourists do to surpass the efforts of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Guido Sigler Amaya and other courageous Cubans currently spending decades in prison for advocating democratic ideals?

What change could tourists inspire above that of Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died this year after an 85-day hunger strike? What economic or political pressure will tourist dollars bring beyond the five pro-democracy activists who stood on the stairs of the University of Havana last week and demanded freedom for the Cuban people — three of whom are now facing lengthy prison terms? It seems the world could learn a great deal from the inspiring courage and resilience of Cuba's pro-democracy movement, not vice-versa.

Finally, to argue that allowing tourism to Cuba would prevent the Castro regime from "cherry-picking" for travel only "those who are neutral and harbor sympathies towards the regime" is completely misguided. What the Castro regime wants are apolitical and uninformed tourists they can contain in isolated, all-inclusive resorts. Such "easy income" would reduce the regime's reliance on, and likely the frequency of, humanitarian travelers.

Cuba is not a tourist paradise. Behind the curtain of white sandy beaches are people held captive by a brutal regime. U.S. tourist dollars would only serve to tighten the regime's grip on power.

Rather than concede human rights and the rule of law, we should align with pro-democratic movements, instead of giving the Castros the fodder and means to crush them.

George LeMieux is a U.S. senator for Florida and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

George LeMieux U.S. senator from Florida provides Sun Sentinel readers with a dose of reality with regards to lifting the travel band to Cuba.

Cuba Visitors Wear Horse Blinders
http://www.creators.com/opinion/miguel-perez/cuba-visitors-wear-horse-blinders.html

Whenever fellow Americans tell me, "I just came back from Cuba" or "I'm planning a vacation in Cuba soon," they obviously think they are paying me some kind of compliment. Because I was born on that precious Caribbean island, they think such statements would lead to some sort of bonding. They don't know it makes me lose respect for them.

"Oh, really?" I usually reply, straining to be polite.

As they proceed to tell me about all the places they visited and the people they met, I usually am thinking about all the places they weren't allowed to see and all the people they were not allowed to meet.

Cuba's dungeons for political prisoners and chats with constantly harassed Cuban dissidents surely were not on their tourist itineraries.

People who try to talk to me about their visits to Cuba usually fall into three categories: Latino Americans who travel to Cuba by way of their own native homelands, Americans who go there (mostly illegally) through a third country or Cuban-Americans who visit their homeland more often than ever, thanks to an Obama administration relaxation of travel restrictions last year.

Obviously, I'm not impressed by their tours of my native homeland, because I know it required wearing moral horse blinders.

In my book, only Cuban-Americans who go home for emergency visits to sick or dying relatives are justified in going back there. All others are helping to subsidize one of the oldest repressive dictatorships in history.

When I go beyond asking my diplomatic question — "Oh, really?" — just to be clear, I tell my Cuba-visiting friends that there is no place I rather would see but that I rather would hold out until the island is free.

I tell my non-Cuban friends that I probably have much better reasons for wanting to go there. But sarcastically, I also explain that I've managed to resist the temptation because I suffer from an illness called "principles" and that traveling to my country under the hideous regime from which I fled is bad for my health. Until Cuba is truly free, I'm not going to be traveling with them.

Non-Cubans who visit my country are generally either U.S. liberals who go on their revolutionary vacations because they think it's simply "a cool thing to do" or unscrupulous entrepreneurs, who tend to be Christian conservatives but would cut deals with Lucifer himself. When these leftists and capitalists are there — drinking mojitos, dancing to Cuban salsa and making strange bedfellows — they have no time to worry about the hardships of the Cuban people.

Perhaps their insensitivity can be blamed on ignorance. You really don't know what it's like to live under a communist tyranny until you have experienced it for longer than a couple of weeks, outside of a beach resort, enduring the choking grip of an iron fist.

But Cuban-Americans who go home for vacation should know better! They usually claim they go there to help their relatives, but they know that by subsidizing the regime, they are prolonging the suffering of all Cubans.

Most Cubans in the United States were granted U.S. political asylum because they claimed they had a "well-founded fear of persecution" upon returning to their homeland. Unless they already have become American citizens, I say that if they go back — proving they no longer have that fear — they should have their political asylum revoked and be forced to stay in Cuba. And if they have become naturalized Americans, they should be forced to abide by the same travel restrictions imposed on all Americans, who are mostly forbidden from traveling to Cuba.

Unfortunately, at least some of those restrictions are reportedly close to being loosened by the Obama administration, which seems ready to open a floodgate of horse blinder-wearing Americans traveling to my still-subjugated homeland. Some of them are so naive that they actually believe that American tourists are going to liberate the Cuban people from the government's repression machine, when in fact they will be providing a lifesaving cash transfusion to a dying regime.

Tourists from all over the world have been going to Cuba for many years without putting a dent on the repression machine. What makes anyone think that Americans could do better?

