For an end to restrictions on travel to Cuba
Andres Gomez, Editor Areito Digital
Miami. - Even though it is true that the economic and financial problems that confront the new administration in Washington are colossal – “catastrophic”, according to president Obama himself -, and that the process of approval of the new stimulus package into law in both the Senate and the House of Representatives has robbed the president of his available time, we, who support the end to the travel restrictions to Cuba, also call upon the new administration to decide as soon as possible the end to the restrictions.
It is also true that last week the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, declared that the administration will authorize the trips of Cuban Americans to Cuba as well the sending of remittances. The question is then evident, if president Obama during his presidential campaign held that both restrictions would be lifted, and if his chief of staff also declared the same intention, why is it taking so long?
Every day that goes by, it is more and more expensive to travel to Cuba because of the supposedly religious licenses that the current restrictions, imposed in 2004 by the Bush administration, still require of someone to be able to travel, if one is not travelling with the licenses of the Treasury Department, that are granted only to travel once every three years, which are still required to make a trip to Cuba.
Why the delay in ending these terrible and unjust restrictions which only requires a presidential order?
The delay, no matter how brief, compels us, Cubans who live here, to insist in demanding this fundamental right.
And we will not stop demanding the end to the travel restrictions to Cuba when the new administration reinstates the right to travel only to us Cubans who live here. The end to the restrictions must include anyone who lives here and who would like to travel to Cuba. How could we allow that only us can travel but not everyone else?
In this way, last February 4th, nine Congress members of both political parties presented before the House of Representatives a new bill, the Freedom to travel to Cuba Act, which if approved would eliminate all the restrictions on travel to the island.
This is a government that promises to be profoundly reformist. It has formulated the necessity for a new American foreign policy that will better warrant the real interests of the nation as well as those of world peace. To achieve such endeavor it has declared itself willing to establish diplomatic contacts to work out old differences.
Among these is the official American rationale with respect to Cuba which for more than half a Century has reinforced its policy of permanent aggression against the Cuban people.
Therefore, for the same or even for more reasons than before, we stand firm in demanding that the government of the United States of America end its current policy against the Cuban people. That it end its genocidal policy of economic blockade against our people in Cuba. That it end its state terrorist policies against the Cuban people which for the last 50 years have caused the deaths of more then 3.400 Cuban men and women, including children and elderly people and also more than 2.000 incapacitated Cubans.
We demand then that the Obama administration begin the implementation of a radical revision of these policies and that it establish relations with the Cuban government with the purpose of founding a new policy which will really satisfy the true interests of both peoples.