Travel Industry Bucks Bush Over Cuba Ban

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CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. travel industry executives, eyeing a potential market in communist Cuba, met with Cuban tourism officials in Mexico on Friday, one week after President Bush (news - web sites) vowed to crack down on Americans visiting the island.

About 100 travel agents and airline charter representatives began three days of meetings with a Cuban delegation headed by Cuba's Ministry of Tourism Ibrahim Ferradaz.

The event includes a visit to Cuba that is unauthorized by the U.S. government. Under a 41-year U.S. trade embargo against the leftist government of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites), Americans can only visit Cuba with special permits from the Treasury.

In recent years, growing numbers of Americans have defied the ban at the risk of fines of thousands of dollars and visited the island to enjoy its beaches, rum and salsa dancing, or driven by curiosity to see the hemisphere's only communist society.

The U.S. Congress is considering abolishing the restriction.

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031017/us_nm/cuba_usa_tourism_dc_1>

I would love to visit Cuba one day.
The embargo is just stupid...

it's immoral. In November the UN General Assembly will vote for the 12th consecutive year to condemn the Cuban embargo. Last year the vote was 174 countries condemning and 3 not (US, Israel, Marshall Islands).

spend happy American tourists over every week for a year or two and watch greed take over and capitalism flourish.

Of course if you have a base that is violating human rights hand over fist, you might not want a bunch of American citizens to have access to the island carte blanche.

"Of course if you have a base that is violating human rights hand over fist, you might not want a bunch of American citizens to have access to the island carte blanche."


Billy_P, care to elucidate?

I feel that there's a lot of crap going on there that would not be a positive thing to this administration if it saw the light of day.

Bob Graham (Dem. Fla.-Stooge) and the Miami Mafia that would see 95% of Cubans barefoot and illiterate while the rest lived off their efforts, just like the good old days. Never mind Cuba's contribution to SA's health care system or the ecological purity of the island's flora and fauna.....it's state owned, that's the problem. Imagine "We the People" laying claim to that.......dispicable. Billy_P is one with us.

I want to go, I want to go sooooo bad, before it's opened up, before it's ruined. It would be like going back to what the earth was like before our parents.......before the machine.

I'm going to do it and I'm going to take my boys (single Dad). If not before, then the minute it opens. If it doesn't open? Well, it's in good hands until we get there.

I am not kiding, we are seeing more and more chalenges

For example, here's yet another in a steady slew of editorials on Cuba in the past week, the author was Jimmy Carter's amabassador to Cuba:

LOCKED IN A TIME WARP

Sun-Sentinel
Wayne S. Smith
October 14 2003

Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega`s statement of Bush administration policy toward Cuba before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 2 was truly appalling. It leads us back toward a Bay-of-Pigs approach, for according to Noriega, the administration`s objective is regime change, or, in other words, to overthrow or otherwise get rid of the Castro government. "The president," said Noriega, " is determined to see the end of the Castro regime and the dismantling of the apparatus that has kept him in office for so long."

But what gives the United States that right? The right, that is, to replace another nation`s government?

... For the United States to engage in actions aimed at removing the Cuban government, in fact, violates a basic tenet of the U.N. Charter in that it is blatant interference in the internal affairs of another country, and one whose government we recognize.

... Some day, we really should try something new. As Gorbachev continued in his op-ed: "The only way to get out of this time warp is to replace the current policy with a policy of constructive engagement similar to the one being pursued toward other so-called Communist countries."

Right. But don`t count on the Bush administration to move in that direction. It is locked solidly in the time warp.

More...
http://ciponline.org/cuba/cubainthenews/newsarticles/oct03/ss101403smith.htm

And so are the majority of DUers and presidential candidates apparently.

Saturday, October 18, 2003
A Cuba Garden party
Palm Beach Post Editorial

In the name of freedom, President Bush will restrict the freedom of Americans to travel. That's just one of many contradictions in our politically driven Cuba policy.

Two months ago, the Cuban-American political volcano in Miami-Dade County began smoking. The Coast Guard had sent back to Cuba a dozen people who had used 55-gallon drums to turn a 1951 truck into a raft and head for the United States. Cuban-American talk radio made the repatriation into an issue. Thirteen Republican legislators in the Florida House, most of them Cuban-Americans, sent a letter to the White House criticizing the action. Unless President Bush acted, the letter warned, he could not automatically expect the usual support from Cuban exile voters.

... Yet Mount Fidel kept smoking. So last week, Mr. Bush threw a media event in the Rose Garden. He said the government would crack down on Americans who travel to Cuba illegally, even those who go through third countries. Applause. He said the Department of Homeland Security would help out. Applause, though one wonders how people who visit Cuba threaten the homeland. He called the money that tourists pay to Cuba hotels "illegal trafficking" in currency because money goes from the hotels to the Cuban government. More applause.

The reaction was fitting, because the event was all about the applause. Exile groups constantly remind the administration about the votes they delivered in 2000 and the president's 537-vote margin in Florida. At the event were U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both of Miami, who dutifully started the demagoguery during the Miami-Dade election recount three years ago by calling it discrimination against Cuban-American voters.