Although Obama's move would be limited — easing travel restrictions only for academics, corporations, humanitarian groups and athletic teams to travel to Cuba — it would send a clear signal to Congress to begin lifting the U.S. economic embargo against the communist regime in Havana. And in Congress, there are many lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — who have been waiting for such a signal from the White House.

But why such a dramatic shift in U.S.-Cuba policy? What have Fidel and Raul Castro done to show they are willing to ease their repression? It couldn't be because they recently agreed to release 52 prisoners of conscience — not when the whole world knows that it took the hunger strike death of one such prisoner, not when some of the released prisoners look like the survivors of Nazi concentration camps, not when it took international condemnation and many defiant and courageous marches by the prisoners' wives, mothers and daughters, not when everyone has seen how these women have been verbally and physically abused.

Doesn't it matter that Cuba's only "concession" illustrates just how vicious the Castro regime can be?

Apparently not if you are wearing horse blinders! And unfortunately, the Obama administration is getting ready to issue them to Cuba-bound travelers.
Oh, yes, there was one time when my "Oh, really?" reply didn't suffice.

"I just came back from a great vacation in Cuba," a former friend told me at a cocktail party, where the beverages had made me much more honest than normal.
"Oh, really?" I told her. "Shame on you

The article reflects how some Cuban Americans feel about travelling to Cuba. If you had to leave because you refused to be a number, how can you go back? You even have to ask for permission to go back to your own country? With regard to foreigners, they look at Cuba as a third world country that does not aspire to live in freedom because they don't know any better. I don't see that the Canadian or European tourism having done anything to inspire any changes.

I have arrived to the conclusion that when Progressives speak of civil rights, they really mean socialist rights. When the civil rights come into conflict with Socialist regimes, their support for civil rights violations by those regimes disappears. Most the time they keep silence about those violations, and sometimes they mention that it is “for the greater good.” What that means is that if you are not a socialist, something awful and sometimes deadly will happen to you in the name of “the greater good of the people.”

Despite embargo, Cuba a haven for pirated U.S. goods
http://lta.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idLTAN0222000820100902?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=marketsNews&rpc=401&sp=true

* Pirated U.S. TV shows, movies, software abound in Cuba
* U.S.-Cuba embargo blocks legal access to most U.S. goods
* Lack of formal U.S.-Cuba relations hurts enforcement

By Esteban Israel

HAVANA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - A few weeks after Ashton Kutcher's latest comedy "Killers" premiered in the United States, the movie was already entertaining the masses in communist Cuba.

For two pesos, the equivalent of nine U.S. cents, the state-owned Yara movie theater in the heart of Havana offered Cubans a washed out and pixilated copy of Kutcher's adventures as a CIA assassin who is himself targeted for a hit.

"It's a very good flick. We just got it on DVD," says a woman in the ticket office.

The problem is that "Killers" will not be officially released on DVD in the United States until Sept. 7 and even then Cuba will be off limits due to the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean island.

But half a century of U.S. sanctions have turned Cuba into a piracy haven and a missed opportunity for U.S. businesses.

Even though the embargo forbids U.S. companies like Microsoft (MSFT.O: Cotización) from exporting software to Cuba, most personal computers on the island run unlicensed copies of its Windows operating system.

Pirated copies of the latest version, Windows 7, have been available for months from illegal vendors in Cuba.

The blue-skinned aliens of "Avatar," James Cameron's blockbuster film, appeared on Cuba's state television in February while the movie was still breaking box office records around the world.

Surfing Cuba's five television channels, all state-owned, a viewer could stumble across shows such as Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" and NBC's "Friends," or movies like Dreamworks' "Madagascar 2".

Video games of all types are sold by software pirates in Cuba for the equivalent of about $2.

"The reality is that U.S. products and services are down there whether the companies that make them sell them or not," said Jake Colvin, Vice President for Global Trade Issues at the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington.

"The frustrating thing is that U.S. companies are getting nothing for it," he told Reuters.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?

The trade embargo, imposed since 1962 with the aim of toppling the Caribbean island's communist government, forbids most U.S. business with Cuba, with the key exception of agricultural products, and, under certain restrictions, medicines.

Cuba's unofficial position is that the embargo limits access to so many products that it forces people to resort to piracy.

But it also does so with a certain relish, which is both the result of five decades of U.S.-Cuba hostility and a jab at the capitalist system Cuban leaders disdain.

The Business Software Alliance, a Washington-based industry group, says 63 percent of the computer programs being used in Latin America as a whole in 2009 were unlicensed and had an approximate commercial value of $6.2 billion.

But in Cuba, the piracy rate is estimated to be around 80 percent, if not higher, said Montserrat Duran, BSA director of legal affairs for Latin America.
Cuba has been more protective of its own products, having spent much time and money defending its world-famous Cohiba cigar and Havana Club rum brands in legal battles in the United States.

