Obama to ease some business limits with Cuba

[ProSense]

Obama to ease some business limits with Cuba

By Matt Spetalnick Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Monday will ease the way for U.S. telecommunications firms to do business with Cuba and relax some other restrictions on the communist-ruled island, opening a crack in a decades-old U.S. embargo.

As part of a major policy shift from the Bush's administration's more hard-line approach to Havana, Obama will also lift limits on family travel and money transfers from the United States to Cuba, a U.S. official said.

The decision does not eliminate Washington's trade embargo against Cuba set up 47 years ago, but it does hold out the prospect for improving ties between the two foes.

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PRAISE AND CRITICISM

"I enthusiastically applaud this ... I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of even more relaxation," said Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban American Commission for Family Rights.

The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the largest Cuban exile group and for years a virulent critic of Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba, had also called for an end to the curbs on family visits and remittances by Cuban Americans.

"Now, more than ever, we need to provide effective vehicles of support and communication -- Cuban Americans are undoubtedly our greatest ambassadors of freedom to the Cuban people," CANF said in a recent statement calling for a "new course" for U.S.-Cuba policy.

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[ProSense]

1. US: Overhaul Failed Cuba Policy (Human Rights Watch)

US: Overhaul Failed Cuba Policy

Obama’s Order a Positive Step, But Right to Travel Should Be Extended to All Americans

April 13, 2009

(Washington, DC) - President Barack Obama's order ending restrictions on Cuban-Americans' travel and remittances to Cuba is a major break from an ineffective and unjust policy, but the US government should take further steps to adopt a new approach toward Cuba, Human Rights Watch said today.

Congress should promptly extend to all Americans the right to travel to Cuba, Human Rights Watch said. At the same time, the Obama administration should work with allies in Europe and Latin America to forge a targeted, multilateral approach toward addressing human rights violations by the Cuban government.

"If President Obama is serious about promoting change in Cuba, this order must be part of a larger shift away from the US's unilateral approach toward the Cuban government," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Only by working with its allies in Latin American and Europe will the US be able to chip away at Castro's repressive machinery."

On April 13, Obama issued an order to eliminate all limits on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans to Cuba. Previously, the US government only allowed Cuban Americans to visit the island once a year and capped the amount of support Cubans could send to relatives at $75 per month.

Legislation introduced in Congress in February 2009, called the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, would extend to all Americans the right to travel to Cuba. Cuba is the only country in the world to which the US government restricts the travel of its citizens.

"Not only did the restrictions cause considerable suffering and violate the rights of Cuban American families, but they completely failed to bring any change to Cuba," Vivanco said. "Congress should build on this momentum to give all Americans the right to travel to Cuba."

A Human Rights Watch report, "Families Torn Apart," documented the human cost of the US restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans and found that they infringed upon the internationally recognized right to freedom of movement, and violated the international prohibition on the involuntary separation of families.

Obama will meet with other Latin American leaders at the Fifth Summit of the Americas from April 17 to 19 in Trinidad and Tobago, where several countries have vowed to raise the issue of US-Cuba relations. Cuba, which was expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962, was not invited to the summit.

"For decades, the US's approach toward Cuba has isolated the United States more than it has isolated the Cuban government," Vivanco said. "If President Obama wants to break from this failed policy and forge new alliances, the Summit of the Americas is the ideal place to start."