The Yankees are Coming... Run for the (Sierra Maestra) Hills!!!

[Gambitt]

Momentum Grows for Relaxing Cuba Policy
Senate Measure Would Eliminate Travel Ban

Roughly a year after Fidel Castro stepped aside and handed much of the responsibility for leading Cuba to his brother Raúl, there is new momentum in Washington for eliminating the ban on most U.S. travel to the island nation and for reexamining the severe limitations on U.S.-Cuban economic exchanges.

At a Capitol Hill news conference scheduled for tomorrow, a wide array of senators and interest groups -- including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman  Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.); Banking Committee Chairman  Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.);  Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch -- will rally around a potentially historic bill to lift the travel ban.

President Obama called repeatedly during the campaign last year for a "new strategy" toward Cuba, and this month he lifted severe Bush-era restrictions on travel and remittances to the island by Cuban Americans with relatives there, after the 2009 spending measure banned using taxpayer money to enforce them. The Treasury Department also said it would ease licensing requirements for trade-related travel by U.S. citizens.

Although the decision is not yet final, Obama is expected to further loosen remaining travel restrictions for all Americans by the time he goes to the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, senior administration officials said. Such restrictions were first imposed in 1961 and have been progressively tightened since then. Removing all sanctions requires congressional action, but one senior official said that Treasury has wide leeway to ease the licensing requirements that limit travel.

A bipartisan majority in Congress, including farm-state Republicans looking for new agricultural markets, has long advocated lifting the sanctions to some degree. Provisions to ease the restrictions on travel and agricultural sales were repeatedly attached to legislation passed during the Bush administration, only to be abandoned in closed-door reconciliation conferences as the threat of a presidential veto loomed.
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The new bill was first proposed two years ago, dying in committee, but this time it has gained 18 co-sponsors, including eight Democratic committee chairmen. Meanwhile, new legislation was offered in the House last week to further loosen trade restrictions for agricultural products.

The handful of Cuban Americans in Congress, most of them Republicans, have long been in the vanguard that advocated stricter restrictions and opposed a new outreach toward Cuba. But none has been more stalwart than  Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez has risked the goodwill of the White House and his standing within the party to press the continuation of sanctions and travel restrictions against Havana's totalitarian regime. He riled many of his colleagues this month by blocking two of Obama's science nominees and by holding up the 2009 spending measure to protest the Cuba provisions it included.

The bill to be unveiled tomorrow in the Senate goes well beyond the measure Menendez just protested by removing legal barriers to all travel to Cuba, as opposed to just family-related visits.

Lugar released a report in late February that calls for a dramatic overhaul of U.S.-Cuba policy. "Economic sanctions are a legitimate tool of U.S. foreign policy and they have sometimes achieved their aims, as in the case of apartheid in South Africa," he wrote in a letter accompanying the report. "After 47 years, however, the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of 'bringing democracy to the Cuban people,' while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba's impoverished population."

In a lengthy speech from the Senate floor this month, Menendez shot back at Lugar: "Over the years, millions of Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans, South and Central Americans, among others, have visited Cuba, invested in Cuba, spent billions of dollars, signed trade agreements and engaged politically. And what has been the result of all of that money and all of that engagement? The regime has not opened up; on the contrary, it has used resources to become more oppressive."

Fellow Democrats were surprised by the force of his defiant, public opposition to a provision that enjoys broad support in the party. Menendez also serves as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a coveted leadership post that demands a degree of party loyalty.

Some liberal donors protested doing business with a man they thought was taking an outdated stance, and some of Menendez's fellow senators questioned whether they had picked the wrong person for the DSCC job. Dodd, for instance, is a top GOP target in 2010. He has called U.S.-Cuba policy "an abject failure." Some Democrats have wondered privately how hard Menendez would work to defend his colleague.

"Anyone who knows me knows my views are both heartfelt and principled," Menendez responded. "It should be of no surprise to anyone that I have used political capital in my many years in the House and the Senate on this issue."