The National Foreign Trade Council says the current lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two nations makes it difficult for U.S. companies to raise these issues with Cuban authorities.

"Until we fix the relationship, until we have governments that talk to each other and have a better official relationship and we have rules that allow companies to interact and do business in Cuba we are not going to be able to address the problem," said Colvin.

MIXED BLESSING

Better relations, when they come, could be a mixed blessing for Cuba's financial exposure over pirated goods, one computer engineer on the island said.

"The day we finally resolve our problems with the United States, Microsoft's Bill Gates will try to collect the bill. And it will be huge," he said, asking not to be identified.

A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment.

In the meantime, Cuba should focus on the future rather than worry about the past, said Business Software Alliance's Duran.

"Nobody expects them to pay for what has been done, but governments should legalize their products and lead by example. People need to understand that piracy is a crime similar to stealing a car," she said.

Cuba took a step toward addressing the problem last year when it developed a variant of the free, open-source operating system Linux and promoted its use in the country's computers.

Cuban leaders said conversion to Linux would ease their security concerns about the widespread use of U.S. software and create another front in their long fight to resist U.S. domination. (Editing by Jeff Franks and Doina Chiacu)

Reuters interpretation of the criminal and illegal act of pirating movies and software is that it is a missed business opportunity. Maybe Reuters think the US, by trying to catch and imprison organized crime syndicates, is missing out on other business opportunities instead of negotiating business deals with them.

Even in this article about pirating goods, Reuters manage to take a shot against the embargo. What makes Reuters thing that free commerce with the Castros’ regime is going to control pirating? Well, logic is not the point, the point is to attack the embargo.

Cuba: No lifeline to a dying regime
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/03/cuba_no_lifeline_to_a_dying_regime

By Stephen Johnson

When in a bind, Cuba's Castro brothers sometimes ease their repressive grip on the island's population. Case in point: during the current economic crunch, President Raúl Castro has released some two dozen political prisoners, revived a lapsed self-employment experiment, and allowed foreigners to lease land for 99 years. Impressive, except we've seen this movie before.

And to remove any doubt about its meaning, President Raúl Castro reportedly told his National Assembly that it does not signal a change in the 50-year-old anti-American police state. Which is why the United States should not significantly alter its equally long-lived trade embargo. The tougher it gets for the regime, the more likely that a few small freedoms will last longer -- hopefully until the two brothers go to the great commune in the sky.

It may be useful to remember that the harshest periods of the brothers' rule were when their coffers were flush and the revolution was strong. That's when the Soviet Union supported it with subsidies worth up to $6 billion a year as a regional arms trafficking and subversion hub. During that time, the regime reportedly held as many as 60,000 political prisoners, according to some estimates.

Yet in 1980, when outside help wasn't enough to pay the bills and thousands of Cubans took to the streets, then-president Fidel Castro allowed nearly 125,000 citizens -- some from prisons and mental hospitals -- a one-time good deal to flee to the United States. It was either appear magnanimous or lose control.
After subsidies dried up with the Soviet collapse in 1991, he licensed some 200,000 workers to earn their livings as cuentapropistas, self-employed street vendors and taxi drivers. At the end of the decade, when the economy had adjusted and Venezuela started providing subsidized oil, many permits were not renewed.

During the same period, the Cuban government began inviting foreign businesses to engage in joint ventures with state enterprises. In 1999, a project with a Canadian firm to refurbish a Soviet-built power plant seemed on track until the regime arbitrarily terminated the partnership and used the company's proprietary plans to shop for new partners, sinking a $9 million investment.

Now facing a cash crunch on the heels of a disastrous sugar harvest, brother Raúl is consulting Fidel's old playbook -- releasing jailed dissidents, ramping up self-employment, and making nice to foreign businesses, which, by the way, must abide by Cuban policies of denying workers' rights, in violation of International Labor Organization conventions. Meaningful reform? You be the judge.

Last year, President Obama rolled back Bush-era restrictions on family-member travel and remittance payments, and promised to allow U.S. companies to provide cell phone and satellite telecommunications services. Now he is about to encourage visits by academics and artists in a return to Clinton-era policies of purposeful engagement. Such measures might foster more people-to-people contact, but he should be careful about going much further.

The more radical 2010 Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (H.R. 4645), reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on June 30, would streamline financial transactions with Cuban banks to speed U.S. farm exports and lift the U.S. ban on tourist travel to the island. While enhancing sales is a good thing, a horde of American vacationers now could revive the army-run tourist industry and kill the current cuentapropista revival.

