Cuba Says It Can Survive Ban on U.S. Remittances

yahoo.com news ^ | APril 18, 2003 | Reuters

[Cincinatus' Wife]

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba reacted angrily on Friday to a report the Bush administration was considering suspending family remittances by Cuban-Americans and said its socialist economy would survive the blow.

The cash remittances from relatives in the United States, now estimated to total as much as $1 billion a year, are a vital source of income for many Cubans coping with economic hardship in Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The New York Times reported on Thursday the Bush administration was studying a series of steps to punish the Cuban government for a recent crackdown on dissidents.

"More than four decades of revolution have demonstrated that are country is capable of facing any threat and defeating sinister plans of all kinds," a Cuban government statement said.

"The punished will be many families ... and, what is worse, many elderly people who depend on theses remittances," said the statement, published on the front page of the Communist Party daily newspaper Granma.

But in Washington, U.S. officials said they may consider new steps to pressure Cuba over the crackdown, but so far discussions of specifics were at a low level of government.

A lobbyist on the issue meanwhile said that interest groups have given the administration proposals for punitive measures such as bans on remittances and direct travel to Cuba, while others have recommended stepped-up efforts to promote democracy by providing items such as fax machines to dissidents and beefing up U.S. broadcasts to Cuba.

The Cuban statement, which local analysts thought was penned by President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) himself, said the dollar remittances went a long way in Cuba because the socialist state subsidizes food and rent, and education and health care are free.

"The Cuban economy and its social services can survive the suspension of the alleged grand benefits of those remittances," it said.

One dollar bought 6.6 gallons of subsidized milk in Cuba, where entertainment is almost free and ticket to a baseball game cost 500 times less than in the United States, the statement said.

DISSIDENT ROUNDUP

In the last month, Cuba has rounded up 75 dissidents and imprisoned them for terms of up to 28 years in a move to stamp out pro-democratic opposition to Castro's one-party state, despite widespread international criticism of the arrests.

Last week, Cuba shocked human rights organizations with the execution by firing squad of three men who hijacked a Havana Bay ferry in a bid to cross the Florida Straits to the United States.

It was the worst crackdown in decades under Castro, who has been in power since a guerrilla revolution in 1959.

The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, said Washington was also considering halting direct charter flights to Cuba to limit the number of Americans traveling to the island, as part of a series of sanctions in response to the wave of repression.

Tens of thousands of Cuban-Americans, mainly from Florida, visit their families in Cuba each year on charter flights from Miami, New York, Los Angeles and other cities.

A U.S. official told Reuters, "What I think there is, is people at the working level looking at the more harsh tactics of the regime and thinking about what can we do."

"I'm not aware of anything that's put down on paper," he said.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said on Thursday, "We'll continue to work with independent Cuban civil society and with the Cuban people, and are willing to consider steps to advance that policy goal in this climate."

The Bush administration has already moved to curb other travel to Cuba by Americans involved in educational programs, and has vowed to veto a move in Congress to lift a ban on U.S tourist travel to Cuba.

Dennis Hays, executive vice president of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, said his group would prefer aid to democratic forces over tougher sanctions. "Our position is the best thing we can do is to strengthen rather than weaken the independent forces at play inside Cuba -- this is what Castro fears most and what he has reacted against."

U.S. officials told the New York Times that Bush would not tolerate another rafter exodus from Cuba, which Castro has allowed in the past to ease pressure when social unrest rises on the island.

"The alleged measures to be announced prohibiting flights and remittances would really stimulate illegal migration," the Cuban statement said.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thu Apr 17, 7:46 PM ET - Cuba proclaims "moral victory" in escaping UN censure [Full Text] HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba declared a "moral victory" after avoiding censure by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, despite an international outcry over its recent crackdown on dissidents.

Cuba Wednesday denounced Costa Rica's proposed amendment to a United resolution, which called for the immediate release of some 75 dissidents.

The resolution, which passed Thursday by a four-vote margin, merely urged the communist nation to accept a visit from a UN human rights envoy.

In the first televised reaction following Geneva's verdict, Havana called the commission's approval of the comparatively mild resolution a "new moral victory for the revolution."

The motion says nothing of the recent wave of arrests and summary prosecutions of dissidents accused of conspiring with Washington and condemned to prison terms of up to 28 years. Nor does it mention the execution of three ferry hijackers who tried to make it to the United States.

