2 Republican Lawmakers Believe US Will Drop Cuba Travel Ban

[Osolomia]

Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill
11 Feb 2004

Two Republican U.S. lawmakers, just back from a trade mission to Cuba, believe the United States will drop its ban on Americans' travel to the Caribbean island next year.

Senator Larry Craig and Congressman Butch Otter, both Idaho Republicans, just returned from a four-day trip to Cuba, where they led a trade delegation and signed agricultural agreements with Cuban officials.

... Most lawmakers agree. The House of Representatives and Senate last year both approved legislation to lift the travel ban. But the measure was never sent to President Bush, who had vowed to veto it.

... Bowing to political reality, Senator Craig says the opportunity for lifting the travel ban will come next year, after this November's election. At a Capitol Hill news conference, Senator Craig said he told his Cuban hosts as much. "What I told Cuban officials is that I felt 2005 could become a very productive year for a progressive way of beginning to adjust and change our relationship with Cuba from a legal standpoint," he said.

... Senator Craig offered his observations of the Cuban leader. "It was a fascinating meeting in the sense that he fully engaged us in a very open discussion. He appeared in all aspects to be very robust. He certainly knew his facts and details about every element of program. He talked about the number of calories in a food lunch program served in their schools. He talked about the extended educational program in Cuba with great detail. I think all of us, never having met the gentleman, were impressed to the extent that he knew so many details of individual programs," he said.

More...
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=EAC9CE85-2211-4B43-ABDC92963E4E0A6B

[rexcat]

1. The key here is the measure will be passed after the November...

election. Bush* knows that Florida is a critical state and he needs the Cuban-American vote. He won't do anything to upset them prior to the election. Such pandering!

[Osolomia]

2. How are the Dem candidates any better than Bush on this?

Candidates on the issues: Cuba
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=338191

[Voltaire99]

3. Visit before it's ruined

I hope to see the island before it becomes McCuba.

[Vogon_Glory]

6. Small Chance of Cuba Being Mickie D'd

I suspect that even if the travel ban is lifted and the US embargo is ended, Cuba will never be Mickie D'd. Even if the Cubans go for a Chinese-style market economy, Cuba is not going to be sprouting the Holiday Inns, the Wyndhams and Seven Elevens found elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The reason is simple: thanks to the obstinacy of the Cuban exile community and the Commie-bashing homegrown Americans who supported the embargo, the US is already a lagging fourth behind European, Canadian, Mexican, and Asian investors who have been forming people-to-people contacts in Cuba and who have been rebuilding the pre-1959 infrastructure to their standards since the tourist season recommenced.

The only familiar post-1959 brands Americans are likely to see in Cuba if the embargo and travel bans go are Motel Six (Owned by Accor, a French outfit), Mercedes (The controlling part of Daimler-Chrysler), Toyota, BP, Fina, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Whatever I may think of Fidel's regime, the irony is that thanks to the obstinacy of the Cuban embargo supporters, Castro's goal of a much smaller US economic and political influence in Cuba is being achieved--with the unwitting help of the right-wing exile leadership.

[Osolomia]

8. Your pretzel logic escapes me

Tell me why, say Hilton Hotels wouldn't build on the Malecon to cater to American travellers? Or why General Motors wouldn't sell their cars there? Can't stand the existing competition?

Tell me how the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates' pro-embargo stances aren't dictated by the right-wing exile leadership?

[Vogon_Glory]

12. Your Assumption Is That The Embargo Ends When...

Your assumption is that the Embargo ends when the travel restrictions do. I don't see that happening, especially in the next few years. Even if the funds enforcing the travel ban are zeroed out, ending the embargo still has to be approved by Congress, thanks to Republican Tom DeLay. That would require a Democratic majority or a revolting Republican plurality.

Don't hold your breath.

Moreover, there's a thicket of legal questions that have yet to sorted out in the US courts. A number of Cuban exiles do have copies of legal documents showing that they did indeed have legal title to lots of properties across Cuba. Businessmen and entrepreneurs, especially those risking their own money as well as that of others, are hardly likely to run up buildings and infrastructure on sites where land title is clearly in doubt. Rather than invest their corporations' capital in Cuba, they'll sooner put that money in some other country.

This sort of thing has happened in eastern Europe after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. It is very likely to happen again in Cuba.