Menendez said he would continue to use every available tool to preserve U.S. sanctions until political conditions change in Cuba, although he attributed much of his earlier ire to the fact that the provision had been inserted with no notice into an unrelated bill.

"If you want to change Cuba policy, fine, let's duke it out," Menendez said. "Let's duke it out on the floor and let's have our debate and let's have our amendments. Let's know who's for democracy and human rights and who wants to sell their stuff no matter how many people are in prison. That's fine. At least it will be an honest discussion."

Menendez and other proponents of the current restrictions warn that free-flowing trade and tourism would only enrich the Castro regime and defuse tensions within the Cuban population -- friction that is key, they argue, to fostering political change.

Dorgan, who is the lead author of the unrestricted travel measure, said Menendez and a small, bipartisan group of House hard-liners are fighting a losing battle. "It's sort of all over but the shouting, whether our country should maintain this embargo," Dorgan said.

Menendez "has a right to take a position and assert it very strongly," Dorgan said. But, he added, "it's pretty clear to everybody that this is a failed strategy and has been a failed strategy for a long time."

Although Obama last year proposed a new direction with Cuba, he has yet to indicate he favors lifting all economic sanctions. In remarks before the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami last May, he asserted, "It's time for more than tough talk that never yields results. It's time for a new strategy. There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans. That's why I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island."

But on a separate CANF questionnaire, Obama wrote that, while U.S.-Cuba policy "has failed," he would "maintain the embargo as an inducement for democratic change on the Island."

At a warm-up summit to this week's meeting of the Group of 20 major industrialized nations, Vice President Biden said in Chile this weekend that the United States had no plans to scrap the Cuban trade embargo. He said that the Obama administration thinks "Cuban people should determine their own fate and they should be able to live in freedom." But he added that a "transition" was needed in U.S.-Cuba relations.

Menendez said he was open to a debate on Cuba, provided his colleagues refrain from sneaking language into unrelated bills. "A full and open discussion of the real situation in Cuba is timely," he said on the Senate floor this month. "We should gather evidence, bring a wide range of voices to the table and make careful and thoughtful considerations of their implications."

Get to Cuba now, before Havana is the next Cancun!!!!   

 Soon the biggest attraction on Calle 62, will be the Wal-Mart!! 

[travelchick]

Yep, there goes the neighbourhood!!      Travelchick 

[Gambitt]

At last, sane policy on travel to Cuba?

Thursday, April 2nd 2009, 4:00 AM

It took nearly 50 years. But this week new bipartisan legislation was introduced in the Senate and the House to revamp the obsolete U.S-Cuba policy and lift the long-standing travel embargo.

It is, to say the least, hard to believe.

After all, Cuba is the only country in the world to which the U.S. government bans travel - and has done so for 46 years.

To fully appreciate the absurdity, consider: Americans can legally visit North Korea and Iran, Vietnam and China, but Cuba, 90 miles from U.S. shores, is a no-no. It's surreal.

Yet there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) will hold a press conference today with leaders of the Cuban-American community. They are the authors of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act introduced in the House on Feb. 5 that would permit all Americans - not only those of Cuban origin - to visit the island.

"Under Bush, we had 'travel for nearly none'; under Barack Obama, we have progressed to 'travel for some'; and under this legislation, we can realize the goal of 'travel for all,'" said Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a nonprofit group working to reform U.S. policy toward Latin America.

Today's event comes two days after Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) held their own well-attended press conference to announce the introduction of the Senate's version of the bill.

"All of our goals - for U.S.-Cuba policy, for regional diplomacy, for boosting the U.S. economy, and for advancing our values and remaking our nation's image - are best served by replacing our policy of isolation with engagement, starting with travel for all," Stephens said.

Things already are moving in that direction.

