Lift the Cuba Embargo?

The bill introduced in the Senate would allow Americans to visit the island freely. This first step toward lifting the Cuba embargo has brought up to date the interest in the subject.

The following excellent article makes solid points against lifting the embargo without meaningful changes in Cuba. The author lays out good reasons why lifting the embargo will benefit the Cuban dictatorship, no the Cuban people.


Lift the Cuba Embargo?
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/abril09/09_O_3.html

By Humberto (Bert) Corzo*
Miércoles, 8 de Abril de 2009

“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro (Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)

The Washington Post surprising editorial endorses the idea of keeping the embargo until the regime takes steps toward democracy.


Coddling Cuba

Why do the members of Congress rushing to befriend the Castros ignore the island's pro-democracy movement?

Editorial, The Washoington Post
Thursday, April 9, 2009; Page A16

HALF A DOZEN members of the Congressional Black Caucus spent hours huddling with Fidel and Raúl Castro in Havana this week as part of a swelling campaign to normalize relations with Cuba. "It is time to open dialogue and discussion," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) told a news conference in Washington after their return. "Cubans do want dialogue. They do want talks." Funny, then, that in five days on the island the Congress members found no time for dialogue with Afro-Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040803769.html?sub=AR

Cita:

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“Why do the members of Congress rushing to befriend the Castros ignore the island's pro-democracy movement?”

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Because they have no interest in democracy. Neither there nor here.

Liberal Democrats seem to be abandoning human rights and democracy in many places. The rush for Cuban trade and family reunion while worthy and popular cannot mask the ugliness of the regime they are embracing. Last March, it was Secretary Clinton who abandoned China's dissidents and liberals, taking human rights off the table.

Maria Werlau has an excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal in regards to US embargo of the Cuban dictatorship. Ms. Werlau is saying that only actions that will benefit all Cubans, not just the few with relatives, are good in the end.

Toward a New Cuba Policy
Neither engagement nor isolation have worked
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958449490312295.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By MARIA WERLAU
APRIL 13, 2009, 2:21 P.M. ET

The ascendancy of Raúl Castro to Cuba's presidency has fueled expectations of reform in the 50-year-old dictatorship. Next week, President Barack Obama will be pressed on the issue at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad-Tobago.

It is a good time to acknowledge that neither the U.S. embargo nor engagement by the rest of the world have helped Cubans attain their rights. Sanctions, though ethically justified, can't work unilaterally; treating Cuba as a normal partner is immoral and counterproductive. A new unified approach is needed.

Just as the oppressed people of South Africa, Chile, and other tyrannies received international support, finding an effective approach to the Cuba problem is a shared duty. It is also in everyone's interest. A democratic, stable and prosperous Cuba would cease threatening the security of the region, slow the flow of Cuban refugees and provide better trade and business opportunities.

I bet that Obama does not back down on the trade embargo. He has thrown something out there, now it's up to Cuba to respond in kind, like release those political prisoners and let them stay in Cuba, unharmed. Raúl may release one or two, not all of them. The trade embargo will remain in place.

Keep the Embargo
http://ksky.townhall.com/columnists/PeterBrookes/2009/04/15/keep_the_embargo,_o

By Peter Brookes
townhall.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

In another outreach to roguish regimes, the Obama administration on Monday announced the easing of some restrictions on Cuba.

Team Bam hopes that a new face in the White House will heal old wounds. Fat chance.

Sure, it's fine to allow separated families to see each other more than once every three years -- even though Cubanos aren't allowed to visit America.

And permitting gifts to Cuban relatives could ease unnecessary poverty -- even though the regime will siphon off an estimated 20 percent of the money sent there.

In the end, though, it's still Fidel Castro and his brother Raul who'll decide whether there'll be a thaw in ties with the United States -- or not.

I bet that Obama does not back down on the trade embargo. He has thrown something out there, now it's up to Cuba to respond in kind, like release those political prisoners and let them stay in Cuba, unharmed. Raúl may release one or two, not all of them. The trade embargo will remain in place.

Obama: Be Patient on Cuba
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/carlos_alberto_montaner/2009/04/the_current_discussion_the_us.html

By Carlos Alberto Montaner*
The Washington Post
Madrid, Spain, April 15, 2009

The Current Discussion: The U.S. will lift travel restrictions on Cuba, but leave the larger trade embargo in place. Is that a smart move? Does it go far enough? Too far?

President Obama has done well by eliminating the restrictions on Cuban-Americans' travel to the island and on the remittances they can send. It is an intelligent political gesture that indicates that Washington would look with interest on a response from the Cuban government that contained some measure of aperture.

Those restrictions had been imposed upon the Cuban dictatorship in 2004 after the repressive spasm of spring 2003, when 75 peaceful dissidents were imprisoned and sentenced to long terms (up to 28 years) for crimes such as lending forbidden books, writing accounts about the Cuban reality in foreign newspapers, and requesting a referendum to ascertain the political preferences of society.

In reality, the purpose of those punishments was to amass a large group of hostages who could be traded for five Cuban spies caught by the FBI while they acted on American soil and sentenced to prison in U.S. courtrooms.

Should President Obama now eliminate the rest of the commercial restrictions imposed upon U.S. society in its relations with Cuba? The so-called "embargo" today is limited to two fundamental aspects: the access to credit, and Americans' practical inability to travel to Cuba, given that the Treasury Department forbids them to spend money in that "enemy territory."

Obviously, those two aspects of the embargo keep the Cuban government from gaining access to a considerable amount of resources that would help it to consolidate its position. On the other hand, the United States is Cuba's principal supplier of food, selling the island more than $700 million a year in agricultural products. It is also the island's main source of humanitarian aid, all of it from private sources, and is the only country in the world that has not imposed a visa embargo on the island. While the other world nations give pitifully few visas to the Cubans, the United States grants them 20,000 visas per year, while a more-or-less similar number of Cubans arrive illegally in the U.S. by sea or through various borders and manage to legitimize their situation after about a year of living in the country.

That means that, when it comes to Cuba, no other country in the world may give lessons in humanity to the United States. It also means that the prudent thing for the Obama administration to do now is to sit back patiently to see how things develop in Cuba, before determining what Washington should do.

Within the power structure in Cuba, there are forces that favor profound changes in the political and economic fields. That explains the recent ouster of none less than Carlos Lage, the nation's top vice president; Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister; and Fernando Remírez de Estenoz, the Communist Party's official in charge of international relations.

Practically everyone in Cuban society is aware that they are in an "end of regime" stage. Fidel Castro is a very ill 82-year-old man. His younger brother is 77 and known to be in less-than-fine health. Although they have made an effort, the Castro brothers have not managed to organize the transfer of authority, and we know that very few people still think that the system copied from the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 70s is a permanent way to organize the state and society. That system is condemned to disappear in Cuba, as it has disappeared everywhere else.

That is why President Obama should not, at this moment, lift the embargo. He would be sending the worst possible message to the Cuban reformers. He would be saying to them: "It makes no difference if the dictatorship doesn't change. The free world accepts the regime just as it is, without the need for a change of system." Exactly the type of message the small Stalinist minority needs to tell the Cubans: "See how right we were? There is nothing to change."

When would it be worthwhile for President Obama to make a new gesture?

First, after Fidel, the principal obstacle to the country's natural political evolution, disappears. Second, maybe after the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, to be held in late 2009, so long as there are clear signs that the reformers have been heard. Washington should not take another step until it sees what happens in Cuba after those two episodes. To do so would be a costly imprudence for the Cubans.

It's up to Obama if we wants to make deals with him. However, Castro is not an elected leader and therefore does not legitimately represent the Cuban people. The 1940 constitution that both Batista and he violated makes that clear enough.

Castro Feeds on Cubans’ U.S. Cash Support as Obama Eases Limits

By Jerry Hart

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Cuban state pension that Juan Gonzalez-Corzo receives since he retired from a government job in 2003 makes life easier after more than 50 years of work.

So does the cash that comes regularly by wire from his son in West New York, New Jersey.

It’s part of an estimated $1.1 billion sent to Cubans last year by relatives and friends around the world, an amount equal to about 1.8 percent of the communist country’s 2007 gross domestic product.
“Most of the remittances end up used for consumption,” said Gonzalez-Corzo’s son Mario, 39, a Cuban-born assistant economics professor at Lehman College in New York City who has studied remittances and provided the estimates. “It helps.”

The money also helps the island’s $58 billion economy, as the Cuban government charges fees that take about 20 percent of exchange-wired dollars, Gonzalez-Corzo said.

That troubles U.S. politicians who say the transfers support the totalitarian state created by Fidel Castro in 1959 and now run by his brother Raul. President Barack Obama this week eased restrictions that had limited money transfers by Cuban-Americans, most of whom live in southern Florida.

“The Castro government will confiscate a high percentage of those dollars, further propping up a regime that suppresses human rights,” said Representative Kendrick B. Meek, a Democrat who represents parts of Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

About 735,000 people around the world -- more than half from the U.S. -- sent an average of $150 to friends or relatives in Cuba last year, according to a study by Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research organization. The cash sent in 2007 was equal to 42 percent of the island’s tourism income and 4.7 times more than its sugar exports, Gonzalez-Corzo said.

Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aoNduw5GDRCY&refer=home

The article highlights the ingenious nature of the remittance business which is just as admirable as any organized crime scheme. People naturally want to help their families. The regime exploits this for its own benefit to the tune of billions of dollars annually.

The majority of those people who send money to Cuba send significantly less than what they were legally allowed to until the other day. It's because of this and the slow economy that I don't expect there to a sudden increase of new remittances to the island.

Call: Don't expect big changes soon on U.S. Cuba policy

http://eurasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/17/call_dont_expect_big_changes_soon_on_us_cuba_policy

By Eurasia Group analyst Heather Berkman

Does the recent White House announcement on relaxation of U.S. policy toward Cuba signal bigger things to come? Probably. But while these first steps were easy to take, high political hurdles lie ahead -- and substantial change in U.S.-Cuban relations is not yet on the horizon.

These moves represent real change. The Obama administration announced it would lift restrictions on remittances, allow Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island, and ease telecommunications regulations. The announcement wasn't surprising, given Obama's campaign trail rhetoric, and it was probably timed to establish a cooperative tone leading up to this week's Summit of the Americas.

But the White House is also testing the political waters for further changes to its Cuba policy and will probably wait to see if Congress takes the lead on removing the travel ban for all Americans. Obama has the power to sidestep lawmakers by issuing executive orders that don't require congressional approval that encourage person-to-person communications and the exchange of information with the island. But there are bills pending in the Senate (the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act) and the House of Representatives that would abolish the travel ban altogether. The White House knows these laws might well pass, though they will face a long road through committees and procedural votes. Congressional action would provide Obama with useful political cover.

Cuban leaders would welcome a lifting of the universal travel ban, since it would provide a huge boost for the country's tourism industry. But they also know there's an element of White House strategy at work here. The changes to telecommunications policy will allow U.S. companies to work with Cuban carriers to establish fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facilities linking the two countries, provide roaming services, and offer satellite radio and television service. Cuba's low level of telephone usage (11 percent of the population, according to one estimate) and broadband subscription reveal huge growth potential in telecommunications.

This leaves the Cuban government with an uncomfortable choice: Open Cuba as never before to ideas and information from the United States, or keep the door closed and accept greater responsibility for Cuba's international isolation. With Obama administration rhetoric aimed at promoting democracy on the island -- ostensibly at the expense of the Castro regime -- the Cuban government will remain cautious toward increased and unrestricted communication with the United States.

Despite these (significant) first steps, outright repeal of the 47-year-old economic embargo is not yet on the horizon. Domestic political considerations will continue to weigh heavily on congressional action, despite changes in Cuban-American demographics and evolving political attitudes among Cuban-American communities. A poll conducted in December 2008 by FIU-Brookings suggests that a small majority (55 percent) of Cuban-Americans now favor ending the embargo. But congressional action is required to rescind the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 (known as Helms-Burton) that wrote the embargo into law, and the Obama administration will have to think long and hard about how much political capital it wants to spend on a broader diplomatic opening to Cuba.

Given other foreign-policy and domestic priorities, it won't be an easy choice. The Castro regime could make the process easier with changes that address criticism of its human rights record and authoritarian governance. Raul Castro, who officially replaced his brother as president in early 2008, has enacted limited economic reforms, but Fidel continues to cast a very long shadow. Until both Castros leave the scene, government tolerance for genuine democratic reform on the island will remain limited.

The good news is that Fidel says Havana is ready for talks with Washington. The bad news: the aging revolutionary probably remains more interested in monologue than dialogue.

This is why Obama's election wasn’t good to the cause of Cuban freedom. He could say until he's blue in the face that he's going to keep the embargo but congress will keep eroding it and he'll have his "political cover".

Cita:

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The Castro regime could make the process easier with changes that address criticism of its human rights record and authoritarian governance.

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How is this any different than what we Cuban exiles have been saying all along, that the power to lift the embargo lies in Havana.

Cita:

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Until both Castros leave the scene, government tolerance for genuine democratic reform on the island will remain limited.