More...
www.palmbeachpost.com


Restrictions won't change Cuba
October 18, 2003

President Bush's decision to make it tougher for Americans to travel to Cuba is disappointing and ill-conceived. If such restrictions have been unable to topple Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for 41 years, they're unlikely to be effective now.

In ordering the Department of Homeland Security to look harder at Americans going to Cuba, the president said he wanted to discourage the approximately 70,000 who visit there illegally, usually through a third country. He said they help prop up Castro by funneling dollars into the Cuban economy. But 140,000 other Americans go to Cuba every year on academic and cultural exchanges. Won't they be spending dollars? Then why not bar them?

... Beyond that, this is a curious use of the Department of Homeland Security, which was created to protect the nation from terrorism. There's no evidence that those traveling to Cuba will return home as terrorists. There is plenty of evidence that Homeland Security agents have better ways to spend their time than in this silly, politically motivated chase.

More...
http://www.pjstar.com/news/editorials/b11un6sd059.html

Interesting that this article is once again coming across the news wires.

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Washington, 30 Apr 2001 (IPS) - World Bank President James Wolfensohn Monday extolled the Communist government of President Fidel Castro for doing “a great job” in providing for the social welfare of the Cuban people.

His remarks followed Sunday’s publication of the Bank’s 2001 edition of ‘World Development Indicators’ (WDI), which showed Cuba as topping virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics.

It also showed that Havana has actually improved its performance in both areas despite the continuation of the US trade embargo against it, and the end of Soviet aid and subsidies for the Caribbean island more than ten years ago.

“Cuba has done a great job on education and health,” Wolfensohn told reporters at the conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “They have done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to admit it.”

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/learn.htm

to reflect on what the President of the World Bank has revealed in his comments on Cuba, the world's "David" to the Washington "Goliath."

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New article on the U.S. ban on Cuba travel:

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Farmer success on Cuba trade prods tour operator to push for freer travel

JOHN RICE, Associated Press Writer Saturday, October 18, 2003

(10-18) 02:01 PDT CANCUN, Mexico (AP) --

When lobbying efforts won America's farm industry a right to trade with Cuba, parts of the U.S. travel industry took note.

Now a small, new group led by charter flight operators has rallied support from some sizable business organizations to lobby for an end for U.S. limits on travel to Cuba.

"We are a large industry and sometimes we do not use the political power we have in terms of jobs, in terms of votes," said Brad Belt, executive director of the new Association of Travel Related Industry Professionals. The group organized a conference on Cuban travel that started here Friday.

If they are successful, President Fidel Castro's government could see a dramatic increase in the number of tourists -- expected to be 1.9 million this year -- who have become the island's largest source of hard currency. (snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/18/international0501EDT0468.DTL

An exclusive interview with Harry Belafonte

Sandra Levinson, Director of the Cuban Art Space; Editor of CUBA Update magazine; and a Member of the Center for Cuban Studies, interviewed Harry Belafonte exclusively for Cubanow at the Church of the Intercession, Harlem, New York, just before the September 27th solidarity meeting in which Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Felipe Perez Roque, took part. Cubanow reproduces Sandra Levison’s interview, as well as Harry Belafonte’s presentation at that event.

... What goes on with our policy in this nation against Cuba is not the American way, it is not the true voice of the American people, it is not the true voice of those of us who believe deeply, profoundly, in the rights of all people and the freedom of all people and in democracy.

The boycott, the intimidation of the Cuban people, have been going on for over 40 years. One would imagine that after so long a stale and failed policy would be understood, that it is about time to have another kind of relationship with our neighbor to the south, that it would be time for us to sit down and have honest, open exchange with the Cuban people and their representatives and try to reach a level of civility in which we conduct our affairs with each other... there's much about the Cuban government, the Cuban people and what they have achieved that many of us here are still trying to achieve.

I speak specifically about the large mass of African Americans, the large mass of Latino Americans, the large mass of the poor, women, the disenfranchised in the middle of a period when our nation boasts of its greatest power, its greatest economic power, and says that it is at the cutting edge of trying to bring the fruits of democracy to people all over the world to enjoy.

We have solidarity with what the Cuban people are going through... and I hope that tonight in this church, and what is going across the airwaves of America and to the rest of the world, will be just the beginning, here at the dawn of the 21st century, of a new kind of dialogue, a new kind of openness of expression, a new kind of people-to-people program which will do nothing but benefit all of us in this time of need for understanding, a time for us to come together in a spirit of peace and justice...

http://www.cubanow.net/02%20Feature/Eng/Feature_Belafonte.htm

in the Harry Belefonte comments you posted. This subject has been attempted on these boards by anti-Cuba posters, from the position that the current Cuban society, post-Batista is a racist society. I've seen this attack made before by Miami "exile" posters, laboring under the impression information-deprived Americans will never know the difference!