On March 10, the Senate eased travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans that former President George Bush had mercilessly tightened five years ago. The new measures were contained in the $410 billion spending bill signed by President Obama on March 11.

"It is absurd that as a Cuban-American, I wasn't allowed to freely travel to the place where I was born," said Iraida López, a college professor in New Jersey. "Visiting family and helping your loved ones, what does that have to do with politics?"

The President is widely expected to issue an executive order that would further relax travel restrictions before he leaves for Trinidad and Tobago to participate in the April 17-19 Fifth Summit of the Americas along with 32 other leaders from the continent. But because it takes an act of Congress to entirely lift the ban, passing the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act is essential.

Under Bush, there was only unremitting hostility toward Cuba, but with President Obama, the hope for a rational policy is real.

"We've been engaged in a failed policy with Cuba for the last 50 years," Obama said in Miami during his campaign.

He also proclaimed his willingness to meet Cuban President Raúl Castro. Lifting the travel ban would be an important first step toward a dialogue.

"From a business perspective, restoring travel to Cuba would benefit the U.S. travel industry immediately and has the potential to boost demand for certain American-made consumer products which are permitted by law to be exported to Cuba under the 2000 Trade Sanctions Reform Act," said Jake Colvin, vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council, an association of U.S. multinational corporations which favors lifting the embargo.

It would also do wonders to repair the badly bruised image of the U.S. with our Latin American neighbors - all of which either have full relations with Cuba or are about to reestablish them - just in time for the Summit of the Americas.

After 50 years of hostility a new, saner relation with Cuba - one that should lead to scrapping the trade embargo - seems possible.

It's hard to believe.aruiz@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/04/02/2009-04-02_at_last_sane_policy_on_travel_to_cuba.html

[Gambitt]

US-Cuba 'Berlin Wall' about to fall

    * Ewen Macaskill, Washington
    * April 2, 2009

Democratic and Republican members of Congress were set to join forces overnight in support of a bill to end the decades-old ban on US citizens travelling to Cuba, a move that could mark the beginning of a thaw in Washington-Havana relations.

Two of the bill's sponsors, a Democrat House member from Massachusetts, Bill Delahunt, and Arizona House Republican Jeff Flake, will introduce it at a press conference and is co-sponsored by 118 other House members.

Sarah Stephens, director of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas, which has been campaigning for normalisation of relations, said that US tourists could be on Cuban beaches within the next few years.

"This policy is the last surviving remnant of the Cold War and like the Berlin Wall, it is long past time to dismantle it," she said.

The US has had sanctions on travel and trade against Cuba since 1962, three years after Fidel Castro took power.

The US argument was that denying Cuba revenue from trade and tourism would undermine its communist government.

In recent years, former US president George Bush tightened the sanctions, with new restrictions on family travel for Cuban-Americans.

His successor, Barack Obama, has ordered a review of Cuba policy, but in the meantime has in effect reversed the Bush administration changes by removing funding for enforcement of the ban on Cuban-American family travel.

In a letter to Mr Obama, Republican senator Richard Lugar called on him to appoint a special envoy to initiate direct talks and to end US opposition to Cuba's membership in the Organisation of American States.

Senator Lugar said the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago would present a "unique opportunity" to end the US embargo.

Americans face a $US7000 ($A9948) fine if they travel to Cuba, although exemptions are made for journalists and academics who request special permission from the State Department. A similar bill was announced at a Senate press conference on Tuesday.

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/uscuba-berlin-wall-about-to-fall-20090403-9lls.html

[Bulldog]

Relations between US, Cuba seem within reach

By ANITA SNOW – 56 minutes ago

HAVANA (AP) — Talks toward a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations seemed to be a real possibility after the new presidents of both countries reached out to each other with surprisingly straightforward language about their desire to revive a relationship frozen by 50 years of cold war.

Barack Obama said Thursday it was up to Havana to take the next step after his "good faith" gesture of removing some of the restrictions that lock Americans and their money out of Cuba.