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I agree with the author's sentiment on this point.

Cita:

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The good news is that Fidel says Havana is ready for talks with Washington. The bad news: the aging revolutionary probably remains more interested in monologue than dialogue.

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Even the silver-tongued Obama can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Americas Summit: Missed Opportunity

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124018390302433097.html

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

If President Barack Obama's goal at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend was to be better liked by the region's dictators and left-wing populists than his predecessor George W. Bush, the White House can chalk up a win.

If, on the other hand, the commander in chief sought to advance American ideals, things didn't go well. As the mainstream press reported, Mr. Obama seemed well received. But the freest country in the region took a beating from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and Nicaragua's Danny Ortega.

Ever since Bill Clinton organized the first Summit of the Americas in 1994 in Miami, this regional gathering has been in decline. It seemed to hit its nadir in 2005 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, when President Nestór Kirchner allowed Mr. Chávez and his revolutionary allies from around the region to hold a massive, American-flag burning hate-fest in a nearby stadium with the goal of humiliating Mr. Bush. This year things got even worse with the region's bullies hogging the limelight and Mr. Obama passing up a priceless opportunity to defend freedom.

Mr. Obama had to know that the meeting is used by the region's politicians to rally the base back home by showing that they can put Uncle Sam in his place. Realizing this, the American president might have arrived at the Port of Spain prepared to return their volley. They have, after all, tolerated and even encouraged for decades one of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century. In recent years, that repression has spread from Cuba to Venezuela, and today millions of Latin Americans live under tyranny. As the leader of the free world, Mr. Obama had the duty to speak out for these voiceless souls. In this he failed.

The subject of Cuba was a softball that the American president could have hit out of the park. He knew well in advance that his counterparts would pressure him to end the U.S. embargo. He even prepared for that fact a few days ahead of the summit by unconditionally lifting U.S. restrictions on travel and remittances to the island, and offering to allow U.S. telecom companies to bring technology to the backward island.

The Americas in the News

Think that helped cast the U.S. in a better light in the region? Fat chance. Raúl Castro responded on Friday from Venezuela with a long diatribe against the Yankee oppressor and a cool offer to negotiate on "equal" terms. In case you don't speak Cuban, I'll translate: The Castro brothers want credit from U.S. banks because they have defaulted on the rest of the world, and no one will lend to them anymore. They also want foreign aid from the World Bank.

Anyone who thinks that Raúl is ruminating over free elections is dreaming. Nevertheless, the Cuba suggestion to put "everything" on the table became the "news" of the summit. And while it is true that Mr. Obama mentioned political prisoners in his list of items that U.S. wants to negotiate, he could have done much more. Indeed, he could have called Raúl's bluff by putting the spotlight on the prisoners of conscience, by naming names. He could have talked about men like Afro-Cuban pacifist Oscar Elias Biscet, who has written eloquently about his admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., and today sits in jail for the crime of dissent.

The first black U.S. president could have named hundreds of others being held in inhumane conditions by the white dictator. He could have also asked Brazil's President Lula da Silva, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet and Mexico's Felipe Calderón where they stand on human rights for all Cubans. Imagine if Mr. Obama asked for a show of hands to find out who believes Cubans are less deserving of freedom than, say, the black majority in South Africa under apartheid or Chileans during the Pinochet dictatorship. Then again, that would be no way to win a popularity contest or to ingratiate yourself with American supporters who are lining up to do business in Cuba.

Instead the U.S. president simply floated down the summit river passively bouncing off whatever obstacles he encountered. The Chávez "gift" of the 1971 leftist revolutionary handbook "Open Veins of Latin America" followed by a suggestion of renewing ambassadorial relations was an insult to the American people. Granted, giving the Venezuelan attention would have been counterproductive. But Mr. Obama ought to have complained loudly about that country's aggression. It has supported Colombian terrorists, drug trafficking and Iran's nuclear ambitions. As former CIA director Michael Hayden told Fox News Sunday, "the behavior of President Chávez over the past years has been downright horrendous -- both internationally and with regard to what he's done internally inside Venezuela."

Too bad Mr. Obama didn't have a copy of the late 1990s bestseller "The Perfect Latin American Idiot" as a gift for Mr. Chávez. Another way Mr. Obama could have neutralized the left would have been to announce a White House push for ratification of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. That didn't happen either. He only promised to talk some more, a strategy that will offend no one and accomplish nothing. It is a strategy that sums up, to date, Mr. Obama's foreign policy for the region.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

A solid critique of the unprincipled nature of Obama's foreign policy. He din’t defend democratic principles nor he complain about Chávez support of Colombian terrorists.

She hinted, but didn't mention directly how Obama brushed off Venezuela's threat to the US by saying they had a smaller military than ours. This remark should have Americans concerned about our security under this Administration of ours.
Instead of truly defending democratic principles, all he does is pal around with the most horrid examples of anti-democratic, anti-US leaders in a gutless hemisphere.

Obama must not forget Cuba still needs fixing
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Obama+must+forget+Cuba+still+needs+fixing/1518217/story.html

By Nigel Hannaford, Calgary Herald

If the Americans are going to open things up with Cuba--as U.S. President Barack Obama has hinted he may--the Cuban people had better get something out of it. That is, if a crisis is too good a thing to waste, so is 50 years of U. S. censure for a regime that has systematically violated the property and human rights of its own people.

It has also, let us not forget, been a bitterly hostile entity 90 miles off the Florida coast. At one time, it offered itself as a forward base for Soviet strategic nuclear weapons and as a Soviet proxy for adventuring in the Third World. Now, the regime's sins of commission against its North American neighbors have faded into irrelevancy with the end of the Cold War: It has little capacity to hurt us now. But, the good opinion of the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau notwithstanding, these were bad people.

Of significance today, is that there's no evidence the regime has changed since a failing Fidel Castro relinquished its reins to his brother Raul. Not only does the same melancholy socialism govern the Cuban economy now that Fidel established 50 years ago, it's still a police state.

Of course, Castro apologists blame the island's miserable economy on 50 years of the American trade boycott. They do so with tongue in cheek, however: Was not communism the way of the future, whose evolution would cause capitalism to crumble?

No doubt many a Cuban has wryly observed that what crumbled was Cuban communism, for lack of access to a capitalist market.

They would, however, have done so discreetly. Or at least, they would if they didn't want any trouble.

Always an oppressive government, it never took much to get locked up and Cuban adoption last year of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights has led to no second spring for those the state unjustly imprisoned.

American Spectator recently profiled a still-jailed dissident whose fate shows how horribly thin-skinned the regime is, not just about liberal-democratic agitation but something as non-ideological as abortion.

"Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is a leading figure in Cuba's democracy movement . . . [but] has been confined to a prison cell for all but 36 days since 1999. He first drew the ire of the communist regime by exposing its use of infanticide and forced abortion."

Cuba does indeed have an exceptionally high abortion rate: The pro-life Johnston Archive, quoting UN sources, suggests it as much as one abortion for every two live births. Certainly, the number of live births has gone down from 166,000 in 1986, to around 113,000 in 2006. Anyway, in 1999 by way of protest, Biscet hung a Cuban flag upside down and was jailed for three years for "disrespecting patriotic symbols."

The timing of his release was unfortunate, in that it coincided with the so-called "Black Spring" crackdown on dissent. He had been out for all of a month, when he was rearrested with 90 other pro-democracy journalists and activists, and is now serving a 25-year sentence for "counter-revolutionary activities." According to American Spectator, he is held in a tiny, windowless cell, and denied most family visits as well as essential medicine and food. (The magazine reports he suffers from a variety of chronic ailments and is losing his eyesight.) But, he apparently still manages to write to supporters and won the notice of former president George W. Bush, who awarded him the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Along with 20 others arrested at the same time, Biscet remains in jail.

His story is, alas, typical.

The U.S. has little to gain from maintaining its embargo on Cuba.

But Cuba has much to gain from it being lifted. That means now is the right moment to do something for Biscet, other Cubans who languish in Castro's squalid jails and the people themselves for whom the whole country is a prison.

Obama would like to further distance himself from previous administrations by initiating a symbolic rapprochement with America's old enemies, and declared himself much encouraged by Raul Castro's willingness to enter into discussions with Washington. He has talked the talk, saying Castro should release political prisoners and embrace democratic freedoms.

Having started well however, he will be judged on how he walks the walk: If enthusiasm for a symbolic foreign policy success he needs to bolster his reputation in an area of perceived weakness, leads to settling for anything the Castros offer, he will do a huge disservice to the regime's victims. And, the rest of the world would wonder why the U. S. invests so much effort so far from home to promote liberty, but shrinks from doing far less with more prospect of success, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com

Bailing Out The Castro Regime?
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/21/communist-cuba-castro-opinions-contributors-bailout.html

Nestor Carbonell , 04.21.09, 12:30 PM EDT

Not unless Communist Cuba makes concrete democratic changes.

After 50 years of almost continuous antagonism between the U.S. and the Castro-Communist regime, there is a swelling desire in the U.S. and abroad to overcome this predicament through constructive engagement. Since this would not be the first time that engagement has been pursued, let us review the outcome of prior U.S. quests for a rapprochement with this regime, a regime that was expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962 because it had established a Marxist-Leninist tyranny declared incompatible with the inter-American system, had aligned itself with the Soviet bloc and had suppressed all human rights.

Despite a litany of crimes, interventions in the internal affairs of more than a dozen of Latin American countries, and threats to the peace and security of the hemisphere that culminated in the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy tried to seek an accommodation with Castro. On Sept. 23, 1963, U.S. Ambassador William H. Attwood secretly commenced negotiations in New York with the Cuban ambassador to the U.N., Carlos Lechuga.

A few days prior to Kennedy's assassination, a follow-up meeting was arranged with Castro in Havana. Negotiations were dropped almost simultaneously because several tons of war equipment that were shipped from Cuba to Venezuela's Marxist "Armed Forces of National Liberation" were uncovered by the local authorities.

In March 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced that the U.S. was "ready to move in a new direction," which could lead to normalizing relations with Cuba and the lifting of the then 14-year-old trade embargo. After almost one year of intense negotiations between Assistant Secretary of State William Rogers and Castro representatives, the U. S. called them off when 15,000 Cuban troops landed in Angola.

In March 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued a presidential directive, stating: "I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba." Interest Section offices were established in Havana and Washington, and a large number of Cuban political prisoners were released. Hopes for normalization were quashed when the Castro regime deployed troops to Ethiopia and, subsequently, unleashed the Mariel boatlift, which brought 125,000 refugees to Florida, including over 2,700 criminals and misfits.

President Reagan tried to engage the Castro regime. In November 1981, Secretary of State Alexander Haig met in Mexico with Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and in March 1982, General Vernon Walter spoke with Castro in Havana. Negotiations stalled when Castro rejected U.S. trade and other concessions in exchange for ending Cuban military shipments to Central American guerrillas.

With the Cold War over, President Bill Clinton actively pursued constructive engagement with the Castro regime. He liberalized U.S.-Cuban remittances and travel to the island (as currently under way), and significantly expanded people-to-people exchanges. Castro foiled this quest for a rapprochement with a new rafter crisis in 1994 and when two Cuban MIG jet fighters shot down two unarmed civilian planes of "Brothers to the Rescue," which were flying over international waters in 1996 on a humanitarian mission.

The above examples of frustrated attempts to normalize relations with Communist Cuba reflect a pattern of deception on the part of Castro and his politburo--eager to obtain U.S. concessions without liberalizing the regime, feigning a desire to settle differences with the U.S., yet always scuttling negotiations and resuming their unyielding and contagious anti-Yankee defiance.

Will this pattern change under the dual or solo leadership of Raul Castro--the ruthless party hierarch largely responsible for building the totalitarian military apparatus in Cuba? He has made conciliatory overtures to the U.S., yet he continues to harbor terrorists and support the authoritarian and expansionist design of his chief subsidizer, Hugo Chavez, with over 40,000 Cuban agents, including military and intelligence officers and indoctrinators, based in Venezuela.

Raul Castro has promised structural changes and open debate, but there are no signs of glasnost or perestroika in Cuba; no Chinese-type opening of the inefficient state-controlled economy; no dismantling of the apartheid system, which effectively bars the local population from entering tourist enclaves. A handful of political prisoners have been conditionally released, but more than 300 remain in prison under brutal conditions. Raul Castro has proposed swapping some of them for the five Cuban spies held in the U.S.

Relying primarily on military comrades from the Old Guard, the regime is gearing up to quell increasing discontent and demands for reforms. The dissidents, now more numerous and vocal than in the past, are constantly being harassed, and several high-level government officials, accused of deviationism and disloyalty, were recently purged and forced to repent, Stalin-style.

Notwithstanding these developments, there are those in the U.S. who contend that change in Cuba can be achieved without prodding, through soft diplomacy. They urge Washington to stop, rather that sharpen and intensify, direct support to the dissident movement on the island. And yet it was strong and sustained support to similar movements that helped bring about the democratic transition in Poland and the rest of the Soviet-bloc countries. Others recommend that the U.S. unconditionally lift the embargo on Cuba and give up its levers. That, in essence, is what the European Union did by dropping its sanctions in the vain hope that human rights would improve on the island.
Assuming that Washington will pursue a quid pro quo engagement with the Castro regime, a guarded approach is called for. The key objective from the U.S. side should be to pave the way for democracy in Cuba with tangible steps leading to free elections, and not to prop up the failed and bankrupt tyranny.