But I remember when I first went to Cuba, the distinctive line that was drawn between black Cubans, mulatto Cubans and white Cubans, and I remember how distant black Cubans were from any of the abundance that came with the tourist trade. As a matter of fact, you didn't even really see many black waiters. Those were good jobs in those days, and most of them were taken by the light-skinned Cubans. And whenever I would speak with Cubans of direct African characteristics and DNA, they told me about the brutality of racism and the cruelty of the regime against them, and how much they were oppressed by many of the wealthy Cubans who practiced many of the policies and social conduct that America had.

But many Cuban exiles say that there was no racism in Cuba before the Revolution, that Cuba was never racist, never like the US.

I think that Cuba, of all the islands in the Caribbean, all of which had their fair share of racism, Cuba was the most racist, without question, the most racist, more racist than Jamaica or Haiti or a lot of the other places. So when I went to Cuba post-revolution, the first thing I noticed was the mixtures of people, particularly among the young –there were still residues of the old ways among older citizens– but certainly among the young, when I went to the university and when I went to the places of culture, when I went into the day care centers, wherever I went in Cuba among the young, I was deeply struck by the fullness of the integration of race and certainly when I looked around at the jobs that were held in the hotels, when I revisited the Nacional, and when I went to the Havana Riviera, I saw a staff that was integrated and managers that were black, and things like that, so –I'm not suggesting that Cuba does not still suffer from some racism, but it's important to know that it is not an official practice of the state, it's not institutionalized. The institutions there do a great deal to purge any residual racism. Those things are quite impressive to me, let alone the fact that culture, which was a toy for the rich and the privileged, is now a fully-embraced part of the national agenda.

Thanks for posting this. Do you, by the way, remember the howl which went up when Harry Belefonte started speaking out? It was hilarious. You'd think he was a bomb-tossing psychopath, but actually that form of expression has been employed to the max in Miami and New Jersey.

I oppose the travel ban for non-Cuban--Americans wishing to visit Cuba for several reasons.

First and foremost, I am increasingly seeing the travel ban
not as an effort to bring liberty to Cuba, but yet another restriction on American citizens. We're going to bring "freedom" to Cuba by restricting freedoms of American citizens, right?

I think our nineteenth-century ancestors would have known this instinctively. For all their racism and chauvinism, nineteenth-century American Anglos reacted rather violently when someone attempted to restrict their movements in the way the hobby rancher from Crawford is trying to do.

Second, the travel ban doesn't do very much to bring reform to Cuba. While US tourists are still officially forbidden to travel to Cuba, the rest of the world is free to fly there either directly or through third countries. While I don't doubt that tourism is a major generator of wealth for the Cuban economy, market reforms and reversal of the centralizing and marxist socialist policies of 1968 and beyond would generate more wealth for island Cubans.

Third, I'm convinced that while US tourism to Cuba would provide money to the Castro regime, it also offers the opportunity for ideas and cultural transfer. Even with most US tourists staying at tourist reserves like Varadero, there will be a stream of books, magazines, and newspapers making their way through Fidel's censors.

Fourth, I'm admittedly selfish. I think that Cuba is a beautiful island, and I see no reason why my government should prohibit me from visiting it.

Fifth, I think that the travel ban is yet another means for the Cuban American lobby to shoot themselves in the foot. It's quite apparent that these days that American pigs, American cows, and Cuban-Americans can travel to Cuba, but less privileged animals can't. Do Cuban--American exile "leaders" really think this won't promote resentment among their fellow Americans?

--VG

Hardly any have a clue what’s going on and fewer even want to know otherwise they’d be lobbying their Senators and Dem presidential candidates by now before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, what right do Americans have to dictate “regime change” to the people of Cuba when you can’t even do it yourselves with Bush?

The freedom to travel at will is a basic right of free citizens. Free travel strengthens the global economy and offers unparalleled opportunities to travelers.

Poor or undeveloped nations often benefit from the influx of tourist dollars. Likewise, unstable regions usually benefit from the positive influences that can be the result of unrestricted travel.

Take, for example, Cuba. Currently, travel by American citizens to Cuba is restricted. Studies prepared for the Center for International Policy indicate that as many as 2.8 million Americans would visit Cuba annually on tourist or pleasure trips-2.72 more than currently visit Cuba each year- if current travel restrictions were lifted.

Travel to Cuba by Cuban Americans would increase by as much as 33% if restrictions on travel to Cuba currently maintained by the United States were eliminated. And US. airlines would earn an additional $250 million per year should current travel restrictions be lifted.

More...
http://www.atripusa.org/index.cfm?id=2007&fuseaction=browse&pageid=38


The following members of Congress support this event and are planning to attend and participate depending on Congressional obligations:

Senator Max Baucus, (D) Montana
Representative Jeff Flake, (R) Arizona
Representative Jo Ann Emerson, (R) Missouri
Representative William Delahunt, (D) Massachusetts
Representative Sam Farr, (D) California

http://www.uscubatravel.net./overview.html

From the article at the top of this thread:

"As recent congressional votes show, the U.S. public is no longer willing to sit aside and allow a small minority of Cuban-Americans dictate where they can and cannot travel," he told Reuters.

So lacking any evidence to the contrary, most DUers and the 2004 Democratic presidential candiates are not representative of the U.S. public.