Tempting as it may be to view Cuba's tactical retreats as reforms, they are stopgaps. However, for as long they last, they provide certain benefits to ordinary Cubans. In that sense, the Obama administration and Congress would do well to stay the current course and abide by principled policies designed to pry open access to individual freedoms for Cubans wherever possible. To tweak U.S.-Cuba policy and perhaps minimize the embargo's impact on American businesses, U.S. policymakers could:

· Link seeming concessions to more positive behavior. As U.S. officials urge Raúl to release all prisoners of conscience, they could caution against booting them out of their own country.

· Take advantage of resurging self-employment. Business information and news of micro-financing opportunities on U.S. official broadcasting to the island might fuel popular expectations of further liberalization.

· Facilitate free expression by easing more U.S. restrictions on cell phone and equipment sales, and service agreements consistent with broader U.S. technology transfer limits. Wider ownership of laptops, mobile phones, and other consumer electronics (now legal in Cuba) can further complicate the regime's ability to control communication.

· Consolidate America's position as a key goods supplier to the island. President Obama could urge Congress to expand the list of what can be exported under the embargo's cash and carry sales rules that now contemplate food, clothing, and medicine.

To sustain leverage over Cuba's government on the cusp of transition, the United States should continue to:

· Deny financial support and credit until Cuba releases its captive labor force and pays creditors, and

· Condition normal diplomatic and economic relations on respect for human rights and civil liberties such as freedom of expression, of assembly, movement, and access to due process of law.

Since they came to power in 1959, the Castro brothers' goal has been the survival of their socialist dream. Adaptability has been the key to success, retreating at critical junctures without altering the regime's basic structure. Such measures often looked like signs of change because we wanted to see them as such. On close inspection, they were skillful maneuvers to get through a crisis.

A number of congressmen and business groups are now saying that Raúl is sending friendly signals to Washington like crazy. Perhaps. But it would be crazy for us to believe he would admit that a life spent building a repressive police state was just a mistake. Rather, we would be better off dealing with new leaders willing to take Raúl's retreats to the next level by guaranteeing human rights and civil liberties, respecting ordinary citizens' right to choose their leaders, and allowing a market economy to flourish.

Excellent article by Stephen Johnson about the attempts by the Castro regime to clean up its image and secure its complete control on power. The regimen has used this tactic on many occasions. The mainstream media should have recognized this latest tactic as the same one used before, if it were not so ignorant of Cuban history.

Look that it is a lose-lose proposition for the regime. If it allows tens of thousands escape from the island and look for refuge in the US, it will create a diplomatic confrontation and show the world the extreme discontent of the Cuban people with the regime. If the Castros’ regime, on the other hand, crack down on the dissatisfied Cuban citizens, their resistance will built up to a breaking point were rage overtake them and take matters on their own hands. I believe the end of the regime is closer that we think.

Engagement with Castro has Clearly Failed—Time to Try an Embargo
http://theamericano.com/2010/08/31/engagement-castro-failedtime-embargo/

By Humberto Fontova

Gosh, maybe if we were only nice to Castro?” goes the liberal mantra on Cuba.
In fact the U.S. elite’s fetish for “engagement” with Fidel Castro began before he was even in “office.”

“Me and my staff were all Fidelistas,” (Robert Reynolds, the CIA’s “Caribbean Desk’s specialist on the Cuban Revolution” from 1957-1960.)

“Everyone in the CIA and everyone at State was pro-Castro, except (Republican) ambassador Earl Smith.” (CIA operative in Santiago Cuba, Robert Weicha.)

Their advice was taken and January 7, 1959, thus marks a milestone in U.S. diplomatic history. Never before had the State Department extended diplomatic recognition to a Latin American government as quickly as they bestowed this benediction on Fidel Castro’s that day.

Nothing so frantically fast had been bestowed upon“U.S.-backed” Fulgencio Batista (note the obligatory prefix, used in every MSM and “scholarly” mention of him) seven years earlier. Batista had in fact been punished by a U.S. arms embargo and heavy diplomatic pressure to resign for a year. Batista was subsequently denied exile in the U.S. and not even allowed to set foot in the country that “backed” him.

In fact, during Castro’s first 16 months in power, the U.S. State Dept. made over 10 back channel diplomatic attempts to ascertain the cause of Castro’s tantrums and further “engage” him. Argentine President Arturo Frondizi was the conduit for many of these and recounts their utter futility in his memoirs.

Result: In July 1960 Castro’s KGB-trained security forces stormed into 5911 U.S. owned businesses in Cuba and stole them all at Soviet gunpoint – $2 billion were heisted from outraged U.S. businessmen and stockholders. Not that all Americans surrendered their legal and hard-earned property peacefully. Among some who resisted where Bobby Fuller whose family farm would contribute to a Soviet-style Kolkhoze and Howard Anderson whose profitable Jeep dealership was coveted by Castro’s henchmen. Both U.S. citizens were murdered by Castro and Che’s firing squads.

