It’s quite apparent that the restrictions against travel to Cuba and the trade embargo have not had the desired effect of forcing Cuba to move toward democratization and greater respect for human rights.  Why continue to do something that doesn’t work?  Is it an act of a stubborn willed United States as Mr. Herrera charges in the article below?

At one time I lived in Key West, Florida….a city that is closer to Cuba than it is to Miami. Tales of partying in Havana prior to the embargo abound in Key West as do Cuban Americans. I had a number of close friends who were Cuban Americans and the restrictions created a great hardship for these family oriented people who had left family behind in Cuba.

I oppose the Cuba travel restricts and embargo for a couple of reasons. It hasn’t worked and serves no purpose except to hurt the people of Cuba, not to mention that as Americans who supposedly live in a free country we shouldn’t have travel restrictions. What kind of freedom is it when a government tells you that you cannot visit any country?

When the U.N. General Assembly voted to lift the embargo, from 1992 to 2002 only 2 – 4 countries have voted no.  The United States was always one of the nay votes.  (See chart below)

The effects of the U.S. “embargo” against Cuba
and the reasons of the urgent need to lift it
Rémy HERRERA
(CNRS, France)

July 2003

The U.S. embargo against Cuba is condemned by an ever larger and by now overwhelming majority of states members of the United Nations General Assembly. However, it continues to be imposed by the U.S. government’s isolated but stubborn will, in spite of the United Nations repeated injunctions, notably its resolution 56/9 of the 27th of November 2001. The purpose of this expose is to denounce this embargo in the strongest terms for the violation of law it represents, and for its total lack of legitimacy. These measures of arbitrary constraint are tantamount to a U.S. undeclared act of war against Cuba; their devastating economic and social effects deny the people to exercise their basic human rights, and are unbearable for them. They directly subject the people to the maximum of suffering and infringe upon the physical and moral integrity of the whole population, and in the first place of the children, of the elderly and of women. In this respect, they can be seen as a crime against humanity.¹

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Obama to Lift Cuba Travel Restrictions

By Michael D. Shear

President Obama will announce today that he is lifting travel restrictions that block Cuban Americans from traveling to Cuba and will relax the rules governing what items can be sent to the island, a senior White House official said.

The decision does not lift the trade embargo on communist Cuba but eases the prohibitions that have restricted Cuban Americans from visiting their relatives and has limited what they can send back home.

As a candidate, Obama promised to seek closer relations with Cuba, and courted Cuban voters in the key state of Florida. As president, he has signaled that he intends to move toward a greater openness.

REST OF ARTICLE

I applaud the action President Obama is taking to lift Cuba Travel Restrictions that block Cuban Americans from traveling to Cuba, but I don’t believe it goes far enough. I believe it’s time to quit punishing Cubans AND Americans for the actions of the Castro regime.

¹ http://www.iacenter.org/Cuba/cuba_embargo.htm