People-to-people travel has been one of the few successful elements of U. S current policy towards Cuba. However, this category of travel has been under constant attack since its implementation by the Obama Administration in January 2012.
According to the Treasury Department, approximately 160 organizations were granted people-to-people licenses in the past year. Now about 140, a sizeable number, of those people-to-people travel licenses are languishing in the bureaucratic depths of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, pending renewal. Twenty applications of the total 160 have been newly granted or renewed within the past month, but some very respectable organizations have been denied their renewal. In 2010-2011 we worked tirelessly to reinstate this category of travel, and we will not stand by quietly and watch it shrivel and disappear.
For many months—almost two years actually—we’ve focused on congressional action that would definitively end the ban on travel to Cuba; we felt that we had a real opportunity in the 111th Congress to radically alter the stale debate that had developed in Washington DC during the Bush Administration. We succeeded in changing the debate, but so far the policy has not changed.
At the beginning of the year, as we began the second round of the 111th
Congress, our campaign to lift the ban on U.S. citizens' travel to Cuba
had come to a crossroads. In 2009, the "Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act,"
H.R. 874, introduced in the House of Representatives by travel
champions Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), won strong
backing, i.e. co-sponsorship, from an astonishing 180 representatives.
Nevertheless, we weren't raising any celebratory mojitos. While the
U.S. public was and is increasingly coming around to our viewpoint, we
were still 30 or so votes short from being able to pass the Freedom to
Travel to Cuba Act in the House. With no new co-sponsors in sight, it
was time to consider alternative paths to a resounding "Travel for
ALL!" victory.
Love, Loss, and Longing: The Impact of U.S. Travel Policies on Cuban-American Families (see the publication here) continues to raise awareness about the ban on travel to Cuba. Between March and November, 2008, LAWG Education Fund and the Washington Office on Latin America conducted educational sessions on ending the travel ban and showcased our publication in states as widespread as Virginia, Wisconsin, Massachusetts (two cities), Ohio (three cities), and California (four cities). We appeared on two cable television networks and several radio programs. The book is an extraordinary education and advocacy tool that connects your heart with your understanding of the false rationale behind the travel ban.
We are hopeful that, under a new administration, compassion will win out and the ban on family travel and remittances will quickly end. Then our task remains to re-claim the right of all Americans to travel freely to Cuba to engage with our Cuban neighbors. Help us in this task by signing up for Cuba policy e-mail alerts.
by Aarendy Gomez and Paulo Gusmaoon August 01, 2008
Cuba:
A Step in the Right Direction
After years without any positive change in U.S. policy toward Cuba, the
House Appropriations Committee recently demonstrated support for alleviating
the inhumane restrictions on trade and travel to the island.
On June 25th, the committee passed the
Financial Services Appropriations bill with a provision that will ease
travel for Cuban Americans who want to travel to the island to visit family.
The bill also increases agricultural trade between the United States and
Cuba.
The provision was presented by the chairman
of the Financial Service subcommittee Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY),
and is a small step in the right direction of ending travel restrictions
for all Americans. The specific provisions include:
Allowing Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba to visit
family once a year rather than once every three years.
Expanding the definition of family to include
aunts, uncles, first cousins, nieces, and nephews.
Tweaking the “cash-in-advance” regulations
to allow agricultural goods to leave U.S. ports for Cuba prior to receiving
Cuba’s cash payment; title is transferred after the cash is received
in the seller’s account.
Typically, the next step after committee
approval would be for the bill to move to the House floor for amendments
and a final vote. However, because this is an election year, it is difficult
to determine whether the legislation will even make it this far. Democrats
in Congress are likely to hold up current appropriations bills in favor
of re-writing them in early 2009 under a new (and potentially Democratic)
administration. However, if the bill does come to the House floor, we
have to be ready to defend the Cuba provisions. Losing this vote would
send the wrong message to a new administration about the level of support
in Congress for changing this failed policy.
The Senate has also taken significant steps toward abandoning the inhumane
restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba. On July 9, the Senate Financial
Services and General Government Appropriations subcommittee unanimously
approved a spending bill that included Cuba related provisions similar
to those introduced by Mr. Serrano in the House. The provisions included
in the Senate bill would restore the rights of Cuban Americans to the
level they were at before 2004, when President Bush’s “Commission
for Assistance for a Free Cuba” tightened restrictions. This means
that Cuban Americans could now be able travel to the island once a year
rather than once every three years and that the 14-day travel limit would
be lifted. The bill also includes a provision to increase the spending
limit for Americans traveling to Cuba from $50 to $170.
In both the House and the Senate, opponents
of Cuban-American family travel have said they are going to challenge
the Cuba provisions. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Congressman
Boyd (D-FL) both expressed their opposition to the Cuba language in the
bill during the full House Appropriations committee meeting. Senator Brownback
(R-KS) also expressed opposition to the Cuba provisions in a recent Congressional
Quarterly article, announcing that he “may provide a different option”
at the full Senate committee markup.