In July 1961, JFK’s special counsel Richard Goodwin met with Che Guevara in Uruguay and reported back to Kennedy: “Che says that Cuba wants an understanding with the U.S., the Cubans have no intention of making an alliance with the Soviets. So we should make it clear to Castro that we want to help Cuba.” (how Che managed a straight face during this conversation requires an article of its own)

Result: Soviet nuclear missiles locked and loaded in Cuba a year later–and pointed at Goodwin and Kennedy’s very homes.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford (under Kissinger’s influence) allowed foreign branches and subsidiaries of U.S. companies to trade freely with Cuba and persuaded the Organization of American States to lift its sanctions.

Result: Castro started his African invasion and tried to assassinate Ford. You read right. On March 19, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline “Cuban Link to Death Plot Probed.” Both Republican candidates of the day, President Ford and Ronald Reagan, were to be taken out during the Republican National Convention. The Emiliano Zapata Unit, a Bay area radical group linked to the Weather Underground, would make the hits.

Jimmy Carter, in a good-will gesture, lifted U.S. travel sanctions against Cuba and was poised to open full diplomatic relations with Castro.

Result: More thousands of Cuban troops spreading Soviet terror (and poison gas) in Africa, more internal repression, and hundreds of psychopaths, killers and perverts infiltrated onto the boats and shoved our way on the Mariel boatlift.

Ronald Reagan sent Alexander Haig to meet personally in Mexico City with Cuba’s “Vice President” Carlos Raphael Rodriguez to feel him out. Then he sent diplomatic wiz Gen. Vernon Walters to Havana for a meeting with the maximum leader himself.

Result: Cubans practically take over Grenada, El Salvador and Nicaragua. (but unlike the aforementioned Democrats, Reagan responded to Castro’s response–and with pretty dramatic results.)

Pres. Clinton tried playing nice again in the 90′s.

Result: Three U.S. citizens and one resident who flew humanitarian flights over Florida straits (Brothers to the Rescue) murdered in cold blood by Castro’s MIGS. Castro agent Ana Belen Montes moles her way to head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Cuba division, resulting in the deepest and most damaging penetration of the U.S. Defense Department by an enemy agent in modern history…

Now looks like we’re back to square one.

Juuuuuuuust maybe an embargo would work?

But “come-ON, Humberto!” you say. “Don’t we HAVE an embargo against Cuba?”

Not according to Websters dictionary, that defines “embargo” as “a government order imposing a trade barrier.” As a verb it’s defined as “to prevent commerce.”

But according to figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. transacted $710 million worth of business with Cuba in 2008, and has transacted more than $2 billion worth of business with Cuba in the last decade. Currently the U.S. is Cuba’s biggest food supplier and 5th biggest import partner. Furthermore, the U.S. has been Cuba’s biggest donor of humanitarian aid including medicine and medical supplies for decades. All this together with the almost $2 billion a year in remittances sent from the U.S. ranks our nation right between Red China (who did $1.5 billion with Castro last year) and Hugo’s Venezuela as a Castro business partner.

Humberto Fontova holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University and is the author of four books including, Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant and Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. For more information and for video clips of his Television and college speaking appearances please visit Humberto Fontova Official Site.

The embargo as political, diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba continued to deteriorate. The Eisenhower administration, after the Castroit regime nationalize the American oil refineries on June 28, and the nationalization of all US businesses and commercial properties in Cuba in July 15, 1960, imposed a partial trade embargo against Cuba on Oct. 19, 1960, prohibiting all U.S. exports except food, medicine and medical supplies and a few other things requiring special licenses. But Cuban imports -- including sugar -- were allowed. In 1961, President Kennedy cut the Cuban sugar quota to zero but it wasn't until 1962, after the Bay of Pigs invasion of the previous fall, which Kennedy announced a total embargo of Cuba would begin.

Although the embargo has remained tight, it has been modified through the years to include the export of U.S. food products and medicine to Cuba as well as the import of Cuban art and music to the United States

Cuba move is a victory for U.S. policy
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/22/cuba_move_is_a_victory_for_us_policy

By José R. Cárdenas

The Castro regime's stunning announcement that it is planning to lay off more than 500,000 state workers in the next six months, dropping fully one-tenth of the country's labor force into a barely existent "private sector" has sparked a flurry of commentary on just what the move portends for the captive island's future.

Does it mean Cuba going capitalist? Are they importing the China model? Who's really in charge, Fidel or brother Raul? And, of course, that hardy perennial, whatever the announcement means, the U.S. should immediately lift the embargo and restore full diplomatic relations with the Castro regime (see here, here, and here).

On the latter, it is a measure of the investment so many have made into their opposition to U.S. policy that even as they cite the abysmal state of the Cuban economy as the central factor in forcing the regime's decision, they cannot recognize the significant role played by U.S. economic pressure in bringing that situation about. The embargo has indeed been pocked with holes in recent years, but two critical escape hatches for the Cuban economy -- U.S. tourist travel to Cuba and the extension of trade credits -- remain beyond the regime's grasp, and thankfully so.