Raul Castro responded within hours, saying "we have sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything — human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything."

"We could be talking about many other things," Castro replied from a summit in Venezuela. "We could be wrong, we admit it. We're human beings."

It was the most conciliatory language Castro or his brother Fidel — who handed him the presidency a year ago after falling ill — have used with any U.S. administration since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower in early 1961, when the nations broke off relations. It appeared to be a transcendent development, the best opportunity for talks in a half-century.

Raul Castro has previously said he would be willing to discuss all issues with Obama. But Cuban officials have historically bristled at the suggestion that they might discuss human rights or political prisoners with the Americans, saying such matters are none of the Yankees' business.

Castro called on the U.S. to release five Cubans imprisoned on espionage convictions and offered to free a group of political prisoners in exchange.

"I'm confirming it here today: If they want the freedom of those political prisoners ... free our prisoners and we'll send them to you with their families."

Talking about these issues, of course, is no guarantee Havana is ready to offer the reciprocity Obama says the U.S. needs to see before making any more changes in its Cuba policies. And Fidel Castro, who still pens enormously influential columns from the sidelines of power, could still throw a bucket of cold water on the conciliation.

Indeed, Obama said a relationship frozen for 50 years "won't thaw overnight."

But their words seemed as historic as any that leaders of the two nations have made to one another.

Relations warmed briefly during Jimmy Carter's administration, which featured short-lived direct flights between Miami and Havana and the opening of interests sections that provide some contact in lieu of embassies. But that honeymoon soon ended with a refugee crisis when 125,000 Cubans fled to the United States from the Mariel port west of Havana in 1980.

Warming relations under Bill Clinton also were put in the freezer after Cuban fighter jets shot down two civilian planes off the island's coast in 1996, killing the four exiles aboard.

Raul Castro said his only conditions for talks now are that Washington treat them as a conversation between equals and respect "the Cuban people's right to self-determination."

Earlier this week, Obama lifted restrictions on visits and money sent to Cuba by Americans with families there — steps he called "extraordinarily significant" for the families. But he ruled out a unilateral end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, even though the policy is widely seen as a failure that has complicated U.S. relations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

On a visit to Mexico City, Obama said the Cuban government needs to reciprocate with actions "grounded in respect for human rights," possibly including lifting its own restrictions on Cubans' ability to travel and to voice their opinions.

President Castro did not mention Obama's comments specifically — and stopped short of promising any action.

"We're willing to sit down to talk as it should be done, whenever," he said, while also condemning decades of efforts by Washington to undermine the Cuban government. "What's going on is that now ... whoever says anything, they immediately start (talking about) democracy, freedom, prisoners."

Obama spoke at a news conference after meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who called the U.S. embargo a failed strategy. Asked what the U.S. should do on Cuba to improve its image across Latin America, Calderon said "we do not believe that the embargo or the isolation of Cuba is a good measure for things to change."

Before Obama spoke, a similar message was sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a visit to Haiti.

"We stand ready to discuss with Cuba additional steps that could be taken," she said. "But we do expect Cuba to reciprocate."

"We would like to see Cuba open up its society, release political prisoners, open up to outside opinions and media, have the kind of society that we all know that would improve the opportunities for the Cuban people and for their nation," she said.

Castro spoke at a meeting of leftist leaders in the seaside Venezuelan city of Cumana, in advance of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where Obama and most leaders of the Americas will meet beginning Friday.

Castro is not invited because his country is not democratic. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the U.S. position a "show of disrespect."

Associated Press writers Christopher Toothaker in Cumana, Venezuela, Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Ben Feller in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jg9MLgTOoKINGqs9S2CWEy4ShF6QD97K28E81

[Jammyisme]

This is historic.

[travelchick]

WOW!  This is wonderful news.  I just knew great things would happen under Obama.     TC 

[Bulldog]

Democracy is they key, that is what Obama keeps saying