Ultimately, if this bill moves to the floor
in either chamber, the hard-liners in Congress will continue to mischaracterize
any provisions that support family travel as condoning the Castro regime.
It will be essential for activists to remain vigilant in order to ensure
that this legislation is seen for what it can truly be, a first step toward
the full restoration of rights for all Americans and their families to
travel to Cuba.
Since August 2006, when Fidel Castro transferred power to his younger brother Raul, talk of “transition” has once again been at the forefront of discussions on U.S.-Cuba policy. For some, “transition” signifies a constitutional succession in Cuba; but for others, including the Bush Administration, true “transition” could only come with a regime change.
Despite these differences, one thing is certain: the power transfer in
Cuba is official. With Raul Castro as the head of state in Cuba, the
United States has an unprecedented opportunity to reconsider its policy
toward the island. A new diplomatic strategy should take into account
not only the shortcomings of current policy, but also the historical
experiences of other “transitional” countries around the world.
The republics of the former Soviet Union provide us with some
information about one model of transition. Today, we must urge our
policy-makers to examine these lessons learned—both successes and
failures—and apply them to a new model for U.S. policy toward Cuba, in
order to ensure policy goals include engagement and respect for
sovereignty.
Policy toward Cuba throughout the Cold War was geared toward isolation.
The rationale for implementing a comprehensive economic embargo was
dictated by the fear that the Cuban socioeconomic model would appeal to
other Latin American countries. In light of the geopolitical
environment of the Cold War, the fear of Cuba’s influence in the
region, at least in part, explained a policy aimed at isolating the
island from the United States, Latin America, and eventually the rest
of the world.
At the end of the Cold War, geopolitics changed. The 1960 U.S.-Cuba
policy is now even more outdated and irrelevant. The fear of Cuba’s
model spilling over into other countries can hardly be termed a
threat—though its example of standing up to the United States still
appeals to developing nations. The rhetoric used to justify Cuba policy
changed from fear of communism to support for democracy and human
rights and thus the conditions demanded by Washington in order to
normalize relations with Cuba also changed. From the 1960s and into the
late 1980s, the key security issues outlined by the United States were
Cuban troops in Africa, exporting revolution to Latin America, and
Cuban military security ties with the Soviet Union. The resolution of
these issues was considered a precondition for any alteration in
existing policy. Today, these security concerns are irrelevant. Cuban
troops are no longer active in Africa, Cuba is no longer engaged
militarily in Latin America, and the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Still the embargo stands.
In an October 2007 speech at the U.S. State Department, President Bush
discussed his conditions for engagement with Cuba: “As long as the
regime maintains its monopoly over the political and economic life of
the Cuban people, the United States will keep the embargo in place.” He
also stated: “To further that effort [to] break the hold of the regime,
the United States is prepared to take new measures right now to help
the Cuban people directly -- but only if the Cuban regime, the ruling
class, gets out of the way.” The word “freedom” has become the central
concept in the latest policy justification. President Bush further
articulated his understanding of freedom as freedom of speech, freedom
of association, freedom of the press, freedom to form political
parties, freedom to change the government through periodic multiparty
elections, and the release of all political prisoners.
Yet, these firm words from the president are only the latest in a
series of demands for Cuba. The United States has demonstrated an
uncanny ability to alter the conditions to which Cuba must adhere in
order to gain favor and normalize relations. All the while, the United
States has pressed forward with a policy of isolation. The future of
relations seems likely to follow this same trend, even now that Fidel
has resigned. Raul Castro is perceived by the administration as the
same as his brother and statements by embargo supporters indicate that
economic reforms Raul might institute would not alter their stance. In
a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research on January 15th, 2008, Nilda Pedrosa from the office of
Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) expressed her absolute disapproval of even
considering economic engagement with Cuba without first seeing total
political reform. Kristen Madison, of the U.S. Department of State,
echoed Ms. Pedrosa’s sentiments by stating that the United States
should only consider economic engagement with Cuba when it is possible
to influence the island politically. President Bush’s October 2007
speech on Cuba policy flatly stated that no change will occur in Cuba
policy, regardless of a change in power on the island or any economic
reforms.
If the United States were truly interested in promoting democracy,
freedom, and economic prosperity in Cuba--and not converting into
policy a vendetta held by the hard-line faction of the Cuban-American
community in south Florida as a pay-back for election favors—it would
ease or lift the embargo and remove travel restrictions and allow the
free exchange of ideas and people to occur.
The apparently seamless transfer of power from Fidel to Raul
demonstrates the resilience of the Cuban system. This resilience flies
in the face of U.S. policy, again proving the ineffectiveness of the
half-century strategy for dealing with the island. Continued
non-engagement is as detrimental to U.S. interests in Cuba today as it
is detrimental to Cuban civil society—in whatever future Cuba chooses
for itself.