In short, the decision on layoffs was dictated by the bankruptcy of the Cuban economy and the lack of prospects it will improve anytime soon. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It thus defies logic to argue for any lessening of the pressure against a regime that has fought tooth and nail against any liberalizing reforms since the collapse of the USSR. Just as in the early 1990s, when the regime had its first go around with limited self-employment, as soon as the economy ticked up a few notches, the hammer came back down on those attempting to eke out an existence beyond state control.

Easing pressure now will only serve to halt in their tracks whatever steps the Castro brothers conjure next to try and reverse their declining fortunes. Policymakers need to remember that what drives this regime is survival, not appeasing the United States in the hopes of some policy concessions or allowing, out of some sort of beneficence, more freedoms for the Cuban people to better their lots.
So what do the layoffs mean, besides the fact that the regime is broke? The simple fact is we don't know, because we don't have any insight into the ruling clique's thoughts. It's probably safe to say they have no idea where they are going either.

What we can say with some degree of assurance is that the regime is taking a huge gamble in putting up to an eventual one million Cubans on the street to fend for themselves -- a gamble that could have serious repercussions for the regime's continued grip on power. That's because they are going to be extremely hard pressed to create any semblance of conditions where half a million or more Cuban workers are going to be able to find any employment on their own.

We need to remember that this regime consists of a dwindling cohort of dogmatic revolutionaries whose only accomplishment in life was to shoot their way into power fifty years ago and stay there. They no more understand market economics than they do Einstein's quantum theory of light.

Also, an important clarification for much of recent news reporting -- which has it that laid-off Cubans will be free to start "small businesses" -- is necessary. More accurately, they are micro-enterprises, an important distinction in order of magnitude. And the relatively few micro-enterprises that do exist -- a beautician here, a taxi driver there -- struggle to operate under such a mountain of regulations as to who they can hire, what and where they can sell, on how much they can earn (no one is allowed to become "too rich") as to make the whole effort practically fruitless. Many Cubans simply opt for the underground economy.

Be that as it may, the regime is going to have to figure out how it is going to deal with the social impact of a large group of idle Cuban workers unable to make a living honestly or dishonestly. It is a volatile mix that could lead to an upsurge in crime or other social agitation that could challenge the regime's internal security apparatus. Policy critics will likely argue just that point to justify a U.S. rapprochement with the Castros: that we need to help the regime achieve a "soft landing," as opposed to a descent into instability on the island.

But decisions on a soft versus hard landing in Cuba won't be made in Washington; they will be made in Havana. Those concerned about the latter ought to focus their lobbying efforts on the ruling clique there, not on policymakers in Washington. What is the appropriate role for Washington is to continue to close off all economic escape hatches for this obsolete regime and let it continue to face the consequences of its own misrule.

Cuban experts say “sanctions aren't working,” so they shall be lifted. The same experts say “sanctions are working,” so they shall be lifted. Which is which? They used to be sure, but now they changed their mind. So much for the “experts”

Very soon fear mongering news articles about the social impact of the embargo will appear, arguing that it is the primary cause of the regime instability that will be facing a human security crisis, leading to another Mariel boat lift.

Elections delay Cuba travel policy expansion
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/17/1828781/no-word-on-easing-travel.html


The Obama administration was expected to ease restrictions on travel to Cuba, but this may not happen until after elections.

BY LESLEY CLARK AND JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The Obama administration has remained mum on when -- or if -- it will unveil a long-expected expansion of U.S. travel to Cuba, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Thursday.

Peter Brennan, coordinator of Cuban affairs at the State Department, gave no indications at all on any changes in the travel policy when she and Mario Diaz-Balart met him Wednesday, Ros-Lehtinen said.

She said the South Florida Republicans requested the meeting because of the many news media reports that the administration plans to ease travel to Cuba.

Her understanding from Brennan was that there was ``no policy decisions that are ready to be announced,'' she said. ``But we know those changes are coming.''

State Department spokeswoman Virginia Staab did not comment on the news media reports but said the administration ``remains committed to promoting policies that advance the Cuban people's desire to freely determine their country's future, that enhance the independence of the Cuban people, and that further the [U.S.] national interests. Mr. Brennan did not say anything to the contrary to members of Congress.''

Ros-Lehtinen said she and Diaz-Balart told Brennan they oppose softening the travel restrictions because that would only help the Cuban government ``at a time when the regime is very weak.''

The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and other news media have reported the White House had decided to ease restrictions on educational and cultural travel to Cuba. Some reports predicted the changes would be unveiled during the recent congressional recess, but no announcement was made.