It is a tyranny that is striving to perpetuate itself through several means. First, by shoring up its standing with high-level negotiations in Washington and readmission to regional forums. Second, by harnessing plenty of dollars from herded American tourists to supplement Chavez's shrinking petro-subsidies. Third, by obtaining U.S.-backed credit lines along with access to international banks and monetary funds to facilitate the renegotiation or cancellation of its huge external debt of close to $30 billion, as recently reported by the Paris Club of creditors.

That is the bailout that the Castro regime is seeking--a bailout that, without concrete and irreversible measures for a democratic transition in Cuba, the U. S. must not support.

Néstor Carbonell is an international public affairs consultant; author of And The Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba, William Morrow, 1989; and Luces y Sombras de Cuba, Ediciones Universal, 2008.

Great column by Néstor Carbonell in Forbes that tells the 100% truth about the current situation in Cuba.

Néstor Carbonell time-line provide important historical information that all Americans should know.

Cuba's "bailout", by obtaining US-backed credit lines as well as the external debt of over $60 billion, will guarantee the continuation of the Castros regime, delaying instead of accelerating a transition to democracy.

Another excellent point by point editorial at Foreign Policy by Nestor Carbonell on the embargo.

Think Again: Engaging Cuba
Foreign Policy: Think Again: Engaging Cuba

By Nestor Carbonell
Posted April 2009

Why dealing with the Castro regime is a fool's errand.

“It’s Time for the U.S. to Reach out and Engage the Castro Regime.”

Watch out!Before embarking on any attempt at rapprochement with the Castro regime, U.S. President Barack Obama would be wise to review his predecessors' experiences.

Gerald Ford's negotiations with Fidel Castro's representatives had to be called off when 15,000 Cuban troops landed in Angola. Jimmy Carter's efforts led to the opening of interest sections in Havana and Washington, but hopes for normalization were quashed when the Castro regime deployed troops to Ethiopia and subsequently unleashed the Mariel boatlift, which brought 125,000 refugees to Florida, including more than 2,700 convicted criminals and misfits. Several foreign-policy experts called the boatlift an act of migratory aggression.

With the Cold War over, President Bill Clinton tried anew to improve U.S. relations with Cuba, fostering people-to-people contacts. These efforts were foiled by a crisis of refugee rafters in 1994 and again in 1996 when Cuban jet fighters shot down two unarmed planes flying over international waters on a humanitarian mission.

The circumstances have changed since then, but the Cuban regime (now under the dual leadership of the Castro brothers) essentially remains the same. So, at the very least, caution and a step-by-step approach are called for in any new attempt to engage with this wily regime, which has managed to exploit naivité and signs of weakness to its advantage.

“The Embargo Is a Failure.”

Depends. Some would say the embargo hasn't worked because Cuba's totalitarian regime remains in power. But it's also exhausted and weaker. The regime today faces disgruntled apparatchiks, cracks within its system, a critical economic and financial situation, and growing restlessness and dissent among the population.

The embargo is the only leverage the United States has to ensure a democratic transition, if not under the Castro brothers, then with their successors. Why give up something for nothing? The European Union did that by unilaterally lifting its diplomatic sanctions against the Cuban regime, but Europe's hopes for human rights improvements have so far been in vain. Despite striking out yet again during his trip to Havana last month, European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, Louis Michel, said that "Cuba-EU relations may go very far." He also hailed the importance of boosting collaboration between both sides. All this while more than 300 Cuban political prisoners remain behind bars under brutal conditions.

Cuba today is virtually bankrupt, with a huge external debt it is unable to serve or repay. According to the Paris Club group of creditors, Cuba owes close to $30 billion to its trading partners -- the second-highest level of indebtedness reported by the group. Given the sharp decline in oil prices, it is unlikely that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will be able to maintain the current level of subsidies and other financial assistance granted to Cuba (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars annually).

Under these circumstances, the Castro regime has embarked on a charm offensive with a single objective in mind: a U.S. bailout. The regime is looking to Uncle Sam for additional dollars via American tourists, plus commercial lines of credit and access to international banks and monetary funds for the renegotiation or cancellation of its external debt. That is leverage the United States could guardedly use -- not to provide life support to a battered tyranny, but to secure meaningful changes that will hasten the democratization of Cuba.

“Raúl Castro Is More Pragmatic Than His Brother.”

Wishful thinking. Remember that Raúl Castro was largely responsible for building the totalitarian-military apparatus in Cuba. He has promised reforms, but those reforms have been more cosmetic than real. Cubans can now legally go to hotels they cannot afford and buy computers without access to the Internet. Farmers have been leased state-owned land, but without the necessary capital, fertilizers, technology, and tools to make it productive.

Raúl Castro said he would encourage open debate, yet dissidents are constantly harassed and detained. Even several high-level government officials, accused by Raúl as deviationists, were recently purged and forced to repent, Stalin-style. The current Politburo has been largely militarized, with key members of the old guard loyal to Raúl. Lacking the grip and charisma of his brother, he fears the "reformists" who are starting to emerge, hence Raúl's interest in shoring up his prestige and authority with high-level negotiations with Washington and the readmission of Cuba to the Organization of American States and other international forums. He is only looking for concessions that will prop up his internal standing, not real change.

“The Embargo Allows the Regime to Blame the U.S. for Cuba’s Problems.”

Who cares? The Castros have never needed help in coming up with reasons to blame Yankee imperialism or the CIA for any criticism or discontent on the island. Dissidents are constantly being accused of serving the enemy (the United States). Even Spain -- a staunch Castro supporter -- was recently lashed by the ailing ruler for helping the "genocide empire" with its anti-Cuba policy.

But it is safe to say that most Cubans long ago realized that the main cause of their calamity is not the external U.S. embargo, but the internal government blockade. Except among the government nomenklatura, there is very little animosity toward Americans in Cuba. The dream of most Cubans today, absent a change that will unshackle them, is to reach Miami, one way or another, to renew their lives with freedom and opportunities to prosper.

“Cultural Exchanges and Tourism Can Hasten Political Change.”

If only. Cultural exchanges would be great if U.S. students, professors, intellectuals, scientists, and artists enjoyed in Cuba the same rights of mobility and expression that their Cuban counterparts are granted in the United States. As for tourism, more than 15 million tourists have gone to Cuba in the last 10 years, primarily from Canada and Europe. They have had no discernable impact on the regime, other than providing hard currency, and have had very limited interaction with the local population. Under the existing system, a kind of apartheid on the Caribbean, Cubans are barred from entering tourist enclaves (most of them are outside Havana) and penalized for engaging in discussions or accepting publications deemed counterrevolutionary. In any forthcoming negotiations, attempts should be made to remove these barriers.

“Cuba Is No Longer a Threat to the United States.”

Don't be so sure. The fact that Cuba, without Soviet backing, is no longer a direct military threat does not make the regime that rules the island a benign dictatorship. Its biotechnology capability, developed in conjunction with Iran, and its close relationship with North Korea pose serious concerns. Cuba continues to harbor terrorists from ETA, FARC, and ELN, as well as U.S.-convicted criminals and fugitives.

Cuban officials have been indicted in the past for trafficking drugs from the island to the United States, and today, according to the Miami Herald's summary of a report by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, "Cuba is doing little to stop drug smuggling, and … its cooperation with U.S. efforts is sporadic and limited." Most ominous is the Castro regime's continued support of Chávez's authoritarian and expansionist government with some 40,000 Cubans in Venezuela, including intelligence and military officers and educational "indoctrinators." For many populists in Latin America, Castro's Cuba remains an attractive and contagious symbol of anti-U.S. defiance.

“U.S. Engagement with the Castro Regime Is the Best Hope for a Democratic Cuba.”

Not at all. The hope lies primarily with the silent majority on the island, which is no longer so silent. It includes the brave members of the dissident and human rights movements who remain at the vanguard; the political prisoners who from their cells remain undaunted; the wives of those prisoners parading and demanding the release of their loved ones; intellectuals challenging the Communist Party's rewrite of Cuban history; the priest who sent an open letter to Raúl Castro demanding drastic reforms; tourism workers objecting to stifling taxes; comedians making fun of the government; bloggers debunking the lies spread by the regime; and the Cubans who, during a recent art fair in Havana, went up to the podium, shouted "Freedom!", and were warmly applauded by the audience.

This surging dissident movement, conscious of its rights and determined to be the protagonist of Cuba’s future, needs to be encouraged and supported by the United States and others as Solidarity was in Poland: with sufficient funds and tools for civic, peaceful resistance, and with enlightening radio and TV transmissions that can overcome the regime's jamming and provide the same impetus for change that Radio Free Europe did in the 1980s.

This dissident movement, part of the larger civil society, will eventually coalesce with reformists from within the government's ranks and pave the way for a democratic transition in Cuba. Forget the Castro brothers; these are the Cubans the United States must engage with.
Nestor Carbonell is an international public affairs consultant and author of And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba and Luces y Sombras de Cuba.

Should the Cuban Embargo Be Lifted?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/29/should_the_cuban_embargo_be_lifted_96232.html

ByAlvaro Vargas Llosa
Real Clear Politics
April 29, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans seem to reject the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. According to a Washington Post/ABC poll, 57 percent of Americans now oppose the policy. A survey by Bendixen & Associates shows that only 42 percent of Cuban-Americans continue to back it.

I have been conflicted on this issue for years. Until not long ago, I favored the embargo. As an advocate for free trade, I would normally have called such a measure an unacceptable restriction on the freedom of people to trade with whomever they pleased. But I thought that trading with a regime that had killed, jailed, exiled or muzzled countless of its citizens for decades was not a worthy objective, as it would also preserve that dictatorship. Any transaction with Cuba would also benefit the government. After all, the authorities were already skimming 20 percent of the remittances from Cuban-Americans and 90 percent of the salary paid to Cubans by non-American foreign investors.

Eventually, I admitted to myself that there was an intolerable inconsistency in my thinking. No democracy based on liberty should tell its citizens what country to visit or whom to trade with, regardless of the government under which they live. Even though the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, would obtain a political victory in the very short run, the embargo could no longer be justified.

But this is not the reasoning coming from the most vocal critics of U.S. sanctions these days. Many of them fail to even mention the fraud that is a system which bases its legitimacy on the renunciation of capitalism and at the same time implores capitalism to come to its rescue. There is also an endearing hypocrisy among those who decry the embargo but devote hardly any time to denouncing the island's half-century tyranny under the Castros.

Another risible subterfuge attributes the catastrophe that is Cuba's economy on Washington's decision to cut off economic relations in 1962 after a wave of expropriations against American interests. The amnesiacs conveniently forget that in 1958, Cuba's socioeconomic condition was similar to Spain's and Portugal's and the standard of living of its citizens was behind only those of Argentines and Uruguayans in Latin America. Many of the critics also seem to suffer what French writer Jean-Francois Revel used to call "moral hemiplegia" -- a tendency to see fault only on one side of the political spectrum: I never heard Cuba's champions complain about sanctions against right-wing dictatorships.
Sometimes, sanctions work, sometimes they don't. A study by Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, Kimberly Elliot and Barbara Oegg titled "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered" analyzes dozens of cases of sanctions since World War I. In about a third of them, they worked either because they helped to topple the regime (South Africa) or because they forced the dictator to make major concessions (Libya). Archbishop Desmond Tutu told me a few months ago in San Francisco that he was convinced that international sanctions were crucial in defeating apartheid in his home country. In the cases in which the embargo worked, the sanctions were applied by many countries and the affected regimes were already severely discredited or weakened.

In the cases in which sanctions have not worked -- Saddam Hussein between 1990 and 2003, and North Korea today -- the dictatorships were able to isolate themselves from the effects and concentrate them on the population. In some countries, a certain sense of pride helped defend the government against foreign sanctions -- which is why the measures applied by the Soviet Union against Yugoslavia in 1948, China in 1960 and Albania in 1961 were largely useless.

In the case of Cuba, the Castro regime has been able to whip up a nationalist sentiment against the U.S. embargo. More significantly, it has managed to offset much of the effects over the years in large part because the Soviets subsidized the island for three decades, because the regime welcomed Canadian, Mexican and European capital after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and because Venezuela is its new patron.

But these arguments against the U.S. embargo are mostly practical. Ultimately, the argument against the sanctions is a moral one. It is not acceptable for a government to abolish individual choice in matters of trade and travel. The only acceptable form of economic embargo is when citizens, not governments, decide not do business with a dictatorship, be that of Burma, Zimbabwe or Cuba.

Álvaro Vargas Llosa is a Bolivian writer and political commentator on international affairs with emphasis on Latin America. In this article, that by coincidence has the same title than the one written by Bert Corzo, he exposes the moral reasons for abandoning the embargo. Until recently he was in favor to keep the embargo.

