cuba

Cuban Embargo: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Once again, Cuba has asked the United Nations to help end the U.S. economic, financial and trade embargo. Havana says this blockade cost it more than $242 million last year. The embargo also stymies Cuban access to foreign capital from other nations, because investors face possible U.S. sanctions for doing business with Cuba.

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

US Activists Challenge Obama on Cuba

During last year's presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he was willing to sit down with Cuban leaders without preconditions. Hopes were high for the change that Obama had promised during his campaign for the White House. Obama, however, has been slow to implement any significant policy shift towards Cuba since taking office, raising concerns among those eager to see a new relationship with the island nation. This week two groups of Americans, over 250 people in all, are traveling to Cuba to challenge the travel restrictions and protest the slow pace of change.

Posted in Politics, cuba

End an Irrelevant Era: Lift the Cuba Travel Ban

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter. The Central American Civil wars are over. The cold war is long dead, yet the United States still enforces a relic of that cold war with an economic embargo against Cuba. With a new administration in the White House ushering in a era of renewed diplomacy and international cooperation, isn’t it about time for the U.S. to do what most other countries around the world have done and normalize relations with its largest Caribbean neighbor?

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

OAS Opens Doors to Cuba Without Conditions

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - After heated debate, the 39th General Assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS) decided Wednesday to lift its 47-year suspension of Cuba, without conditions.

At its meeting in Honduras, the OAS sought to "fix an historic error" committed when socialist Cuba was expelled in 1962 from the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere as a result of pressure from the United States.

Posted in cuba, Latin America

Castro Says US Wants Cuba to Be Slave

$Cuban President Raul Castro gives a speech on January 1, 2009 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in Havana. Fidel Castro blasted US President Barack Obama Friday in provocative May Day remarks, saying the United States only wanted Cuba to return \"to the fold, like slaves.\" (AFP/File/Rodrigo Arangua)$

HAVANA - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Thursday derided U.S. steps towards improving relations with the communist island, saying the United States wants Cuba to act like a slave willing to "accept again the whip and the yoke."

The 82-year-old Castro, writing in a column published on the Internet, said "the adversary should never be under the illusion that Cuba will surrender."

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

Barack Obama Shakes Hands with Hugo Chavez

The surprise encounter came at the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where Mr Obama has made Cuba a key priority.

After several days of the US and Cuba trading warm words that have hinted at a détente after a half century of hostility, Mr Obama said that he was seeking "a new beginning" with Havana.

But it was his unexpected handshake and the smiles he exchanged with Mr Chavez that caught many at the summit by surprise.

Posted in cuba, Latin America, venezuela

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2009
1:58 PM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Tel: +1-212-216-1832
Email: hrwpress@hrw.org

Americas: Create Unified, Effective Approach to Cuba

Summit Is Opportunity to Replace Failed Policies of Isolation and Uncritical Engagement

WASHINGTON - April 17 - Heads of state gathered at the Summit of the Americas should work together to create a new, unified approach to Cuba that will be more effective toward dismantling Cuba's repressive machinery, Human Rights Watch said today.

Several of the participating leaders have pledged to raise the issue of relations with Cuba at the summit, from April 17 to April 19, 2009, in Trinidad and Tobago. Human Rights Watch called on the leaders to find a targeted, multilateral approach toward Cuba, with human rights at its core, to take the place of the failed policies of the past several decades.

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Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Links:

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

NGOs Hail Congressional Moves to Ease Cuba Embargo

WASHINGTON - Leading advocates for lifting the nearly 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba are hailing Congress's approval Tuesday of a general appropriations bill that eases - albeit in a mostly symbolic way - several restrictions on travel and sales to the Caribbean nation.

The bill, which was signed by President Barack Obama Wednesday, denies funding to the U.S. Treasury Department to enforce two restrictions, including travel to Cuba by Cuban-Americans, imposed by former President George W. Bush.

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

Obama Will Use Spring Summit to Bring Cuba in from the Cold

$A man passes in front graffiti reading \"Long live Fidel\" in Havana, in January. The US economic embargo on Cuba \"has failed,\" top Republican lawmaker Richard Lugar has said in a report likely to fuel momentum for a shift in US' decades-old policy toward the island. (AFP/File/Rodrigo Arangua)$

President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.

Posted in foreign policy, cuba

The Costs of the Embargo

On January 1, Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista regime. For 47 of those years, Cuba has suffered under what U.S. officials call an “embargo” against the Caribbean nation. Cubans’ name for the embargo—el bloqueo (the blockade)—is arguably more apt, given that the U.S. policy also aims to restrict other countries from engaging in business with Cuba.

Posted in cuba