50-year embargo useless to Cubans or
Americans
By William Doyle-Marshall
U.S. President Barak Obama’s visit to Cuba is offering hope to the
Cuban people as well as Americans even though it is not known when Congress
will approve the lifting of the embargo against the Caribbean nation.
Speaking at a press conference Monday morning inside the Palace of
the Revolution, in Havana, President Obama was emphatic about the ending of the
embargo but he could not say when. “I believe it will end and the path that we
are on at the moment will continue beyond my administration,” the president said
to the gathering of American and Cuban media practitioners.
“The reason is, what we
did for 50 years did not serve our interests or the interests of the Cuban
people and as I said when we made the announcement about normalization of
relations, if you keep on doing something over and over again for 50 years and
it doesn’t work, it might make sense to try something new and that’s what we
have done and the fact that there has been strong support, not just inside of
Congress, not just among the American people but also among the Cuban people
indicates that this is a process that should and would continue.”
President Obama reminded
the gathering that lifting the embargo requires the vote of a majority in
Congress and maybe even more than a majority in the Senate. He identified two
things that would help accelerate the pace of bringing the embargo to an end.
To the degree that Congress can take advantage of the existing changes already
made that will help to validate the change in policy. President Obama reiterated
that it is no longer a restriction on U.S. companies to invest in helping to
build Internet and broadband infrastructure inside of Cuba. It is not against
U.S. law as it’s been interpreted by the administration.
President Raul Castro spoke positively about joint projects between
Cuban and American companies to improve Internet services in the Spanish
speaking country. “If we start seeing those kinds of commercial deals taking
place and Cubans are benefitting from greater access to the Internet and when I
go to the Entrepreneurship meeting this afternoon, I understand I am going to
meet some young Cubans who are already getting trained and are using the
Internet; they are interested in start-ups. That builds a constituency for
ending the embargo,” President Obama emphasized.
President Castro responded
to questions about human rights abuse by his administration by noting that
there are 61 recognized international instruments and Cuba has complied with
47. For human rights issues to be politicized, he contended that is incorrect. “Do
you think there is any more sacred right than the right to health so that
billions of children don’t die just for the lack of a vaccine or a drug?
Castro identified the right to free education for all those born anywhere
in the world or any country. “I think many countries don’t think this is a
human right,” he commented. In Cuba all children are born in a hospital and
they are registered that same day because when mothers are in advance pregnancy
they go to hospitals many days before for delivery so all children are born in
hospitals, President Castro reported.
President Obama insisted that his approach to human rights
violations is to engage frankly and clearly, stating his peoples’ beliefs are
but also recognizing “we can’t force change on any particular country.
Ultimately it has to come from within. Then that is going to be a more useful
strategy than the same kinds of rigid disengagement that for 50 years did
nothing. Confessing his faith in people, President Obama noted “if you meet
Cubans here and Cubans meet Americans
and they are meeting and talking and interacting and doing business
together and going to school together and learning from each other then they’ll
recognize people are people and in that context I believe change will occur.”