I've never understood why Cuba is always able to "blame" the U.S. embargo for everything the embargo does. At the beginning of the embargo, there was some immediate dislocation and adjustments, but in relatively short order things were back to normal; other trading partners (communist block) rush in and fill the gaps. For over 30 years the embargo was a non issue. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Castros regime received support from ideological bedfellows such as the USSR, China, Venezuela and Iran and there is already plenty of tourism income from the other major countries of the world.

You don’t need to look further; here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth:

“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”.- Fidel Castro

(Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)

What will bring "Change" to Cuba are free elections, the freeing of all political prisoners, and the implementation of a market economy.
Everything else is “mental masturbation!”

The survey by Bendixen & Associates, cited by Vargas Llosa, shows that only 42 percent of Cuban-Americans continue to back it.

The phone interview among 400 Cuban and Cuban-Americans adults in Florida, New Jersey and other states took place on April 15-16, 2009, few days after President Obama announced the relaxation of the travel restriction to Cuba. The margin of sampling error is +/- 5%.
http://www.bendixenandassociates.com/studies/National_Survey_of_Cuban_Americans_on_Policy_towards_Cuba_FINAL.pdf

A national telephone survey conducted by Rasmussen, released April 13, 2009, and conducted April 9-10, 2009, show U.S. voters evenly divided over whether the United States should lift its long-standing economic embargo of Cuba. 36% say the United States should lift its embargo on Cuba, 35% say that the embargo shall be maintained, and 29% are not sure what to do about it. 83% have an unfavorable opinion of Fidel Castro, including 52% who view him very unfavorably.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/36_favor_lifting_u_s_embargo_on_cuba_35_disagree

The Cuban Research Institute of the Florida International Universitypublished on March 20, 2009 the results of their survey, which included 1,000 randomly selected Cuban-Americans. The opinion survey was conducted during the presidential elections on November 2008. 57 percent of participants supported the continuation of the Cuban embargo. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.6%.
Link: http://www.fiu.edu/~ipor/cuba-t/

A survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, January 25-26, 2009, and published February 4, 2009, among 500 Cuban-Americans registered voters throughout Florida, these were the results: 72%

En una encuesta de opinión realizada por McLaughlin & Associates en enero 25 y 26 de 2009, y publicada el 4 de febrero de 2009, entre 500 Cubano-estadounidensesvotantes registrados en La Florida, estos fueron los resultados:Un 72% de los entrevistados están a favor de mantener el embargo, y un 58% favorece las restricciones impuestas en 2004 a los viajes. El 69% apoyan la prohibición de los viajes turísticos a Cuba. El margen de error de la encuesta es de +/-4.5%.

Link: http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2009/02/04/10/poll.source.prod_affiliate.56.pd

What Cuba Embargo?
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=477329

OPINION
Posted 05/19/2009 06:05 PM ET

Trade: Many Americans favor ending the trade embargo on Cuba, saying sanctions don't work and Cubans' lives will improve. But a recent AP report unwittingly proves that trade only props up the oppressive regime.

Some 34,000 American tourists sneak into Cuba illegally each year, determined to get an "authentic" Cuban experience on Varadero Beach or in old Havana.

In Cuba's old hotels, they sip daiquiris, a pre-revolutionary Cuban cocktail, like Ernest Hemingway. These travelers kick in a share of the $1.2 billion tourist income to the Cuban economy.

The Associated Press found the experience they get is largely Made In America. The daiquiri mix used in Havana, for instance, is the same stuff you get in an Atlanta fern bar.

The AP also found the Communist Party's propaganda "newspaper" in the tourist hotel is made from genuine Alabama wood pulp.

Meanwhile, the Cuban bureaucrats who deny that same Alabama newsprint to a free press go shopping in special stores for the party elite brimming with goods stocked from — you got it — Uncle Sam's empire. Ordinary Cubans get nothing.

The whole tourist experience is bogus, with U.S. businesses telling AP that since Cubans are too poor — making $18 a month, on average — to buy their goods, they want more U.S. tourists to do so.

This shows that what passes for an embargo on Cuba really isn't one. The U.S. sells $718 million in goods to Cuba through a 2000 legal loophole that permits the sale of food, medicine and lesser-known goods like chemicals, crude materials, machinery and transport equipment, according to the Census Bureau.

The goods do nothing for average Cubans. No, these goods merely prop up the Castro regime through the circular dynamic of tourists and goods. The daiquiris come from the U.S., the tourists follow to drink them, and Castro's regime skims the profits.

No end to the embargo will stop that, because there is no consumer market for goods or services in Cuba; there's only bureaucratic distribution. The one thing Cuba's regime cannot create is a real economy that produces things of value, like tasty daiquiris.

For an authentic Cuban experience, tourists would need to experience rationing, shortages, long lines and bureaucratic indifference, because that's the real product of Cuba's regime.

The tourist activity is pernicious, because for outsiders it creates an illusion of a nation that only needs goods. The AP report shows that goods are plentiful — or potentially so.

The real problem is communism — not lack of trade. The only people the embargo's end will help are the party's oppressive elites.

Their first interest is in perpetrating their hold on power. If U.S. goods and tourists achieve that, then goods and tourists it will be.

Investor’s Business Daily pull back the curtain to expose the great and powerful media, academia and legislative smoke and mirror show.

Dorgan Seeks Frustrated Creditor Status
http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2009/07/dorgan-wants-to-become-frustrated.html

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Last week, the Russian Federation's Audit Chamber revealed that the Cuban regime failed on three occasions to pay installments on the US$355 million credit deal it signed with Russia on Sept. 28, 2006.

This is just the latest episode in a saga that, in 2009 alone, includes:

1. Reports by Mexico's La Jornada and Spain's El Pais newspapers that hundreds of foreign companies that transact business with the Cuban regime's authorities, have had their accounts frozen since January 2009 by the regime-owned bank that is solely empowered to conduct commercial banking operations in convertible currencies, Banco Financiero Internacional, S.A. ("BFI").

2. "Cuba has rolled over 200 million euros in bond issues that were due in May, as the country's central bank asked for another year to repay foreign holders of the debt, financial sources in London and Havana said this week." Reuters, June 9, 2009.

As a reminder, in Castro's Cuba, you can only do business with the government, as private business activity severely restricted.

Yet, the National Journal reports this morning:

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., will offer legislation today to change a provision in the 2000 law that allows agriculture trade with Cuba so that the Treasury Department cannot require the government of Cuba to pay for food before it is shipped, Dorgan said Tuesday.

During the Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the FY10 Agriculture appropriations bill, Dorgan said he had considered offering his Cuba amendment to the bill, but that he had been told that some members of the committee "would have an apoplectic seizure" so he will instead offer it today on the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill.

Dorgan noted that the Treasury Department had initially allowed Cuba to follow the normal commercial pattern of making payment before goods arrive in the country, but that in 2005 the Bush administration decided that "cash in advance" meant payment for the goods before they left the country.

Dorgan said he would introduce the measure because he has failed in his attempts to convince Treasury officials to change their position. "Someone down at Treasury apparently still can't hear," Dorgan said. "We've had meeting after meeting after meeting."

EDITOR'S NOTE: The U.S. can also join this ever-growing club of Castro's frustrated creditors by supporting Senator Dorgan's legislation.

Hasn't anyone learned any lessons about extending easy credit yet? What does it take?

Senator Dorgan intend to stick US taxpayers with the bill, this is not ignorance of Cuba's deadbeat status, it's criminal intent on his part.

These politicians are being influenced and manipulated by those Cuban Investment Experts that want the embargo to end without any real change in Cuba's government. Their job is to make sure that we continue to loosen sanctions of the embargo, so they can continue and secure deals that they currently have and plan for the future. They are very cleaver and are getting away with it. They control the fate of the Cuban claims and also what's going on with the embargo.

Hardships Increase, Not Ease
http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=5613&Month=7&Year=2009

Jaime Suchlicki, Miami Herald

July 6th, 2009 - Despite mounting economic difficulties, the Cuban government is not likely to open up Cuba's economy or to offer meaningful concessions for normalization of relations with the United States.

The Castro brothers believe that increasing hardships will not produce an internal rebellion. Gen. Raúl Castro recently reduced the availability of food that Cubans receive through ration cards. If there was concern for popular unrest, this type of measure would have not been introduced.

Political and economic centralization and control, along with ideological rigidity, are the chosen policies to guarantee a successful succession and to prevent Cuba's transformation into a democratic, market economy.

Elites unsure

Major concessions would mean a rejection of one of Fidel Castro's main legacies: anti-Americanism. It may create uncertainty among the elites that govern Cuba leading to friction and factionalism. The Cuban population also could see this as an opportunity for mobilization demanding faster reforms. It could also be seen as a weakening of Cuba's anti-American alliances with radical regimes in Latin America, Iran and Syria and Cuba's defection from the anti-imperialist front.

U.S. recognition may mean a victory for Raúl and the legitimization of his military regime.

Yet it is a small price when compared to the uncertainties that a Cuba-U.S. relationship may produce internally and externally among Cuba's allies.

From Cuba's point of view, the United States has little to offer: American tourists, whom Raúl doesn't need to survive; American investments, which he fears may subvert his highly centralized and controlled economy; and products that he can buy cheaper from other countries. The United States does not have, furthermore, the ability to provide Cuba with the petroleum that Venezuela is sending with little or no payment. Aid from Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China, furthermore, is provided with no conditions. These regimes demand little from Cuba.

Correlation of forces

The periodic public statements that Raúl has made about wanting negotiations with the U.S. government are politically motivated and directed at audiences in this country and Europe. In particular, Raúl believes that the ''correlation of forces'' is such that Congress may lift the travel ban and end the embargo unilaterally, without Cuba having to make any concessions.

Serious overtures for negotiations are usually not issued from the plaza. They are carried out through normal diplomatic avenues open to the Cubans.

These avenues have never been closed, as evidenced by the migration accord and the anti-hijacking agreement between the U.S. and Cuban governments. In the past, both Democratic and Republican administrations have had conversations with Cuban officials and have made serious overtures for normalization, only to be rebuffed.

Real concessions

The issue is not about negotiations or talking. There has to be a willingness on the part of the Cuban leadership to offer real concessions -- in the area of human rights and political and economic openings as well as cooperation on anti-terrorism and drug interdiction -- in exchange for an alteration in U.S. policies. The United States does not drop major policies without a substantial quid pro quo. Only when Raúl is willing to deal -- not only with the United States, but, more important, with the Cuban people -- should he expect a reciprocal change in U.S. policies.

Jaime Suchlicki is director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American studies.

Greed propels the anti-embargo crowd to the detriment of the Cuban people. Stop looking at dollar signs and focus on human rights. The Castro brothers continue to play games with naive U.S. politicians.

Cuba's "bailout", by obtaining US-backed credit lines as well as the external debt of over $60 billion, will guarantee the continuation of the Castros regime, delaying instead of accelerating a transition to democracy.

No ‘Normalization’ Until the Castro Regime is Gone
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.2966/pub_detail.asp

William R. Hawkins

When I was in Ankara, Turkey for a defense trade conference at the end of January, I had lunch with two French delegates. We spent much of the time re-fighting the UN debate over the Iraq War which threatened to sunder U.S.-French relations. At the end of the lunch, one of the Frenchmen turned to Cuba, arguing that if American business was allowed to reach the Cuban people, “the U.S. would own the island in six months.” I told him that America would be happy to help the Cuban people build a new life for themselves, but there would have to be a regime change first. Otherwise, the economic benefits of removing sanctions would be grabbed by the communist elite and never reach the average citizen.

The recent trip to Cuba by a delegation of six U.S. House members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) reinforces my point. The delegation did not meet with the people of Cuba, only with the regime. The entire delegation held a five-hour meeting with President Raul Castro. Then Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the leader of the group, Reps. Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Laura Richardson (D-CA) were personally invited to the Havana home of “retired” despot Fidel Castro for what was more like a pilgrimage that a diplomatic mission. Rep. Rush said of his conversation with Fidel, “It was almost like listening to an old friend…. In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor.” That Fidel Castro has also seen himself as the ultimate enemy of the United States did not seem to occur to the CBC idolaters.

According to CBC Chairwoman Rep. Lee, “The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked. The bottom line is that we believe its time to open dialogue with Cuba.” But she also told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the delegation had gone to Cuba to “listen to Cuban officials” which means she is not interested in liberating the people of the island, only strengthening the dictatorship that has opposed them for half a century. The Castro regime is facing a crisis as the ruling brothers age. There is a strong desire on the part of the American Left that there be no change in Havana’s “progressive” policies in the transition to a successor regime.

It is often said that the trade and investment embargo on Cuba be lifted because it has “failed.” But what is meant by this? The notion that economic sanctions are sufficient to topple a regime without additional pressure from domestic revolutionary groups or outside military intervention is a straw man.

Sanctions are a form of pressure. They are meant to persuade foreign states to refrain from behavior at odds with American interests and values by raising the costs of such actions. Where, however, a regime is determined to follow an adversarial course -- as has been the case of Castro’s Cuba where ideology has taken precedence over the welfare of the people, the aim of sanctions has been to weaken the ability of the rogue state to act by denying it material resources and financial aid.

