Will The Travel Ban Against Cuba Be Lifted?

This weekend the mass media is beating the war drums for the inevitability of escalation in Afghanistan. Soon Obama will see his effigies being reviled not just at rallies of crazed and confused teabaggers but by anti-war marchers all over the world. Yes, the embodiment of Change and Hope, who most of the international community still sees as the much needed antidote to the horrors of Bushism, is on the verge of leaving his pedestal-- a pedestal that includes a premature, at best, Nobel Peace Prize-- as he oversees the further horrors of a catastrophic and indefensible war against the Afghan people. Obama might as well get ready for the revilement and hatred headed his way by meditating on the widely expected-- and totally deserved-- condemnation from the UN General Assembly next week.

For the past 17 years the General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the United States for its inhuman and unjustifiable blockade against Cuba. Last year the margin was 185-3-- only the U.S. itself and 2 small client states voting no. Instead of ending the blockade and normalizing relations with Cuba, Obama has taken a couple of inconsequential, symbolic baby steps in that direction while playing the same absurd games that previous administrations have played-- i.e., change your society to be more like ours and we'll drop the blockade. The blockade was a disgrace under Reagan, a disgrace under both Bushes, a disgrace under Clinton and it's a disgrace under Obama.

Wednesday there'll be a vote on the resolution calling for an end of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of the island nation. The blockade went into effect in 1961 and has served no purpose except to perpetuate the illegitimate power of Cuban fascists associated with the Batista Regime-- like the Diaz-Balart family-- living in Florida.

Conscious that by its nature, it violates the most basic norms of international law and human rights, the empire’s publicists and their local spokesmen have unleashed, as on so many other occasions, a persistent semantic battle aimed at confusing and misleading worldwide public opinion. To this end they resort to a euphemism: they refer to the blockade as an “embargo” and present it as though it were merely a commercial matter. This is how they hide the far reaching U.S. blockade against Cuba: a blockade that is economic, commercial, financial and technological, but also international (penalizing as it does, companies in third countries who trade with Cuba, and hindering Cuba’s diplomatic relations with the rest of the world); informational (by preventing Cubans from gaining access to high-speed broadband internet); social (making the re-unification of Cuban families separated by emigration difficult or impossible); and cultural, by impeding the free movement of artists, writers, intellectuals and scientists between Cuba and the United States.

It is a blockade that is not only illegitimate in light of civilization’s highest values but also a blatant infringement of international law, designed to bring Cuba to its knees by causing hunger, illness and desperation among its people. In short: it is a repeat of the barbaric policy of laying siege to a defenseless city by causing all sorts of hardships and misfortunes to its inhabitants, in the hope of weakening their resistance or bringing about a generalized insurrection against its legitimate leaders. If anything, it is a cruel and inhumane policy which the empire applies solely and exclusively against Cuba, updating its old and unhealthy obsession of wanting to take over that island, even at the cost of violating international law a thousand times and trampling on the highest ethical norms that define the civilized co-existence of people and nations.
 
There are no precedents in worldwide history even remotely comparable to the blockade against Cuba, maintained without interruption by the United States over 49 years. Nothing even remotely similar has been applied by Washington against many countries which for one reason or another, have (or used to have) serious conflicts with the United States: it never blockaded the Soviet Union or China, for obvious reasons, but neither did it blockade Vietnam, nor Qaddafi’s Libya (not even after blaming Libya for the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, killing 259 passengers in-flight, plus 11 on the ground) nor North Korea, nor Iran, nor any other country. Only Cuba, a sweet American colonial dream that became-- thanks to the glorious liberating campaign of the July 26th Movement-- a painful nightmare that day and night shakes the minds of the imperialists.
 
Blinded by its pathological ambition to take over the unredeemed island it considers its own, the United States is in breach of Resolution 63/7, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on October 29, 2008, when 185 member states voted in favor of the immediate lifting of the blockade. It is not only the George W. Bush administration which has ignored the U.N. General Assembly’s recommendation, but its successor as well-- the current Nobel Peace Prize winner no less, who has continued with the same policy of maintaining the laws, regulations and administrative procedures which serve to support the blockade.

The report assembled by the Secretary General of the UN lists some of the accomplishments of Obama's blockade of Cuba:


• The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining diagnostic equipment or replacement parts for equipment used in the detection of breast, colon, and prostate cancer.

• The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining patented materials that are needed for pediatric cardiac surgery and the diagnosis of pediatric illnesses.

• The embargo prevents Cuba from purchasing antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV-AIDS from U.S. sources of the medication.

• The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining needed supplies for the diagnosis of Downs' Syndrome.

