CUBA-U.S.: Castro Applauds Attempt to Ease Embargo

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 26 2002 (IPS) - Cuba’s President Fidel Castro abandoned his normally scathing criticisms of the United States to express his appreciation Friday for the attempts by the U.S. House of Representatives to ease the embargo that has been imposed against the island for more than four decades.

Distancing himself from his previous all-or-nothing stance on the embargo, Castro, 75, stated that the three votes carried out by the House of Representatives on Tuesday were “a very important gesture”.

The lower house vote on bills to normalise travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba, facilitate sales of food and medicine to the island and loosen restrictions on remittances sent by Cubans in the United States to their families back home won praise from Castro, who said they were a show of “decision and courage”.

“It does not matter if the Executive Branch vetoes them, as it has already announced it will. Nor does it matter if new schemes and provocations are invented to annul them,” said the president in what was Cuba’s first official reaction to Tuesday’s votes.

The House of Representatives voted 262 to 167 to overturn all the restrictions on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba that have been in place since the early 1960s, when Washington enacted the trade and financial embargo against the island.

With a vote of 251 to 177, the lower house approved the elimination of a 1,200-dollar annual limit on the remittances Cubans in the United States can send to their relatives in Cuba.

And in an uncontested voice vote, the House passed a bill to lift all restrictions on private financing of the sale of food and medicine to the country. Currently, Cuba can only make cash purchases of these goods.

The lawmakers also rejected a George W. Bush administration- backed bill that would have conditioned lifting the travel ban on guarantees that Cuba is not developing biological weapons, sharing biotechnology with terrorist states, or providing support or sanctuary to terrorists.

However, an amendment seeking to lift the trade embargo against Cuba altogether was rejected by a vote of 226 to 204.

These bills now face votes by the U.S. Senate, where sentiment against the embargo is considered even stronger than in the House. But government sources have said Bush will veto the legislation.

Support in the United States for the embargo has fallen sharply since the mid-1990s, when Congress passed the stringent Helms- Burton Act that tightened existing sanctions against Cuba and attempted to penalise foreign companies with investments in the Caribbean island.

The change is due to several factors, such as the weakened hold of anti-communism on U.S. political attitudes; high-profile trips to Cuba, particularly by Pope John Paul II in 1998, and former president Jimmy Carter just two months ago; greater diversity of opinion within the Cuban-American community; and growing interest by U.S. farmers, who see the island as a promising new market.

Castro’s appreciation for the votes by the House of Representatives appears to confirm the shift in his administration’s policy as well. The change began when Cuba started to purchase food from the United States after Hurricane Michelle devastated many of the island’s crops in November 2001.

Washington had approved the cash-sales of food and medicine to Cuba in 2000, but the Cuban government refused at the time to purchase “even one aspirin or grain of rice” until the trade embargo was completely eliminated.

Cuba lost no less than 70 billion dollars in trade between 1962 and 1999 as a result of the U.S. embargo, according to official Cuban sources.

Since the end of last year, the state-run Cuban firm Alimport has imported from the United States 115 million dollars in wheat, corn, soy, frozen chicken, eggs, cooking oil and apples, among other products.

With this precedent, Castro chose to mention only the positive steps, and expressed “the gratitude” of the Cuban people “for the Democratic as well as the Republican legislators who acted that day (Tuesday) with intelligence, personal conviction, and firmness.”

The Cuban president spoke Friday before a crowd of 160,000 people gathered in the city of Ciego de Avila, 500 km from Havana, for the main ceremonies of Jul 26, celebrated on the island as National Rebellion Day.

The Cuban government commemorates Jul 26, 1953, as the beginning of the armed struggle that ultimately led to the victory of the Revolution in 1959. This year, the main events celebrating the holiday took place in Ciego de Avila province, which stands out for its superior economic and social performance.

In 2000 and 2001, the date was commemorated with massive marches outside the offices of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to protest U.S. policies and the embargo.

But this year, Castro opted to focus on the global crisis and the alternative he believes that Cuba represents. In spite of major economic problems, the socialist-run island maintains a level of health coverage and education that stands above even those of some industrialised countries.

The president also emphasised that the political conflict between Cuba and the United States, which has persisted for more than 40 years, is separate from the relations between the Cuban and U.S. people.

The people of the United States, said Castro, “by nature idealists, and because of their ethical values and their history of support for liberty, will be among the best friends of the Cuban people when the truth is known about Cuba’s honest and heroic fight.”