Rep. Lee and her cabal are clearly interested in providing the Castro brothers with more resources by lifting trade sanctions. They want to open the U.S. market to Cuban exports, pump investment capital and bank loans through state agencies, and expand the island’s tourism business. As Rep. Lee said, "When you look at new markets, my God – Cuba has a lot of manufacturing equipment. We talked about tourism. We talked about what possibilities exist for America and Cuba.” The resulting flow of funds would give the regimen the means to keep itself in power, while claiming to be a success.

The United States first imposed economic sanctions on Communist Cuba in 1960. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1964, Secretary of State Dean Rusk laid out the aims of the policy, which it should be noted did not include any expectation that the sanctions alone would lead to the overthrow of the Castro regime.

“First, to reduce Castro’s will and ability to export subversion and violence to the other American states; Second, to make plain to the people of Cuba that Castro’s regime cannot serve their interests; Third, to demonstrate to the peoples of the American Republics that communism has no future in the Western Hemisphere; and Fourth, to increase the cost to the Soviet Union of maintaining a Communist outpost in the Western Hemisphere.”

Measured by its aims, U.S. sanctions policy has been successful in Cuba, and should be maintained because it continues to serve the first three of the four ends set out by Secretary Rusk.

The only goal that is no longer a concern is number four, as the Soviet Union has disintegrated. Before its collapse, the USSR was providing Cuba with $5 to $7 billion in aid each year and spending scarce hard currency on the purchase of oil for Cuba. With some effort, it was able to offset Cuba’s loss of trade with the U.S. though the cost became another nail in the Soviet coffin.

It was also during this time, that the Castro regime was sending troops to fight in support of Marxist regimes in Africa and sending money, weapons and advisors to revolutionary groups and terrorist organizations throughout Latin America. It was also modernizing its own military and internal security forces which are the foundation of Castro’s control of the island. In other words, when Castro had the means to do so, he showed his determination to destabilize the international order.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Castro lost his Moscow subsidies. U.S. trade sanctions have taken an increasing toll on Cuba’s resources in the years since. Castro has not been able to send his troops abroad, and his ability to support violence in Latin America has diminished. Leadership of left-wing subversion in Latin America has shifted to the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela where oil revenue provides the means to cause trouble. Chavez has also taken on the burden of subsidizing the Castros.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), another CBC member and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has in the past suggested that Cuba be allowed to join the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The CBI was established by President Ronald Reagan to support the growth of democracy and capitalism in the region to better defend against Castroite influence. Members of the CBI are given trade preferences. The fragile economies of these countries need U.S. help. The creation of a Cuban trade rival would take away part of their American export market and divert capital from their needs to Havana. Trade policy should be conducted for the mutual benefit of friends and allies, not to aid adversaries.

American policy should certainly not be used to bail out a failed dictatorship and help it survive to fight another day against American and allied interests. Relations cannot be “normalized” with a Cuban despotism that is not “normal” in its ideology and actions.

FamilySecurityMatters.org William Hawkins is a consultant specializing in international economic and national security issues.

A (Timely) Historic Reminder

http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2009/09/timely-historic-reminder.html

September 1, 2009
by William Hawkins*

The United States first imposed economic sanctions on Communist Cuba in 1960. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1964, Secretary of State Dean Rusk laid out the aims of the policy, which it should be noted did not include any expectation that the sanctions alone would lead to the overthrow of the Castro regime.

"First, to reduce Castro's will and ability to export subversion and violence to the other American states; Second, to make plain to the people of Cuba that Castro's regime cannot serve their interests; Third, to demonstrate to the peoples of the American Republics that communism has no future in the Western Hemisphere; and Fourth, to increase the cost to the Soviet Union of maintaining a Communist outpost in the Western Hemisphere."

Measured by its aims, U.S. sanctions policy has been successful in Cuba, and should be maintained because it continues to serve the first three of the four ends set out by Secretary Rusk.

The only goal that is no longer a concern is number four, as the Soviet Union has disintegrated. Before its collapse, the USSR was providing Cuba with $5 to $7 billion in aid each year and spending scarce hard currency on the purchase of oil for Cuba. With some effort, it was able to offset Cuba's loss of trade with the U.S. though the cost became another nail in the Soviet coffin.

*"No 'Normalization' Until the Castro Regime is Gone," Family Security Matters, April 10, 2009.

From truffles to fox furs, U.S. ships more than food to Cuba
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1220161.html

BY MARTHA BRANNIGAN

When a Havana family sits down for pollo asado, passes pan de ajo across the kitchen table or splurges on some chocolate soy ice cream, chances are the ingredients came from U.S. farms.

Venezuela may boast of its revolutionary friendship with Cuba, and China may send its youth there to study Spanish, but the United States has emerged as the No. 1 exporter of agricultural products to Cuba.

And that's not all that can be sent to Cuba legally. Try live primates, truffles, azalea bushes, fox furs -- even cigars.

When President Obama announced plans in April to ease the embargo by lifting family-travel restrictions to the island and allowing U.S. telecommunications firms wide latitude to do business there, many analysts said the policy changes could significantly expand ties between the estranged neighbors -- assuming Havana responds positively to the overture.

But fairly significant commerce has been going on since the Trade Sanctions Reform and Enhancement Act of 2000 opened the door to U.S. food and medicine exports to Cuba -- despite the tense relationship between Havana and Washington and a trade embargo that has spanned nearly 50 years.

U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba hit a record $711.5 million in 2008, as prices for commodities soared. That makes the United States Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner overall.

``We are the natural provider of food and agriculture products to Cuba,'' says Kirby Jones, president of Alamar Associates, a consulting firm for U.S. companies aspiring to trade with Cuba. ``We're No. 1 and could be selling a lot more, were it not for the restrictions.''

Over the past nine years, Cuba, which imports 80 percent of its food, has come to rely heavily on its nemesis to the north for wheat, corn, soy goods and scores of other key agricultural products.

American companies provide two-thirds of Cuba's imported chicken and more than 40 percent of its pork imports. Utility poles, organic fertilizer and chewing gum also make their way in.

Not much medicine has been shipped, however, since Cuba has other options

CASH FLOWS FROM U.S.

Much has changed since President John F. Kennedy imposed a total economic embargo of Cuba in 1962, making it illegal for Americans to spend any money in Cuba or trade with Havana.

The chinks began when some travel restrictions were lifted in the late 1970s, and through the years there has been a tightening and loosening of the embargo as administrations change in Washington.

In recent years, Cuba has raked in U.S. dollars in a host of other ways, too:
• The Castro government charges a 10 percent fee to exchange greenbacks for convertible pesos, or CUCs, used by Cuban Americans and other visitors, and there's another 10 percent hit due to the unfavorable exchange rate given by money changers.

• Cuba also gets millions of dollars -- perhaps hundreds of millions -- in fees from U.S. telecommunications companies that already provide long-distance service to the island through third countries.

• When Cuban Americans make trips to Cuba, they generally travel heavy, lugging an estimated $3,000 to $5,000 in goods for family and friends. If just half of the 200,000 Cuban travelers expected this year carried even the low end, or $3,000 worth, that would amount to $300 million of clothing, electronics and household gadgets winding up in Cuba in 2009 alone. These travelers also are allowed to spend up to $179 per day while in Cuba, according to U.S. regulations.

Cuba's airport-related fees levied on U.S. air-charter companies average $120 per passenger, according to charter officials, which would bring in some $12 million for the 100,000 U.S. visitors last year and possibly double that amount this year.

• And money sent by individual Cuban Americans to help family members amounts to an estimated $400 to $800 million a year, according to a 2004 study by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which noted some estimates put U.S. remittances as high as $1 billion a year.

Even with all major portions of the embargo still in place, such commercial ties between the United States and Cuba could easily exceed $2 billion a year.

TOUGH BUSINESS

Meanwhile, a series of intentional hurdles reflects the U.S. government's conflicted attitude toward dealing with the communist regime that has outlived nine U.S. presidents.
The cash-strapped island must pay in advance for U.S. goods, and with no banking ties between two nations, Cuba has to pay through a bank in a third country, typically France.
U.S. exporters need clearance from the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security. Cargo ships carrying goods from the United States must go directly to Cuba before visiting any other nations, and they are forbidden from picking up anything to haul elsewhere. Cuban food inspectors often can't get visas to visit U.S. facilities.

And the trade remains a one-way street. Virtually nothing can be imported to the United States from Cuba, with the exception of artwork, printed materials and recordings. Last year, that came to a grand total of $39,126.

That gives Cuba the curious distinction of helping the United States with its chronic balance of trade deficit, albeit in a token fashion.

The obstacles to Cuba trade have tipped the scales in favor of agribusiness Goliaths like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson Foods.

For American businesses, there is only one customer in Cuba: Alimport, the government agency that coordinates purchases from the United States.

Small and mid-sized exporters are often spooked by the maze of regulations and the opaque process of selling to Cuba. More than a few would-be exporters have ventured to Havana trade fairs only to come home empty-handed.

``People [looking to export to Cuba] get discouraged,'' says Jay Brickman, vice president of government services at Crowley Maritime Corp. He travels frequently to Cuba for his company, which sends a cargo ship with chicken and other agricultural products to Havana from Port Everglades every week.

``They confuse being nicely received by the Cubans with the idea they're going to get business. Cuba is limited [in its ability to buy imports], and they're price-conscious. You almost have to have a certain passion to really want to be there,'' he said.

Some U.S. business executives imagine big opportunities in an untapped market. Others are drawn to the forbidden fruit.

Naples businessman John Parke Wright IV shipped beef cattle to Cuba from Port Everglades three years ago and flew to Havana to shepherd his herd from the dock.
Last year, Wright, a member of the Lykes family that owned vast agricultural lands in Cuba before they were seized in the revolution, exported 2,500 straws of Brahman bull semen from the J.D. Hudgins ranch in Hungerford, Texas, to impregnate Cuban heifers.

Now he's negotiating more cattle deals for Florida and Alabama Brangus cattle and semen. Wright, who has been making frequent visits to Cuba for nearly a decade, sees big potential for agricultural development on the island, in keeping with President Raúl Castro's recent call to the Cuban people to work the land. ``There was and there is another Florida there in the land mass and agricultural potential,'' says Wright.

But many others have called it quits after a few sales. Independent Meats shipped some goods about a year and a half ago, but decided its Idaho location is too far west to compete with other U.S. suppliers.

``It just didn't make a lot of sense for us,'' said Independent Chief Executive Patrick Florence.

Cuba, meanwhile, has spread out its purchases among as many U.S. states as it practically can in hopes of drumming up support in Congress for an end to the embargo.

And yet, this year, U.S. exports will likely trail 2008 as Cuba struggles with severe financial problems that limit its ability to pay for foreign goods..

CUBA'S CREDIT WOES

Some experts believe Cuba is facing its biggest challenges since the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union left Fidel Castro scrambling for support in a changed world.

Just as poor families do, the Cuban government often makes purchases based on access to credit. That leaves U.S. businesses at a disadvantage, since transactions must be in cash.
U.S.-grown rice, especially the long-grain style favored in many recipes, was a huge hit with Cubans until 2005, when the Bush administration changed the meaning of cash in advance to mean payment before a product leaves U.S. shores -- instead of when it arrives in port in Cuba.

Since that tightening of policy -- which is expected to be reversed under provisions in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill -- U.S. rice exports to the island have plunged. Cuba has relied more on Vietnam, which is thousands of miles away and sometimes delivers broken rice but provides generous credit.

Some argue, however, that the cash-in-advance rule is a blessing in disguise for American companies, because it ensures that they get paid.

``Cuba generally doesn't pay on time,'' says John Kavulich, senior policy advisor for the

Its amazing that they have to import chickens. Is their an easier farm animal to rise than a chicken? And over there seems to be very little sea food. After all, it’s an island. Do fish not bite a hook in Cuba? Cuba has some of the most fertile fishing waters in the Caribbean. Chickens are “self sufficient" and reproduce like crazy, yet they are imported.

Of course there is sea food in Cuba but only for tourist, .the Cubans doesn’t have access to sea food or beef. This has been going on for years, .they eat soy beef instead. The real embargo that the Cubans suffer has a name "Fidel & Raul". As soon as they are removed from power in Cuba, they will have access to everything they need.

Cuba imports ketchup, mostly from Spain (that is a long way to ship what are basically tomatoes with water and a little salt) and some from Mexico. Can’t these Socialist Genius figure out how to make ketchup? To me it sums it all up in a nutshell, and exposes the complete and utter failure of the Socialist system in even the most basic of industries, and their inability to feed their own population on a tropical island with more land mass than all other Caribbean islands combined.

In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?

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Iniciado por Tamakun

In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?

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While I don´t approve of the Cuban gregime, your claims are dishonest, since you leave out the facts pertaining free education, free healthcare, free housing, and other benefits that add up to much more than 18 dollars a month. Cuba has a higher income and standard of living than some of the Central and Caribbean states that are capitalist, for instance.