• Under the embargo, Cuba cannot buy construction materials from the nearby U.S. market to assist in its hurricane recovery.

• While food sales are legal, regulatory impediments drive up the costs of commodities that Cuba wants to buy from U.S. suppliers, and forces them in many cases to turn to other more expensive and distant sources of nutrition for their people.

• Because our market is closed to their goods, Cuba cannot sell products like coffee, honey, tobacco, live lobsters and other items that would provide jobs and opportunities for average Cubans.

Most people see the problem as one of internal Cuban-American politics in Florida, but that isn't completely true, where reactionaries primarily-- though not exclusively-- inside the Republican Party and hysterically opposed to any normalization steps with Cuba. But one of the worst impediments to normalization isn't a reactionary or a Republican or even a Floridian, but (an otherwise) progressive Democrat from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, who has taken it upon himself to block progress in the Senate. Yesterday the biggest newspaper in his state, the Star-Ledger declared unequivocally that it's time to lift the travel ban. Pointing out that "Castro's rise was made possible by the corrupt, U.S. mob-controlled government of his predecessor, Fulgencio Batista," the editorial board makes it clear that the bill coursing its way through the Senate should be passed.

Limiting travel to the Caribbean island is rooted in Cold War policies that have been overtaken by world events. Since 1989, the Berlin Wall has fallen and the Soviet Union has disintegrated. China has morphed into a capitalist powerhouse. Whatever geopolitical value Cuba had during the Cold War-- a line in the sand against the communist takeover of vulnerable Caribbean nations and Latin America, as the famous "falling dominoes" scenario of the era would have it-- has long since faded.

...In New Jersey, Sen. Robert Menendez and Rep. Albio Sires, both Democrats, have opposed any change in policy. In Florida, Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and former senator Mel Martinez, among others, also have resisted a new tack in the U.S.-Cuba relationship, going so far as to denounce the Organization of American States for laying the groundwork for Cuba’s re-entry into the OAS earlier this year.

But the older generation of Cubans who regard opposition to Castro as a badge of honor and a litmus test for U.S. politicians no longer dominates the dialogue.

In March, a University of Miami survey in Miami-Dade County found a slight majority wants to continue travel restrictions; younger respondents were not supportive of the ban or other sanctions at all. In the last presidential election, the economy, not Cuba, was the main issue for Miami-Dade voters, where 58 percent of the voters went for Obama.

In the spring, another poll showed Americans overwhelmingly want a new approach to Cuba, and a dozen retired U.S. senior military officials called on the White House to lift the ban as a means of promoting reforms.

They got it right. The best way to help Cuba on its journey to a more open and democratic society is to allow Americans to travel there.

The Senate's Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, S.428, was introduced by Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and has 32 co-sponsors, across the ideological spectrum, from progressive stalwarts like Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) to the dregs of reactionary knee-jerk obstructionism, like Mike Enzi and John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Crapo (R-ID) and a pack of the worst conservative Democrats like Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu (LA).

The identical House version of the bill, H.R.874, was introduced by Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and now has 179 co-sponsors, also from across the ideological spectrum, from the best progressives like Donna Edwards (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and John Conyers (D-MI) to a pack of mangy right-wing Blue Dogs such as Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR) and Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID) and a handful of GOP obstructionists whose agricultural districts will benefit economically from normalization-- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), John Boozman (R-AR) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

Last Wednesday's Miami Herald came out with an even stronger endorsement of lifting the travel ban than the Star-Ledger did. And theirs is largely based on new polling that shows a gigantic swing in public opinion towards lifting the travel ban-- including a swing among Cuban-Americans. Bendixen & Associates executive VP Fernand Amandi said "he was surprised by the magnitude of the swing in just seven years-- from 46 percent in favor in 2002 to 59 percent in the Sept. 24-26 survey. Only 29 percent were opposed in the new survey, compared to 47 percent in 2002. 'The significant thing is how quickly they have moved in a short period of time,' Amandi said, adding that the shift took place across all age groups, from older exiles to more recent arrivals... This removes the final fig leaf for why the time has not come to change policy-- that Cuban Americans were opposed."

The 3 neo-fascist Cuban-Americans in Congress from Miami-Dade, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (who fancies himself the next president of Cuba and whose father was in charge of torture for the Batista Regime), along with New Jersey's Menendez, are willing to fight this even if it means extinguishing their political careers. The Diaz-Balarts and Ros-Lehtinen have lost any perception of power they once had but Menendez, head of the DSCC, has said he will filibuster the bill. There are probably enough clueless Republican cold warriors to prevent a successful cloture. That will put progress in Cuban-American affairs back into Obama's hands-- and his hands, the administration will point out, are already full with too many pressing matters. Menendez' office number is 202-224-4744.