The Washington-based United States-Cuba Policy & Business Blog, which favors easing U.S. sanctions, reported Saturday that the White House had delayed the announcement until after the Nov. 2 elections.

South Florida Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kendrick Meek -- who is a Senate candidate -- and Sen. Bill Nelson pushed for the delay to avoid hurting their party's chances, the blog added.

Opposition from Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., also helped to delay the announcement, said a Democratic party operative. ``But it [the announcement] is still going to happen,'' he added.

Meanwhile, a bill that would lift all restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba remained in limbo, with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., telling reporters earlier this month that he's five short of the votes needed to send it to the full House.

Berman said he was looking for the five votes, but the Washington blog said he was ``mostly half-hearted and not very inspiring . . . He may be `committed' to the issue but only to a point.'''

While American can travel freely to the rest of the world without interference of the US government, Cubans cannot do so without the government permission, and even Cubans who live abroad need the government approval to return to their country. I cannot imagine a US citizen having to ask permission to Washington to travel or to return to US after living abroad.

Cuba move is a victory for U.S. policy
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/22/cuba_move_is_a_victory_for_us_policy

By José R. Cárdenas

The Castro regime's stunning announcement that it is planning to lay off more than 500,000 state workers in the next six months, dropping fully one-tenth of the country's labor force into a barely existent "private sector" has sparked a flurry of commentary on just what the move portends for the captive island's future.

Does it mean Cuba going capitalist? Are they importing the China model? Who's really in charge, Fidel or brother Raul? And, of course, that hardy perennial, whatever the announcement means, the U.S. should immediately lift the embargo and restore full diplomatic relations with the Castro regime (see here, here, and here).

On the latter, it is a measure of the investment so many have made into their opposition to U.S. policy that even as they cite the abysmal state of the Cuban economy as the central factor in forcing the regime's decision, they cannot recognize the significant role played by U.S. economic pressure in bringing that situation about. The embargo has indeed been pocked with holes in recent years, but two critical escape hatches for the Cuban economy -- U.S. tourist travel to Cuba and the extension of trade credits -- remain beyond the regime's grasp, and thankfully so.

In short, the decision on layoffs was dictated by the bankruptcy of the Cuban economy and the lack of prospects it will improve anytime soon. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It thus defies logic to argue for any lessening of the pressure against a regime that has fought tooth and nail against any liberalizing reforms since the collapse of the USSR. Just as in the early 1990s, when the regime had its first go around with limited self-employment, as soon as the economy ticked up a few notches, the hammer came back down on those attempting to eke out an existence beyond state control.

Easing pressure now will only serve to halt in their tracks whatever steps the Castro brothers conjure next to try and reverse their declining fortunes. Policymakers need to remember that what drives this regime is survival, not appeasing the United States in the hopes of some policy concessions or allowing, out of some sort of beneficence, more freedoms for the Cuban people to better their lots.

So what do the layoffs mean, besides the fact that the regime is broke? The simple fact is we don't know, because we don't have any insight into the ruling clique's thoughts. It's probably safe to say they have no idea where they are going either.

What we can say with some degree of assurance is that the regime is taking a huge gamble in putting up to an eventual one million Cubans on the street to fend for themselves -- a gamble that could have serious repercussions for the regime's continued grip on power. That's because they are going to be extremely hard pressed to create any semblance of conditions where half a million or more Cuban workers are going to be able to find any employment on their own.

We need to remember that this regime consists of a dwindling cohort of dogmatic revolutionaries whose only accomplishment in life was to shoot their way into power fifty years ago and stay there. They no more understand market economics than they do Einstein's quantum theory of light.

Also, an important clarification for much of recent news reporting -- which has it that laid-off Cubans will be free to start "small businesses" -- is necessary. More accurately, they are micro-enterprises, an important distinction in order of magnitude. And the relatively few micro-enterprises that do exist -- a beautician here, a taxi driver there -- struggle to operate under such a mountain of regulations as to who they can hire, what and where they can sell, on how much they can earn (no one is allowed to become "too rich") as to make the whole effort practically fruitless. Many Cubans simply opt for the underground economy.

Be that as it may, the regime is going to have to figure out how it is going to deal with the social impact of a large group of idle Cuban workers unable to make a living honestly or dishonestly. It is a volatile mix that could lead to an upsurge in crime or other social agitation that could challenge the regime's internal security apparatus. Policy critics will likely argue just that point to justify a U.S. rapprochement with the Castros: that we need to help the regime achieve a "soft landing," as opposed to a descent into instability on the island.

But decisions on a soft versus hard landing in Cuba won't be made in Washington; they will be made in Havana. Those concerned about the latter ought to focus their lobbying efforts on the ruling clique there, not on policymakers in Washington. What is the appropriate role for Washington is to continue to close off all economic escape hatches for this obsolete regime and let it continue to face the consequences of its own misrule.

