Dissidents decry US bill to end Cuba travel ban

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Dissidents decry US bill to end Cuba travel ban
By WILL WEISSERT
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 17, 2010; 6:46 PM

HAVANA -- Five days after his release for health reasons, a former Cuban political prisoner added his name to a letter signed by nearly 500 opposition activists decrying proposed legislation that would lift the U.S. travel ban to their country.

The letter, e-mailed to foreign reporters in Havana on Thursday, took the opposite approach of a statement last week supporting the same bill and signed by 74 dissidents, many with international notoriety - including Cuba's top blogger Yoani Sanchez, and Elizardo Sanchez, who is not related to Yoani but heads the island's top human rights group.

The bill in question was introduced Feb. 23 by Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat, and would bar the president from prohibiting travel to Cuba or blocking transactions required to make such trips.

It also would halt the White House from stopping direct transfers between U.S. and Cuban banks. That would make it easier for the island's government to pay for U.S. food and farm exports, which have been allowed for a decade, despite Washington's 48-year-old trade embargo.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061705172.html

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:rofl:

[IndianaGreen]

1. The US government has no right to tell its citizens where to travel

so much for the phony "freedom and democracy."

[burnsei sensei]

2. In the near future,

the U.S. and Cuba may have to coordinate efforts in the reclamation of the Gulf of Mexico.
I'd suggest very strongly that the travel ban be lifted and relations with Cuba be normalized IMMEDIATELY.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. estamos de acuerdo n/t

[Arrowhead2k1]

4. Cuba hasn't done anything really provocative towards anyone for nearly half a century.

It's time to let bygones be bygones.

[bemildred]

5. The US government has delusions of grandeur and never forgives disobedient satrapies.

Only if Cuba installs a right-wing dictator and accepts World Bank and IMF debt and starvation "austerity" measures will if be admitted back into the fold. Admittedly, being in the fold is not worth much these days.

[burnsei sensei]

6. arrogant + stupid

nt

[Billy Burnett]

7. The US/Cuba standoff is simply too profitable for the contractors engaging in it.

Cuba is not the dark and desperate place the US msm and government depict it as being.

If US non-Cuban citizens/residents could freely travel to Cuba then the blinders would be lifted from American's eyes. That would create further impetus to end all sanctions against Cuba.

[mwooldri]

8. The Cuba travel ban: Stupid. x infinity.

It's absolutely crazy that anyone in the USA could apply for and possibly get a visa to North Korea, a far more restrictive and dangerous country than Cuba - but can't go to Cuba.

If my family wanted to go there, I could, along with my sons on British paperwork... but my wife who doesn't - cannot. (I'm not in a hurry to go there tho).

If we are a free and peace loving country then we should be able to go to Cuba. It's a basic human right to be able to travel freely to a country that will let you in, and people are looking to deny others basic human rights.

[Billy Burnett]

9. "Cuba travel ban" is Frank Luntz wordsmithing. Actually, it is the US gov travel ban on Americans.

Cuba has nothing to do w/it (aside from being the banned but desired destination of millions of Americans).

It is ALL the US's doing.


:hi:

[dipsydoodle]

10. Wankers

I'm think of going over there myself in a few months time just to mooch around and enjoy the company of the people there. Oh its good not being 'Murcan. :)

[Judi Lynn]

11. Congressional Committee votes to lift Cuba embargo

Congressional Committee votes to lift Cuba embargo
By Jim Lobe
Published: Tuesday, July 6, 2010 10:17 AM EDT

WASHINGTON, Jun. 30, 2010 - In a major victory for anti-embargo forces, a key Congressional committee voted here Wednesday to lift restrictions on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba.

If passed by both houses of Congress, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act will also ease restrictions on U.S. agricultural exports to the Caribbean island that were imposed by former President George W. Bush.

“I am proud to say that today, the House Agriculture Committee took a courageous vote to end the short-sighted and failed policy that limits American agriculture’s access to the Cuban market,” said Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives who, along with a Republican colleague, Rep. Jerry Moran, was the bill’s chief sponsor.

“An unprecedented coalition of agriculture, business, religious and social organisations have endorsed (the bill), and today’s vote demonstrates that Congress is ready to change our nation’s approach on this issue,” he added.

More:
http://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/articles/2010/07/06/news/international/caribbeanlife-cl_news-2010_07_02_ips_cuba_embargo.txt

[Mika]

13. As we have seen many times before - passing both houses does nada but assure campaign contributions.

Every time this has happened before, it gets killed during reconciliation markup.

This method allows members vote in accordance with their campaign financial contributers.

Killing the bill in markup allows the campaign cash cow that the Cuba sanctions represent for both sides of this issue (which is a mixed group of Rs and Ds both pro and con) to continue.

Money. This is how American Democracy™ works.

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[Judi Lynn]

14. Endless cycle, just as the former US Interests Section in Havana, Wayne S. Smith said,

when the politicians work the Cuban "exile" hardliners for contributions, get the contributions, then turn around and arrange to get money to their various pork barrel black holes in Florida, then get paid all over again, and again, and again, as the same thing keeps happening with no break whatsoever.

The old "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" routine. Done with OUR DAMNED TAXES, while keeping U.S. taxpayers from going to Cuba and getting the straight story on just how much of the crap they've been telling us about Cuba is true.

What do they have to lose? Access to, control over a vast of money annually, money with no real strings attached, apparently.

[Judi Lynn]

12. US government inching towards allowing Cuban travel

US government inching towards allowing Cuban travel
05 July, 2010

The US House Agriculture committee approved a bill that is winding its way to the full House to end the US travel ban on Cuba. The close vote was 25 to 20.


“The Agriculture Committee’s close vote appears to portend rough days ahead for the bill, even though proponents of liberalizing US exchange with Cuba thought this was the best opportunityin years to chip away at the US embargo on Cuba,” said the AP.

While Cuba may have receded from its privileged place among US foreign-policy preoccupations in recent years, anything related to the island dictatorship can still be counted on to raise emotions in Congress.

Any bill raises the issue of Senate filibusters.

Senator Robert Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, accuses the travel industry of “happily enriching the Castro regime, simply because Cuba offers white sand beaches 90 miles from our coast.”

US farmers are already allowed to sell to Cuba, but only via transactions in which Cuba pays in advance and through a third-country bank. The legislation would scuttle those requirements.

Pro-trade and free-travel advocates have pushed for lifting the farm-trade and travel embargoes before, but it may be an issue whose time has come, US-Cuba analysts say.

That’s partly because Cuba doesn’t raise the emotional fervor it once did. Another reason is that the Cuban-American lobby is no longer monolithic, with younger Cuban-Americans especially willing to consider something other than the isolationist doctrine of their elders.

More:
http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1143092.php?mpnlog=1