The embargo serves no purpose but to give the corrupt regime propaganda material.

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Iniciado por Josean Figueroa

While I don´t approve of the Cuban gregime, your claims are dishonest, since you leave out the facts pertaining free education, free healthcare, free housing, and other benefits that add up to much more than 18 dollars a month. Cuba has a higher income and standard of living than some of the Central and Caribbean states that are capitalist, for instance.

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Iniciado por Josean Figueroa

The embargo serves no purpose but to give the corrupt regime propaganda material.

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Look that you haven't read the previous posts, look back and you will find the answers there.

Here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth with respect to the embargo:

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“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro*
*Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988.

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Communism is the social system which institutionalizes envy, which uses pressure and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from those who produce. Everything is shared by everyone and control by the government, there are no incentives to work and compete. A large percent of the Cuban people fake that they work, and the farmers do the minimum, since the regime pay them the minimum.

You are making no sense, why should I care for an idiocy writen by the idiot Castro?

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If Cuba embargo ended, U.S. businesses ready for rush, but not island
http://www.miamiherald.com/embargo/v...ding&pageNum=1

While U.S. companies dream of a post-embargo Cuba, infrastructure woes, a lack of financing and Cuba's legal system may present challenges.

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Cuba is a bankrupt inefficient country that doesn’t generate the wealth necessary to a healthy trade. The embargo was a self inflicted consequence of the treacherous confiscation of US owned property in Cuba, and nothing else. You don’t do business with those who steals from you.

We can eliminate the symbolic “embargo” tomorrow and nothing will change, as the Cuban economy controlled by Castro brothers’ regime wouldn’t have enough hard currency to make a dent into their misery.

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Iniciado por Tamakun

Cuba is a bankrupt inefficient country that doesn’t generate the wealth necessary to a healthy trade. The embargo was a self inflicted consequence of the treacherous confiscation of US owned property in Cuba, and nothing else. You don’t do business with those who steals from you.

We can eliminate the symbolic “embargo” tomorrow and nothing will change, as the Cuban economy controlled by Castro brothers’ regime wouldn’t have enough hard currency to make a dent into their misery.

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Your ignorance is manifest. Cuba has a higher per capita income and higher human development than many of the capitalist states of the region, and the U.S. trades openly with this states, that can not generate as much wealth as Cuba. Why does the U.S. trade with other communist states like China or Vietnam? Why does it trade with Saudi Arabia, which violates human rights in a worst manner??

The Castro regime is given political capital by the ridiculous embargo. Take the embargo away and the excuse of agression by the U.S. is removed from the arsenal of Castroist rhetoric.

The embargo is simply a manifestation of U.S. imperialism towards Hispanic America, and of its bending to a group of untrustworthy Cuban exilees in Miami.

Cuba will change as Hispanic America evolves towards greater stability and prosperity during the next decade, and the U.S. because of its idiocy in policy, would have suffered a propaganda defeat in a region it will not be able to control anymore because of its obvious duplicity and hipocrisy.

If travel restrictions are lifted, we can expect the communist regime in Cuba, to do all it can to encourage immoral behavior. Spring breakers will be lured by the promise of unrestricted alcohol and drug sale to minors, the sex trade already a staple of tourism to Cuba will also increase, and all in all we can expect the communists to make a profit at the expense of our citizens, as Lenin said "the end justifies the means."

Sounds just like the U.S. or Mexico...

You have no argument save absurdities...

There is something obscene about wanting to have a good time in Cuba, a place where the citizens are restricted in their liberties and movement. You might be free to travel, but "they are not". Where they are put in prison because of their thoughts and beliefs, you will discuss openly your thoughts and religious beliefs, but "they" will not. Where they and their family can be deported to any region at a moments notice, you will be able to board your plane and go home when your visit is over, but "they" can not leave.

As long as Fidel Castro is alive and in charge, investments are a huge risk. Cuba owes everyone money, a staggering debt of $60 billions, and does not pay its bills simply because they do not generate any wealth. Since 1992 the Cuba regime hasn’t paid the external debt and therefore cannot obtain more credit from many countries. It would take a real dummy to make any type of investment in Cuba under the present regime.

You can keep repeating the absurdity that Cuba doesn´t generate any wealth and it won´t change the fact that Cuba has a higher standard of living than many of the surrounding capitalist countries like El Salvador or Guatemala, or countries like India and China where everyone wants to invests. Also, the many Spanish investments in the island refute your argument.

You seem to be nothing more than a rabid, uninformed Cuban exilee from Miami who is no better in his capacity to think clearly than the communist in Havanah. A tale of two cities filled with intellectually primitive people incapable of moving on from erred policies.

The communist regime of Cuba, wages war against its own people, it will never of its own will return democracy to its people, it will never stop putting people in jail for expressing thoughts freely, it will never lift censorship of the press, it will never allow Cubans to travel freely, it will never allow free elections. The effect of the embargo on Cuba has partially fulfilled its objectives. It prevented Castro from obtaining loans and lines of credit that would allow him to finance his permanence in power and avoiding the growth of the indebtedness of Cuba without benefit for the population.

The argument for lifting the embargo is made by people who believe that laws that in our country protect property and its lawful owners should not apply to the Cuban citizens, this is why they encourage us to enjoy parading in 50's era cars that were stolen at gun point from their lawful owners, and stay in hotels that were confiscated from their lawful owners, and smoke cigars made in factories that were stolen from their lawful owners, or sip mojitos and daiquiris made from rum brands stolen from their rightful owners.

You don’t need to look further; here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth:

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“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro (Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)

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What will bring "Change" to Cuba are free elections, the freeing of all political prisoners, and the implementation of a market economy. Everything else is “mental masturbation!”

This is one of the few times that I agree with Castro. In this case a 100%. Keep the embargo until he cry uncle.

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The impossible dream, again
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/30/the-impossible-dream-again/

Everett 'Ted' Ellis Briggs
The Washington Post

My father was a U.S. diplomat stationed in Cuba when I was born. Thus I am an American by birth who spent my life as an American diplomat serving in many countries, including Portugal, Honduras, and Panama where I was the American ambassador. Because we lived in Cuba for many years, I have remained interested in the island's affairs.

I attended this month's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on whether to lift restrictions on tourist travel to Cuba. Many in Congress, who favor a softer U.S. policy, argue we should neither demand nor expect anything in return from the Castro regime for lifting what remains of the U.S. embargo. It doesn't bother them that Havana rejected President Obama's request, when he lifted restrictions on remittances and family visits, that Cuba respond by releasing its political prisoners.

In fact, it is misleading to continue to call U.S. restrictions on commercial dealings with Cuba an "embargo." Today's restrictions aim not to undermine the regime, but rather to avoid financing its longevity, and they do so without harm to the Cuban people. That's because the hardships of Cuban life don't stem from the U.S. "embargo." They stem from the mind-numbing economic and heavy-handed political policies of Cuba's communist regime.

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Cuba's "bailout", by obtaining US-backed credit lines as well as the external debt of over $60 billion, will guarantee the continuation of the Castros regime, delaying instead of accelerating a transition to democracy.

Mora than 15 million tourists have gone to Cuba in the last 10 years, mainly from Canada and Europe, haven’t been able to influence a political and economic opening of Castro’s regime, exceptfor providing hard currency to it. Who could maintain the illusion that tourism and trade with the United States can do it?

If American tourists are allowed to visit Cuba, the Castro regime will follow the same practices of the communist countries in the past. Their travel would be controlled and channeled into the tourist resorts built in the island away from the major centers of population, and they will be screened carefully to prevent "subversive propaganda" from entering the island. They will have limited contact with Cubans thus their influence would be limited.

Castro's security forces tightly controls most of the tourist resort areas. They are off-limits to the average Cuban. Employees in these resorts are carefully screened by the regime and programmed to tell the visiting tourists Castro propaganda line.

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Almost 300,000 Cubans abroad visited island in '09
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_immigration

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer– Wed Jan 27, 3:37 pm ET

HAVANA – Nearly 300,000 Cubans living abroad visited their homeland last year, the island's foreign minister said Wednesday, but he insisted a loosening of travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans coming to the island was "insufficient."

It was unclear if the 2009 figure was a record since the government rarely releases complete figures on the number of Cubans living overseas and the frequency of their visits. But Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said about 296,000 Cubans living abroad came back last year compared to just 37,000 in 1994.

He did not say how many came from the United States, but the overwhelming majority of islanders overseas live in the U.S., mostly in southern Florida and New Jersey. There are other sizable Cuban communities in Spain, Mexico and Argentina.

In April, President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on Cubans living in the United States who want to travel or send money to the island. The move erased limits imposed by the administration of former President George W. Bush, but has been dismissed by Cuban officials as inadequate.

Rodriguez said Washington has sought to turn Cubans who choose to leave the island into "refugees who have fled in search of liberty."

Cuba's government offers no statistics on how many of its citizens have left the island since Fidel Castro toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year's Day 1959, though experts put the number at as many as 1.5 million — more than 13 percent of today's entire Cuban population of about 11.2 million.

Under a 1994 agreement with the Cuban government designed to stop mass illegal immigration, the United States offers 20,000 visas to Cuban immigrants per year. Tens of thousands more flee the island secretly each year, and nearly all who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay.

But even moving away from Cuba legally is not easy. Cubans wanting to emigrate must obtain official permission from the communist government to leave, a special passport and, often, a string of additional visas — as well as having to meet the requirements for the destination country.

Once outside, immigrants face strict Cuban government rules on how long they have to wait before they can visit the island anew, and how long they can stay.

The foreign minister's comments kicked off a three-day immigration forum featuring 450 Cubans who live overseas, including 200 from the United States. Those invited were considered supportive of the single-party communist system.

"This is a positive event," said Delia Zurdo, a Miami resident. "I've lived there for 42 years, but I miss my country and I want to help defend it, and defend it until I die."

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It doesn't have any importance whatsoever. The Cuban emigres are just those 450 authorized to return to Cuba and who are supporters of the Cuban regime.

Exchange of views between Cuban officials and Cuban émigrés, as long as everyone tows the Castro party line. What a joke. Cuban abroad has to solicit to the Cuban regime, through a non refundable pre-pay petition, permission to return to the country of their birth.

Cubans vote with their feet when they escape from Dr. Castro’s island paradise. There are 1.7 millions Cuban-Americans living in the US, and 600,000 Cubans in the rest of the world, for a total of 2.3 millions. The actual population in Cuba is 11.4 millions. The 2.3 millions living abroad represent 20% of the population in the island.

That`s just those who were able to leave the island. It doesn't mean that those who stayed behind are happy with their situation.

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.

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Iniciado por Hyeronimus

That`s just those who were able to leave the island. It doesn't mean that those who stayed behind are happy with their situation.

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Hundreds of Cubans line up to become Spaniardshttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/828409.h...

Estimates indicate that some 200,000 Cubans on the island could be eligible for Spanish citizenship. There are over 800,000 Cubans on the U.S. visa lottery waiting list

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The (Non) Right of Cubans to Travel
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=18972

Haroldo Dilla Alfonso

HAVANA TIMES, Feb. 1 — A while ago, Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarconwas asked whether Cubans should be entitled the right to travel freely. This prominent member of the island’s political elite responded —in the finest style of standup comedy— saying that if this right existed, the sky would become so filled with airplanes that some would collide with others, causing great a disaster. In my opinion, the greater disaster was this official’s response.

This statement was probably no more disastrous than what was later said by the president of the Cuban National Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC), writer Miguel Barnet. He affirmed that in Cuba there exists complete freedom to travel, citing as an example the fact that he himself has traveled to thirty countries. As I suspect he hopes to continue traveling, Barnet knows he must walk a thin line, otherwise he risks discrediting himself and seeing the end of his journeys.

Such collusion extends to a good part of the Cuban intellectual camp, including many “progressives” and “reformists” whose critical poses are so well-liked by foreign correspondents here in Havana.

A few weeks ago, a distinguished Cuban intellectual who resides in New York wrote to me disappointed by a well-known and active “verbal reformist” —a comrade of days gone by— who spent several minutes at a forum in Pittsburgh explaining that the only obstacle that his fellow Cubans face in traveling is obtaining a visa from the destination country.

Sometimes this matter is not mentioned so directly in self-rewarding displays of immodesty, as those of Barnet and the old friend; rather, they divert their sights, focusing insistently on the US side without distinguishing anything else around them. It’s as if an epidemic of political pigmentary retinopathy has broken out on the island.

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The Castro brothers’ regime systematically denies the right of Cubans to travel freely. This is only one of many rights denied to them. Cubans can’t legally leave or reenter the country without regime authorization. Cubans who apply to emigrate lose their belongings and homes. Those who fail to escape illegally are sent to prison.

The regime also bars travel to punish relatives of Cubans who have left the island against government wishes. Cuba uses travel policy as a weapon to deter people from fleeing, prevent family reunification and drive a wedge between Cubans who stay and those in exile.

