Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts

Friday, 9 November 2012

US-Cuba ties: Obama win stirs little hope among Cubans


The day after the US elections, the central square in Florida was crowded at lunchtime: workers tucking into cheap pizzas on park benches, sheltering from the sun or chatting, leaning on their bicycles.

But unlike in its namesake across the water, President Barack Obama's victory was creating little stir in Cuba's own Florida.

"I didn't follow it at all," said Rafael, a computer technician on his lunch break.

"But I think Obama is better than the other one," he says, referring to defeated Republican candidate Mitt Romney - a common view here.

President Obama is generally seen as the least worst option for Cuba. In his first term, he relaxed travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans to the island and lifted the limit on how much money they could send back to their families. That has made day-to-day life slightly easier for some - including here in Florida, Cuba - and for them, Mr Obama's re-election is a relief. Mr Romney slammed the policy change as "appeasement" and vowed to reverse it.

The changes have provided important funds, and supplies, for many of the Communist-run island's estimated 400,000 new, private businesses; and by extension they have helped those taking advantage of their new freedom to buy cars and houses, if they can afford it.

"That family help is very important in an under-developed country, you can really feel it here," said Rafael.

But, like many here, he had hoped for more.

Endless embargo?

The US president talked of a new era in relations with Latin America at the start of his first term but many Cubans are disappointed with the result.

"The only thing I would ask of him is to lift the blockade, so we Cubans can breathe a little," said Dana Yeves, buying a paper cone of donuts from a street cart.

The "blockade" is how Cubans refer to the five-decade old trade embargo imposed on the island by the United States. The embargo, dating from the Cold War, was aimed squarely at Cuba's leadership. Instead, ordinary Cubans have borne the brunt of a policy that prevents the sale to Cuba of all but medicine and food, while Fidel and now Raul Castro have run Cuba since 1959. Dana believes there is little chance that Mr Obama will end the embargo.

"I think he'd have done it already, if he was going to. The people controlling politics over there are the gusanos," she said, using the pejorative term "worms" for Cuban exiles in the US, who campaign relentlessly against any easing of the sanctions on Communist Cuba.

"Let's hope it happens, but I don't think the gusanos will let him change things even if he wanted to."

This month, the UN General Assembly will hold its annual discussion on the US policy, proposed by Cuba, and, as usual, is likely to vote overwhelmingly to condemn it.

Freeze or thaw?

Ahead of the debate, the Cuban government has been running its usual awareness-raising campaign in the national press, and screened a new documentary in Havana on the embargo's impact.

The film includes a young musician and a circus student explaining their difficulties, with captions blaming everything on the embargo.

"There's no reason to think anything would change, whoever is president," said Andor Piloto, who was in the audience. Like many there, he is an activist with Cuba's Communist Youth.

"I'm really not interested in who wins, we just want them to change more than 50 years of bad policy towards Cuba. We want to live without the blockade one day," Andor says.

"We want to be treated like any other country," he said as he and the other young Communists boarded old, yellow US school buses to head home.

"The Republicans do all they can to squeeze Cuba, but Obama has done nothing for us either," said Havana pensioner Alberto.

Improved remittances and flights for Cuban-Americans were all very well, Alberto said, but meant little to the vast majority of Cubans who like him had to get by with a state salary or pension of under $20 a month.

"I'd say the best thing he can do now would be to lift the blockade. That way it would show that all Cuba's problems can't be blamed on the blockade; they're Cuba's fault too," said Alberto.

With so much to occupy President Obama, it is hard to imagine that ending the embargo will be a priority. But it is the one thing Cubans want from the US - and the one unchanged element of their relationship for more than 50 years.

This article was written by Sarah Rainsford for the BBC

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

Watch the Cuban Vote in Florida

John McAuliff writes for the Huffington Post

A factor in President Obama's potential victory in Florida are Cuban Americans who wish to maintain the normal liberty to travel and send remittances/investments. More than 25 percent of the Cuban community returned last year and an even larger percentage presumably provide assistance to their family, and their own future stake in Cuba.

