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.”