The fact is that Cuban escaping socialist poverty tends to make them appreciate the freedoms abroad and motivated to take advantage of it. Cubans escapees show the world that Castro regime made Cuba a hell hole when so many people want out. Keep in mind that the regime sells Cuba as a country of justice and equality around the world. So, all these escapees proves the regime wrong because after all, actions speak louder than words.

When I turn the TV or radio on, I have access to hundreds of channels and stations all around the world. I can surf the Internet without my provider banning access to any site, not even a Cuban site. My passport allows me to go anytime anywhere without being asked to return in 11 months.

For those non Cuban that share the idea that the Cuban can leave the country freely, I can assure that everything writing in the article is the real truth. How in the world can be compare the status of the US citizen that cant visit Cuba and the Cuban that need the government permit to go any were in the word (and pay for that permit, the “white card”). Once the people leave the country is when they really realize the freedom to travel.

Cuba remains one of the very few countries in the World where it’s Citizens must obtain, and pay for, a permit to re-enter his/her own country. This is a type of totalitarian control and a good source of revenue as well for the regime.

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Visions of a post-embargo Cuba
http://babalublog.com/2010/02/a-post-embargo-cuba/

By Henry Louis Gomez, on February 25, 2010, at 10:38 am
It seems that the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba is the constant thread of the narrative here at Babalu Blog and wherever the issue of Cuba and its dictatorship is discussed. It feels like every day someone new comes along and says, “well it hasn’t worked in fifty years so isn’t time to try something new?” The purpose of this post is not to discuss the origins or intent of the embargo, we’ve discussed that ad nauseam, but rather to look into our crystal ball and see what a post-embargo Cuba would look like without the regime first making any significant changes to its economic and political systems. In other words, giving the castro brothers exactly what they have been asking for since the Soviet Union collapsed.

Tourism

The first implication of lifting the embargo is that Cuba will be legally open to U.S. tourists for the first time in half a century. Now it’s interesting to ponder the fact that the castro regime’s creation myth begins with Cuba as a tourist playground for wealthy Americans who frolicked on Cuba’s beaches and gambled at tables of Cuba’s casinos while a dictator oppressed the Cuban people during the 1950s. Certainly it was not U.S. tourists that “liberated” Cuba from Batista. But now somehow American tourists possess some magical power to bring about change, at least that’s what embargo opponents would have you believe.

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One thing that constitution expressly mentions about the power of the federal government, it's in the arena of regulating trade. The way the embargo has been structured, it's a trade policy; it is about spending dollars in a foreign country. There are many ways a US citizen can visit Cuba. What's restricted is spending money there as a tourist. There's a reason why people who travel to Cuba legally have to get a license from OFAC (the office of foreign asset control) which is part of the treasury department. The embargo exists because of the Castro brothers expropriation of American assets.

The calls for lifting the embargo are coming from all angles and all sides, most of them with the standard syndicated filler language used by the regime in Cuba.

Lifting the embargo 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 tax payer.

The approval of credits to the Castro brothers’ regime by the United States would only replace the Soviet subsidy that they no longer receives, and will delay the transition of the Cuban people towards democracy guaranteeing additional decades of oppression and misery. Castro brothers’ tyranny looks forward to the day when the military apparatus and the massive repressive security service will be maintained at the expense of the United States government.

Mauricio Claver-Carone article stick to the facts to debunk the supporters of loosening the travel bank.

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Truth about the travel ban
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/04/1512173/truth-about-the-travel-ban.html

By Mauricio Claver-Carone
www.uscubapac.com

Every day there seems to be a new effort to lift U.S. sanctions toward Cuba, in particular the ``travel ban.'' The latest is a bill by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, of Minnesota, and U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, of Kansas, supposedly aimed at increasing agricultural sales to the Castro regime. But its most dramatic provision would end the ``travel ban.''

Tragically, the Peterson-Moran bill was introduced on the same day that 42-year-old Cuban pro-democracy leader and Amnesty International ``prisoner of conscience'' Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after an almost three-months'-long hunger strike protesting the brutal beatings, abuses and prison conditions he endured.
While supporters of loosening the travel ban make bold predictions and philosophical arguments, few stick to the facts. Consider:

• There is no ban on travel to Cuba -- only a ban on taking an exotic vacation there. The Department of Treasury's responsibility, under the trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), is to prohibit or regulate commercial ``transactions'' related to travel, not travel per se.

Travel to Cuba is authorized for a variety of reasons, ranging from academic, religious and family visits to visits in support of civil society. Tens of thousands of Americans legally travel to Cuba for these purposes every year.

• Tourism is the main source of income for the Castro regime. Cuba's tourism industry is operated and owned by the Cuban military, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR).

A November-December 2009 article in the U.S. Army's Military Review magazine titled, Revolutionary management, makes the point that Cuba's ``Revolutionary Armed Forces transformed itself to one of the most entrepreneurial, corporate conglomerates in the Americas.''

Cuba is one of the world's last remaining totalitarian, command-control economies, alongside North Korea.

Just as the U.S. Congress recently approved sanctions on Iran's petroleum-refining capability, which is that country's foremost source of income, the United States has long imposed sanctions against tourism transactions in Cuba to prevent an exponential increase in funds for the Castro regime's repressive machinery.

Last November's military exercises by the MINFAR in Cuba were financed by the hard currency of Canadian and European tourists. The real purpose of those exercises wasn't, as the Cuban government stated, to prepare against an ``ever-looming'' U.S. invasion, but, rather, to remind Cubans of the government's ability to crush its domestic opponents.

It would be much more forthright to label legislation to lift restrictions on tourism to Cuba as the Cuban Armed Forces Stimulus Act.

• We constantly hear the argument that tourism transactions are permitted with other state-sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, Sudan and Syria, so why not with Cuba? While undoubtedly rich in culture, Tehran, Khartoum and Damascus are not appealing tourism destinations or easily accessible to Americans.

Cuba, with its sunny beaches and proximity, is an appealing vacation destination for American tourists, but so, too, are many other Caribbean islands with democratic governments. Last year, more U.S. tourists visited Jamaica than the African continent or the Middle East. Should U. S. policy beggar friendly democratic neighbors to court an unfriendly repressive neighbor?

• Current U.S. policy toward Cuba has not failed. In order to label a policy as a failure, there needs to be evidence of the success, or likely success, of alternatives.

The fact is that almost two decades of Canadian and European tourism to Cuba has not eased the Castro regime's repression, improved its respect for basic human rights or helped Cuba's civil society gain any democratic space.
Even supporters of lifting tourism sanctions concede this. At a CATO Institute forum in December, U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, recognized that ``there are no guarantees that this will bring democracy to Cuba.''

What lifting restrictions on tourist travel will guarantee is that the Cuban military will double its income. To spend on what? Guns to rein in civil dissent? Technology to further censor Cubans' access to the Internet? Intelligence assets to support anti-American activities?

The question to be answered by Peterson, Moran, Flake and other supporters of lifting sanctions is: Do they trust the Cuban military with an exponential rise in income?

The answer leads to only one fact, with real consequences:

For Cubans, the consequence of lifting restrictions on U.S. tourism is more repression; for the United States, it's having financed that repression.

Mauricio Claver-Carone is director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC and editor of CapitolHillCubans.com.

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If the Castro brothers’ regime really wanted US tourists to roam the streets of Havana, they wouldn't have beat up Yoani, arrested and continued to detain the US contractor, allowed Zapata Tamayo to die, nor badmouth Obama at every step of the way since the announcement of last November's House hearings. As Sec. Clinton said, ``There's proof that each time we try to promote an increased free flow of people and information, the Castro regime digs in.''

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Castros sabotage ending U.S. Cuba embargo: Clinton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040904469.html

Reuters
Friday, April 9, 2010; 8:13 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cuba's President Raul Castro and his brother, ex-leader Fidel Castro, have sought to sabotage U.S. moves to improve ties because they fear it will threaten their power, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.

Clinton said Cuba's response to Obama administration efforts to enhance cooperation revealed "an intransigent, entrenched regime" that had no interest in political reform or ending the isolation imposed by Washington's 48-year old economic embargo on the island.

"It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do no want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years," Clinton said

"I find that very sad, because there should be an opportunity for a transition to a full democracy in Cuba and it's going to happen at some point, but it may not happen any time soon."

Obama has said he wants to recast ties that have been hostile since soon after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Fidel Castro stepped aside as president because of illness, with his younger brother Raul formally taking over in 2008.

The United States has over the past year lifted limits on Cuban Americans traveling and sending money to Cuba, and initiated talks with Havana on migration and mail service.

But Obama has said the economic embargo will stay until Cuba improves human rights and frees political detainees, and Clinton said the outlook was not good on either front.
"If you look at any opening to Cuba you can almost chart how the Castro regime
does something to try to stymie it," Clinton said while answering questions at Kentucky's University of Louisville.
Clinton noted that in 1996, when her husband former President Bill Clinton was seeking to improve ties, Cuba shot down two small U.S. planes that were distributing leaflets. The incident effectively ended that overture.

Over the past year, despite Obama's willingness to improve ties, Cuba arrested a U.S. contractor on suspicion of espionage while political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after an 85-day hunger strike in protest against prison conditions, Clinton said.

"It's a dilemma," Clinton said. "I hope (they) will begin to change. We're open to changing with them, but I don't know that that will happen before some more time goes by."

(Reporting by Andrew Quinn; editing by Philip Barbara)

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According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Cuban regime's refusal to entertain the Obama administration's overtures to improve relations reveals that the Castro dictatorship is "an intransigent, entrenched regime," with no interest in political reform.

This determination by the Secretary of State will most certainly help the Obama State Department reevaluate Cuba/US relations. In the past, the State Department has struggled to create a cohesive Cuba policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clintonwasted no time in using this astonishing piece of information to help the Obama State Department begin unraveling the puzzle of dealing Cuba's communist dictatorship.

"It is my personal belief," Secretary Clinton said, "that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years."

This determination by the Secretary of State will most certainly help the Obama State Department reevaluate Cuba/US relations. In the past, the State Department has struggled to create a cohesive Cuba policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clintonwasted no time in using this astonishing piece of information to help the Obama State Department begin unraveling the puzzle of dealing Cuba's communist dictatorship.

"It is my personal belief," Secretary Clinton said, "that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years."

Castros’ regime currently trades with practically every other capitalist country in the world. Nevertheless, it has never ceased blaming them, as it does with the US, for all their ineptness and troubles while collecting billions of dollars in revenue from them.

There is a complete lack of evidence that trade and the interaction with the millions of tourists from democratic societies has had any effect whatsoever in bringing about positive changes in Cuba.

The necessary steps required to be taken by the Castros’ regime to ease the ban on trade and travel between the two countries shall be:

Opposition parties should have the freedom to organize, assemble, and speak, with equal access to all airwaves. All political prisoners must be released and allowed to participate.

Human rights organizations should be free to visit Cuba to ensure that the conditions for free elections are being created.

Without major steps by the regime to open up its political system and its economic system, trade with the regime will not help the Cuban people.

The necessary steps required to be taken by the Castros’ regime to ease the ban on trade and travel between the two countries shall be:

Opposition parties should have the freedom to organize, assemble, and speak, with equal access to all airwaves. All political prisoners must be released and allowed to participate.

Human rights organizations should be free to visit Cuba to ensure that the conditions for free elections are being created.

Without major steps by the regime to open up its political system and its economic system, trade with the regime will not help the Cuban people.

Since the last count in 2007 180 countries conduct business with Cuba as confirmed by imports surpassing $13.78 billion during 2007 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20080814-1131-cuba-usa-trade.html)

Lift the Cuba embargo?

You don’t need to look further; here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth:

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It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Excerpt from the book "Fidel Castro and Human Rights", Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988.

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General Motors has no plans at the moment to start exporting cars to Cuba, though many of the pre-embargo cars on the roads in Cuba were made by General Motors and most of them during the Eisenhower administration. There have been occasional imports, as Russia was selling Lada cars to Cuba during the 1970s. There are already a small number of new cars in Cuba. A new market for exports is always welcome among automobile makers, and a brand new place to ship automobiles may be opening up after years without access. Economic reforms have led to the resumption of new vehicle sales - in Cuba. The outrageous changes got to New cars to be sold in Cuba in 2012. Though Cuba will start importing new cars, the embargo of Cuba is still in effect, and the Big Three of Detroit are not likely to push for a permit to start exporting any cars there. Also, there are few people who will be able to buy a new car.

The development and changes in Cuba is remarkable as they came to be productive.

A few people will be able to buy a new car in Cuba? Yes, a few people in the government. Most Cubans will still have their old jalopy or their bycicle. "Development and changes in Cuba"... Yes, as in the classical joke: En Cuba han pasado del comunismo al consumismo: Todos con su mismo apartamento que se cae de viejo, con su mismo automóvil de hace cuarenta años, con su mismo sueldo de m...

What will bring "Change" to Cuba are free elections, the freeing of all political prisoners, and the implementation of a market economy. Everything else is “mental masturbation!”

The true change will come the day that Cuba is truly a free democratic society. A society where it's citizens have a representative government, made up of multiple parties and are ruled by a constitution that follow the inalienable rights of all human beings. The ability for every Cuban citizen to be able to live free and seek their dreams with dignity and respect of themselves and feel accomplished in their lives. It is only then that there will be a change in Cuba, anything else is futile.

