Interesting article in Caribbean Net News online today
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com Rejecting outdated Cuba policy
by COHA Research Associates
Saturday, July 2, 2005
On Thursday, by a vote of 211-208 the US House of Representatives voted against a measure permitting Cuban-Americans to visit their families in Cuba more often and eliminating the 45 year old trade embargo on Cuba.
Though the measure did not pass, the extreme closeness of yesterday’s vote, combined with Congress’s recent movements to relax travel sanctions to Cuba indicate the changing mindset of the U.S. legislature, most of whom no longer regards Cuba as the threatening force that it was seen as being in the 1960s.
These past few years, a group of Midwestern senators from heavily agriculture states, lead by Max Baucus (D-MT) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan), have doughtily proposed amendments and measures to end the stalemate between Cuba and America.
The international community seems to be following this trend; last week the European Union voted to freeze diplomatic sanctions on Cuba until June 2006, holding out an olive branch in the form of a year of “constructive dialogue.”
However, President Bush has shown no signs of straying from his anti-Castro mentality. This unflinching obduracy on the issue was in evidence in his remarks at the recent meeting of the OAS, where he suggested that sustaining sanctions was vital to achieving Cuba’s democratization.
But how much longer will Americans tolerate the persistence of a dated grudge against a tiny island nation that demonstrably posses no threat to the U.S. or anyone else? Will the US stand by scornfully while the rest of the world finds reconciliation with Cuba with the U.S. in effect, shut out of the process?
Congress and Europe are beginning to acknowledge what Bush has yet to see: Cuba’s threat to democratic institutions has all but disappeared. Cuba is now merely an overwhelmingly impoverished, needy Caribbean nation, and no sanctions or embargoes will change that situation.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being “one of the nation’s most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers.” For more information, visit www.coha.org or email coha@coha.org.
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