European and other foriegn companies, especially those with few US assets and possessing a lower US profile, run far less risk of being tied up in US courts fighting for property titles or trying to settle development rights in Cuba. Those outfits will forge ahead where American investors quite understandably fear to tread.

I doubt that a post Boosh regime presidential regime will do much to resist European economic inroads in Cuba. I doubt most sane people relish continuing the USA as Number One Rogue State. As subsequent US administrations seek to mend relations with their neighbors, that Boosh regime policy is likely to be discarded.

Again, I think it is increasingly clear to all but die-hard right-wing exiles on one side of the ideological spectrum and certain Fidelistas on the other, that the pro-embargo folks in Florida, Jersey, and Washington, DC are unwittingly assisting Fidel Castro's objective of lowering the US economic presence in Cuba.

Even when (And I believe it's WHEN, not if) the Cuban government opens up its economy to more private enterprise, Cuba will never again resemble the US economic neo-colony it did in 1958.

There will probably be an offshoot of the Grand Kempinski on the Malecon long before the Hilton girls get to think of how they can rehabilitate the Havana Libre. There's likely to be a Peugot or a Renault taxi waiting for the traveler at Jose Marti airport.

I don't understand the mentality of those who don't put down their pretzels when contemplating the obvious.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Interesting the good news was personally delivered

by a Senator from the "exile" panderer's own political party.

And to read this from the "Voice of America!" Amazing.

[Vogon_Glory]

5. The Senator From Weyerhauser Ignores DeLay and Bush

The Senator from Weyerhauser and his traveling companion have either forgotten about what fellow-Republican Tom DeLay did to efforts to soften the Cuban Embargo and travel ban during the Clinton administration or are in denial as to what the resident @ 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is likely to do regarding Cuba.

Anyone expecting the GOP to relax the travel ban to Cuba during a Boosh regime is fooling thremselves.

[Osolomia]

7. Considering the number of Republicans defying Bush on this

and the bipartisan majority votes in Congress for four years in a row now, and the power and influence and wealth of the anti-embargo lobby these days, and the pro-embargo stance of all the leading 2004 Democratic presidential candidates, evidently Dems are the ones who are in a state of denial and fooling themsleves on what the Boosh regime is already doing and what a Dem government says it would do.

[lumpy]

9. Advice to Fidel

Be careful in dealing with the present US administration. You might be better off not having much to do with these money grubbers. They seem to take delight in destroying other countries in the name of democracy, of course.

[Osolomia]

10. How would a Dem administration be any better than Bush

while you try to economically cripple the people of Cuba with your hostile embargo and travel ban?

Democratic Presidential Candidates on Cuba
http://www.lawg.org/tools/prez-candidates1.htm

Candidates on the issues: Cuba
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=338191

[Judi Lynn]

11. So an American harpsichordist has slipped through to Cuba

and participated in a concert of sacred baroque music in Havana. Just a matter of time 'til the long arm of _Bush's law catches UP with her!

(snip) CUBA: The second edition of the Esteban Salas Early Music Festival ends in Havana


11-02-2004
The Festival, that was celebrated at the old church of San Felipe de Neri and at the Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asís, Havana, Cuba, came to its end last Sunday February 8th.

The second edition of the Esteban Salas Early Music Festival, that began last Monday February 2nd with the premiere of the work La pasión de Cristo nuestro señor, by Spanish composer Antonio Teodoro Ortells, has had the participation of important Cuban and foreign artists and performers.

The early music ensemble Ars Longa, the Polyphonic Choir of Havana and the Vocal Ensemble Luna, from Cuba, inaugurated the Festival with the performance of the piece by Ortells, considered as the oldest of the Spanish baroque repertoire.

The organisation programmed the performance of a variety of Cuban choirs and ensembles such as Camerata Vocales Sine Nominé, the Orchestra Solistas de La Habana, the children choir Cantus Firmus, and the choir and orchestra from the Music Elementary School Manuel Saumell and also of artists from other countries such as Canadian soprano Linda Perillo, British violinist Walter Reiter, the Spaniard Manuel Vilas, Italian viola performer Gabina Colonia, the French ensemble Le Poeme Harmonique, Argentinean guitarist Francisco Gatoy and American harpsichordist Kathleen McIntoshy.
(snip/...)

http://www.goldbergweb.com/en/news/other/2004/02/18166.php