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Secretary of State on Cuba
http://www.penultimosdias.com/2010/04/1 ... e-on-cuba/

Por Jaime Suchlicki* (ICCAS)
Penultimos Dias

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently stated that the Castro brothers are against normalizing relations with the U.S. because the U.S. embargo serves as an excuse for the failures of the Cuban government.

So far so good. Yet the question that follows this statement is how many Cubans really believe that the shortages of bananas, potatoes and beans in Cuba are the result of U.S. policy? Very few. The Cubans understand well that the reason for economic distress in the island is the same as in Eastern Europe during the Communist era: a failed centrally planned economic system that doesn’t produce and stifles individual initiative.

Furthermore, food is not part of the U.S. embargo. For the past several years Cuba has been purchasing food and agricultural products from the U.S. The U.S. has become the largest exporter of food and agricultural products to Cuba .

Yet, there are other reasons why General Raul Castro doesn’t want to normalize relations with the U.S. It would mean a rejection of one of Fidel Castro’s main legacies: anti-Americanism. For the past half century, opposition to the U.S. and support of anti-American revolutionary and terrorist groups has been the main foreign policy cornerstone of the Cuban revolution. Moving toward the United States would require the weakening of Cuba ’s anti-American alliance with radical regimes and groups in Latin America, as well as Iran and Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East .

From the Castro brothers’ point of view, the U.S. has little to offer: American tourists which Raul doesn’t need (2 million tourists visit Cuba yearly); American investments which he fears may subvert his highly centralized and controlled economy; and products such as medicines and heavy equipment that he can buy cheaper from other countries. The U.S. does not have, furthermore, the ability to provide Cuba with the petroleum Venezuela is sending with little or no payment.

Emboldened by Venezuela’s continuous largesse and recent large credits from China, Iran, Russia and Brazil, General Castro feels confident that Cubans can be pacified with growing imports of foods and consumer goods, more economic concessions and continuous control and repression.

Foreign aid from these countries, furthermore, comes without conditions. None of these countries are concerned with Cuba ’s political system, human rights or a return to democracy.

Why would Raul Castro offer concessions to the U.S. while he enjoys the fruits of a close relationship with the above countries? Even at the height of uncertainty, following the collapse of Communism, the Castro brothers insisted they would offer no concessions or change Cuba ’s system. Raul repeated this recently. They prefer to sacrifice the economic well-being of the Cubans rather than cave in to demands for a free Cuba politically and economically. Neither economic incentives nor punishment have worked with the Castros in the past. They are not likely to work in the future.

Which brings us to the obvious conclusion that not all differences and problems in international affairs can be solved through negotiations, or can be solved at all. This reality vitiates an assumption that has permeated American foreign policy for decades. There are international disputes that are not negotiable and can be resolved only through the use of force or through prolonged patience until the leadership disappears or situations change. While some differences naturally can be solved through negotiations, others are irreconcilable. Cuba seems to fall in this last category.

* Jaime Suchlicki is Emilio Bacardi Moreau Distinguished Professor and Director, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami . He is the author of Cuba: From Columbus to Castro, now in its fifth edition; Mexico: From Montezuma to NAFTA, now in its second edition and the recently published Breve Historia de Cuba.

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Excellent analysis by Jaime Suchlicki of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent comments on Cuba. His assessment boils down the Cuba situation to this indisputable reality: “There are international disputes that are not negotiable and can be resolved only through the use of force or through prolonged patience until the leadership disappears or situations change. While some differences naturally can be solved through negotiations, others are irreconcilable. Cuba seems to fall in this last category.”

To assume the USA can negotiate with the Castro brothers’ dictatorship, whose only concern is self-preservation, and somehow convince them that committing political suicide is their best option, is to ignore the reality of the past half-century.

The Castro brothers do not want an end to the embargo, regardless of what their admirers or propaganda apparatus say. What they want is for the US to find a way to bail them out, extend them loans and lines of credit, which they will not be pay backas it happens at the present time with other countries ( the regime staggering debt is way over $60 billions). These loans will replace the financial assistance that the Soviet Union was given to the regime. This certainlywill help the regime to keep the Cuban people oppress for a longer time.

The standard of living and social development of the Cuban people are tightly attached to the economy. The improvement of those under the existing regime economical disaster is nil. The embargo isn’t the cause of the problems, they are the product of the ineffectiveness and corruption of the Castro brothers dictatorship, they are the real reason.

The abuses perpetrated against the Ladies in White and the death of Zapata Tamayo have exposed once again the brutal and cruel nature of the Castro brothers’ regime, and taken credibility away from all those who want to unconditionally normalize relations with them, making this possibility very difficult to accomplish.

Lifting today’s nominal embargo is a good idea that almost all Cuban agree with, any way the embargo doesn’t exist, it’s proven enough, but some people and the dictatorship continues to talk about the embargo to create the impression in the public opinion that it exist. It is the old tactic used by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi regime minister of propaganda whose very famous quote says, “If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth...”The only effective embargo that to this day affects the Cuban people is the internal embargo that the dictatorship maintains on the Cubans.

The United States government’s embargo has had little effect on the Cuban economy, since it only represents 6% of Cuba’s commerce with the rest of the world. The embargo only affects the American companies and their subsidiaries. The rest of the countries, a 180 since the last count in 2007, and companies are free to conduct business with Cuba and are doing so, as confirmed by imports surpassing $10.00 billions during 2007. In reality there is not such embargo since in the year 2000 the United States Congress lifted the prohibition of the sale of agricultural products and medicines to Cuba, thereby allowing Castro’s regime to buy everything it needs.

From December 2001 up to December 2007, the Castro’s regime had signed contracts for more than $2.00 billions with American companies for the purchases of their products. The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, based on analysis of official figures of the Castro’s regime, has estimated the import of U.S. agricultural products in $437 millions during 2007. Cuba's National Statistics Office (www.one.cu) placed the United States as Cuba’s fifth business partner at $582 million in 2007. In 2008 The U.S. sold $718 million in goods to Cubaaccording to the Census Bureau.

What the Cuban people experience is rationing, shortages, long lines and bureaucratic indifference, that's the real embargo of Castro brothers’ regime.

The following excellent article makes solid points against lifting the embargo without meaningful changes in Cuba. The author lays out good reasons why lifting the embargo will benefit the Cuban dictatorship, not the Cuban people:

Lift the Cuba Embargo? By Humberto (Bert) Corzo
Cuba: Lift the Cuba Embargo?

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Cuba can't postpone cultural transformation
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/23/1642452/cuba-cant-postpone-cultural-transformation.html

BY OSCAR ESPINOSA CHEPE
leivachepe@gmail.com
Posted on Sunday, 05.23.10

HAVANA -- In the context of the Obama administration's opening to the appearance of Cuban artists in the United States no matter what their political positions, Silvio Rodríguez, his wife and daughter received visas to tour that country.

The highlight of the tour is a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York on June 4. In addition, the visit will include appearances in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Puerto Rico.

Although Silvio maintains his support for the regime, in recent times he has expressed criticism of controversial issues in the nation's reality, among them the restrictions on entering and leaving the country, as well as the Revolutionary Offensive of 1968 [when the government confiscated more than 55,000 small businesses and put them under state control] and its disastrous consequences.

Silvio's visit has been preceded by the visits of many other Cuban artists. The day before his appearance in Carnegie Hall, Alicia Alonso will be honored by the American Ballet Theatre in New York, where she began her career as a dancer in 1943. She is about to celebrate her 90th birthday.

Alonso is not limited by her political position of connivance with totalitarianism, including her support for the repression during the Black Spring of 2003, which put in prison 75 peaceful Cubans only because they tried to express their opinions, and for the cruel and excessive sentence of death by firing squad meted out to three young blacks who made the mistake of trying to take a ferryboat to the United States without shedding any blood.

Cubans applaud President Obama's gestures of true democracy and wonder when the Cuban government will allow artists who live abroad to bring their art to Cuba. People here want to enjoy the appreciated talent of Bebo Valdés, Gloria Estefan, Willy Chirino, Albita, Paquito D'Rivera and many others.

The repeated friendly gestures made by the American authorities should be reciprocated by the Cuban authorities. At a time when the economy sinks swiftly, we should take advantage of Washington's stance to begin to settle the differences that for so many years have separated our countries.

Ninety miles from our shores and possessing the world's most powerful and efficient economy, the United States would be an economic and commercial partner that, on a basis of mutual respect, could help lift our country from the terrible chaos in which it finds itself. That requires outsize investments that demand enormous resources and the best technology, factors available in the United States, home to 1.7 million Cuban Americans, who could form a magnificent bridge to achieve that objective.

It is impossible to reach that objective, however, if the Cuban government does not also take steps toward rationality and the gradual democratization of the island.

Such a strategy would be in line with the interests of Cuban society, which has been plunged into disaster precisely by the authorities, when they refuse to walk along the road of sanity, common sense and respect for different opinions.

Today, more than ever, it is in the interest of all Cubans, the government included, to put aside a bunker mentality cluttered with wrong positions and useless rhetoric.

It is indispensable to take concrete measures that would include: the immediate release of prisoners of conscience and peaceful politicians; turning over the land to the peasants so they can cultivate it freely and enjoy honorable lives with their efforts; allowing the creation of small and medium private enterprises; granting all the citizens the freedom to work in a legal framework for the establishment of a democratic society with respect for human rights; and creating a strong and independent civil society.

As Cardinal Jaime Ortega said recently, referring to the need to find solutions for today's economic and social difficulties the common denominator among the people consulted is that ``the necessary changes be made soon in Cuba . . . this opinion reaches a sort of national consensus, and its postponement produces impatience and malaise in the people.''

We are in a crucial moment for Cuba. The changes can no longer be delayed. The government must understand that the transformations cannot be postponed. Reconciliation is attained on the basis of honorable compromises among all Cubans.

Oscar Espinosa Chepe is an economist and independent journalist in Cuba.

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The problem is that the changes have been delay, and they are a band aid, they don’t address the real problems.

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Cuban Communists and the California Farm Bureau
Statement by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes of Californiaon April 29, 2010, at Ways and Means' Trade Subcommittee hearing on U.S.-Cuba Policy:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zvB2...layer_embedded
RepDevinNunes — April 29, 2010 — Our allies in Central and South America are under constant assault by hostile powers including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Without our support, we leave these friendly Democracies at the mercy of anti America sentiment and militant Marxist ideology.

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Rep. Devin Nunes is very clear and forthright in his assessment of trade with the Cuban military regime. I wish him a long successful political career.

One thing that the constitution expressly mentions about the power of the federal government, it's in the arena of regulating trade. The way the embargo has been structured, it's a trade policy; it is about spending dollars in a foreign country. There are many ways a US citizen can visit Cuba. What's restricted is spending money there as a tourist. There's a reason why people who travel to Cuba legally have to get a license from OFAC (the office of foreign asset control) which is part of the treasury department. The embargo exists because of the Castro brothers expropriation of American assets.

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Cuba must compensate US before embargo is lifted: lawmaker
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100429/pl_afp/uscubauspoliticsdiplomacyeconomy_20100429215436

Thu Apr 29, 5:54 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Cuba must pay the United States six billion dollars in compensation for expropriated businesses and property before Washington lifts a decades-old trade embargo, a US lawmaker said Thursday.

"We must resolve the over six billion dollars in expropriation claims... before developing a more robust economic relationship with a post-Castro democratic government in Cuba," said Kevin Brady, a Republican US representative from the state of Texas, speaking at a congressional hearing on US trade with Cuba.
Brady's remarks come after a top Cuban official last week challenged the United States to lift its punishing economic embargo against Havana.
Cuba's National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon pressed Washington to "lift it, even for a year, to see whether it is in our interest or theirs."

After coming to power in 1959, Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalized numerous US enterprises in the name of the communist revolution.
In 1972, the value of Cuba's expropriated US property was estimated to be worth about 1.8 billion dollars, according to a US government panel that examined the issue.

That sum has grown more than three-fold over the years because of compounding interest, set at an annual rate of six percent.

The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States (FCSC), the independent, quasi-judicial federal agency under the aegis of the US Department of Justice, is tasked with determining the monetary value of claims by US nationals for loss of overseas property as a result of nationalization or military operations.

At Thursday's hearing, the US Chamber of Commerce and non-governmental organizations including the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) argued in favor of relaxing trade restrictions against Havana.

Brady said he was "open to loosening some restrictions on Cuba," but only after the US government and private American interests divested of their property after the revolution were compensated.

President Barack Obama came into office seeking better relations with Cuba, but after an initial thaw, tensions have set in again, most recently over Cuba's treatment of dissidents.

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The United States embargo was enacted in response to the illegal expropriation of properties belonging to t US citizens by the Castro brothers’ military tyranny, with a value of over $1 billion at the time of the expropriation. Taking into consideration that 50 years has passed since those claims were made; the actual value of the claims including inflation and interest is close to $ 6 billion.