Although not all have become citizens and voted, enough have that Obama can expect to increase his percentage above the 5 percent gain over Kerry in 2008. In addition Cuba's migratory reforms have significantly broadened the group who can benefit from freedom of travel. In particular, the second phase announcement allowing return of previously excluded categories of illegal emigres affect people who have lived in the U.S. longer. With little hope of visiting Cuba, they likely have been more inclined to citizenship. Will they want to give up the opportunity suddenly afforded them to return?

All these folks know that a Romney/Rubio/Diaz-Balart/Ros-Lehtinen victory will slam the door shut to at least the Bush-era level of restriction of travel once every three years and very limited remittances.

Romney's campaign has run a scurrilous Spanish language ad in south Florida linking Obama to Presidents Chavez and Castro. Havana's denunciation of the semi-embassy U.S. Interests Section for meddling in domestic politics is a way to say publicly that it does not have a dog in the US race.

Even though, of course it does. For more than 200 years Cuba's fate has been intertwined with the U.S.

Only the hard-liners in Cuba welcome a hard line victory in the U.S. The government and party recognize that an Obama victory at least keeps the door open to Cuban Americans and purposeful visitors who are affecting public and elite opinion in the U.S. and in the case of the former, providing much needed grassroots investment. There are few American visitors who depart believing embargo and isolation make any sense, regardless of their conclusions about Cuba's political and economic system.

Moreover, a second Obama term offers the potential of deeper change in the bilateral relationship. The denunciation of USINT also signals that Havana will continue to maintain firewalls until Washington is prepared to grant the same respect for Cuba's sovereign independence as it does to Vietnam and China.

Thursday, 18 August 2011

American majority wants Cuban embargo lifted



This story originally appeared on RT.

Poll after poll show a growing number of Americans want an end to the US embargo on Cuba. It has been in place for over half a century and though it was designed to bring down Fidel Castro, it is Cuba’s citizens who have felt its impact most.

Despite promises from President Obama downwards, it seems America’s powerful anti-Castro lobby is not about to let the embargo drop any time soon.

Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US imposed an embargo on all trade, investment and travel in an attempt to bring down the communist government of Fidel Castro

Cubans who fled the island for the US pushed to keep this agenda alive, and so the anti-Castro lobby was born.

“They give a lot of money, US elections are in fact privately financed, and so they've been able to figure out how to play the game. Even though they are a small percentage of the population they play a very big in a key swing state,” Frank Sharry, founder of America's Voice organization, said.

Polls consistently show that two-thirds of Americans favor ending the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba, and some in Congress agree.

“It’s about time we talked to Cuba and stopped fighting these wars that are about 30 or 40 years old,” Senator Ron Paul said.

But anti-Castro groups have given a total of $1.798.124 in donations to House and Senate candidates from 2004 to 2010, keeping US Cuba policy virtually unchanged.

Fewer than one per cent of Americans are of Cuban origin and the majority emigrated before the end of the Cold War. Unlike the rest of the Hispanic population in the US, 58 per cent of Cubans are US citizens.

"Cubans that arrive and set foot on beaches in Florida are on their way to citizenship. Haitians that arrive and set foot on the beaches of Miami are on their way to a detention center and deportation,” Frank Sharry said.

Cuban Americans are also a force to be reckoned with in Congress. They are the most over-represented community in Congress, with two senators and four representatives, including the powerful Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

"I welcome the opportunity to have anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said. 

They have powerful political action committees behind them, like the US Cuba Democracy PAC, the number one campaign donor in 2006 with $569.624.

“Our community is very focused and concentrated in New Jersey and Florida and so we have to make an effort to get out there and create the relationships,” Mauricio Claver-Carone, Director of US-Cuba Democracy Lobby Group, said.

Their agenda has been known to change many politicians’ minds, including President Barack Obama’s.

“I think it’s time to end the embargo,” Senator Barack Obama said back in January 2004.

Yet he changed his mind while campaigning before the Cuban American National Foundation, stressing that: “As president I’m not going to end the embargo.”

But while the majority of Americans favor ending the sanctions against Cuba, even protesting in the streets, they have yet to match the strength of the anti-Castro lobby.

Examples of previous polls in America which have rejected the blockade of Cuba can be found here and here.