Cuban experts say “sanctions aren't working,” so they shall be lifted. The same experts say “sanctions are working,” so they shall be lifted. Which is which? They used to be sure, but now they changed their mind. So much for the “experts”

Very soon fear mongering news articles about the social impact of the embargo will appear, arguing that it is the primary cause of the regime instability that will be facing a human security crisis, leading to another Mariel boat lift.

According to the National Statistics Office (ONE), the U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba were $ 675 million in 2009, making the U.S. the fifth commercial partner of the island, after Venezuela, China, Spain and Canada in that order. The most recent report from the Center for North American Studies at the Texas University A&M concluded that U.S. exports to Cuba in 2009 involved a commercial activity of $600 million. The difference of the data with the ONE is due to insurance and freight costs. After reaching a peak of $ 711 million in 2008, the Cuban purchases to the U.S. in 2009 fell by 26 percent, according to the report of the ONE.

Castro’s Gift
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/castros-gift/87102/

Cubans Fleeing To America Threaten Him Not Us
Editorial of The New York Sun | October 4, 2010

“If U.S. leaders were to pause and reflect as Fidel Castro has, they, too, would recognize that times have changed. Cuba is no longer the security threat that it was during the Cold War; it’s just another failed communist state. The biggest threat now is the potential for waves of economically desperate refugees.”

The quote above is from an editorial in the September 27 number of USA Today calling for an end to the embargo of Cuba. We first read it in a blog of the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. USA Today’s editorial catches our attention because we’ve rarely seen a quote that so succinctly illuminates one of the important underlying differences of opinion on this issue. One side — let’s call it the USA Today view — sees the “biggest threat” we’re now facing from Cuba as the “potential for waves of economically desperate refugees.” The other side — let’s call it the New York Sun view — sees the “potential for waves of economically desperate refugees” as no threat whatsoever to America. The refugees’ departure is a threat only to Cuba. By our lights, the exodus of Cubans to America has been a great boon to our country. An ironist could call it “Castro’s Gift.”

Irony aside, who among the liberal intelligentsia is prepared to stand up and say that the great influx to America of Cubans fleeing communism has been a bad thing for America and not a blessing for our country? It has handed up senators and corporate chiefs, athletes and artists and hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who have contributed to the growth of Florida and so many other communities that have been lucky enough to get them. A fact sheet issued by the Pew Hispanic Center reckons that in 2004 there were 1.4 million Cubans in America, of whom 912,000 were foreign born. On average Cuban Americans have been enormously successful in America, attaining incomes higher on average than other Hispanic Americans and in many cases than the average of all Americans.

It may well be that there are good reasons for lifting the embargo of Cuba. Certainly one of its animating concerns, articulated by President Kennedy, was the danger of the alliance between Mr. Castro and “Sino-Soviet communism.” The Wall Street Journal, famous voice for free minds and free markets, concluded some years ago that ending the embargo would be a good step, though even the Journal would not, if we understand it, be prepared to lift the embargo without any conditionality. In any event, at no time can we recall reading in the Journal of a fear of desperate Cubans — or any others — hungering to take part, as have so many other desperate persons from so many other countries, of our freedoms. Policies — and editorials — based on such fears smack of xenophobia.

For our part, we are against lifting the embargo of Cuba, which is what Mr. Castro wants as a farewell salute. To judge by the decision of Congressman Howard Berman to delay a hearing on the issue, Congress isn’t prepared to give him a salute. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican member in the House foeign affairs committee, has the more realistic — and idealistic — view. We reject the notion that the embargo has been, as USA Today put it, an “utter failure.” There were good reasons for bringing it in. They were articulated by President Kennedy in his 1962 proclamation. Kennedy’s reference was primarily to Castro’s alignment with “Sino-Soviet Communism.” We do believe it has hampered Castro’s ability to export his ideology, though, even with the Soviet Union now dismantled, the mischief the Cuban regime is intent on perpetrating is evident in, among other places, Venezuela. Julia Sweig has a piece in the Times today fretting that the Europeans will get in to Cuban markets ahead of us. But by our lights the logical time to lift the embargo would be after the Castro brothers are in the custody of a free Cuban government, a process of lustration has begun to deal with the communists’ collaborators, and an effort is underway to address the claims of those whose property was taken and whose lives were ruined during by the communist tyranny. In the meantime we’d be happy to welcome as many Cubans as America can get.

Some newspapers, like The New York Sun, get it right. The Sun is one of the few bright spot in a landscape dominated by the liberal media darkness.

Certainly the Cuban refugees have been a blessing in disguise for the US. As Castro systematically destroyed the framework of the Cuban economy, many Cubans manage to flee to the US shores and started to realize their dreams of a better future for their families. The American economy benefitted from their hard work, just like it has benefitted from the arrival of previous immigrant groups.