According to Havana, "The United States suffered a serious setback in its obssessive anti-Cuban campaign" upon witnessing "the crushing defeat" of Costa Rica's last-minute amendment, which sought to take a hard line against President Fidel Castro's regime.

The vote reveals the "hypocrisy and double standard of the European Union and governments like Mexico and Chile, incapable of contradicting the empire," the Cuba's government said in its televised statement, alluding to the United States.

It went on to qualify supporters of the amendment as "servile vassals of the superpower."

The resolution -- approved by a 24 to 20 vote with nine abstentions -- was presented by Uruguay, Peru and Nicaragua and co-sponsored by the United States.

Washington's inability to muster more votes or to present a tougher-worded resolution shows that few countries want to be seen openly supporting the United States at a time its foreign policy is criticized for the war in Iraq, according to foreign diplomats here.

Washington "had to be content with a lukewarm resolution, all this despite the wave of human rights abuses in Cuba over the past days," one of the diplomats told AFP on condition of anonymity. "A strongly worded resolution would have been flatly rejected."

Castro was in personal and permanent contact with the Cuban delegation in Geneva, and closely followed the debates along with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, according to government news media.

As in past years, Cuban authorities rejected ahead of time the UN body's call to allow High Commissioner Christine Chanet, a French lawyer, to travel to Cuba and personally look at the situation of island residents.

In any case the resolution "accomplishes the US objective to guarantee that the issue (of Cuba) remains on the Committees agenda" for next year, Perez Roque said.

This helps "justify the maintenance of the blockade" that Washington has imposed on the island since 1961, he added. [End]

Cuban President Fidel Castro (C) speaks with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque (L), Vice Foreign Minister Angel Dalmau (R), and Cuban United Nations staff members in Havana(AFP/Pablo Pildain)

Haydee Romero, right, a supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, yell's pro-Cuba slogans through a police line as an opponent of Chavez, left, yells back at a protest by both groups near the Cuban embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April 18, 2003. (Photo/Leslie Mazoch)

Fidel Castro - Cuba

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The tyranny of Castro's regime - Playing Carter for a fool, once again -*** During his visit to Cuba, Mr. Carter publicized the Varela Project during his speech to the Cuban people and even met with Mr. Palacios. Mr. Castro's actions contradict Mr. Carter's assertions about Cuba. And accordingly, Mr. Carter should either retract his previous words or issue a new statement expressing his outrage over Mr. Castro's actions. Otherwise Mr. Palacios and his band of visionaries will continue to sit in jail cells for promoting freedom and ask themselves, "Mr. Carter, where is the outrage? Where is the outrage, you fool?" ***

[Jhoffa_]

"Of interest" ping...

[PianoMan]

Bad idea. Drop this stupid embargo, which does nothing to Fidel at all, and only impoverishes the innocent people we claim we're trying to help. Let the tourists go down there in droves and Cuba will be ready for revolution almost overnight.

[george wythe]

Current American tourism to Cuba is at the same level as it was before Castro. Furthermore, there is unlimited tourism from Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Apparently, tourism does little to change communist regimes. Tourists stay at their golden ghettos, away from the regular people. The regular folks allowed near tourists are usually employees and prostitutes.

I agree with you in the sense that we should try new ideas, but American tourism is not a new idea.

In 1957, when it was touted as the "playground" for Americans, Cuba hosted a grand total 272,265 U.S. tourists.

Last year, smack in the middle of the nefarious U.S. "embargo" – nay, the diabolical "imperialist blockade!" 205,000 Americans visited Cuba.

Some sources say that – unofficially – tens of thousands more Americans visited, which sounds about right to me.

source

[kylaka]

If General Motors decided to recall all '53 - '59 Chevy Belairs Cuba would really be in deep trouble.

[American_Gyrll]

Cuba's behavior is disturbing: imprisoning and killing people who are pro-democracy? Something needs to happen to put a stop to this.

[gore3000]

Drop this stupid embargo, which does nothing to Fidel at all, and only impoverishes the innocent people we claim we're trying to help.

Nonsense. Even in the dire straits in which the Cuban economy is at, Castro still finds money to help Hugo Chavez and to continue with the development of chemical and biological weapons. As Saddam has shown everyone with an ounce of common sense, no matter how much money a dictatorship makes, it never will reach the people. All it does is provide the dictator with more money to do his nefarious deeds because the money to maintain themselves in power with larger bureaucracies, larger armies and more weapons.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Tourism?

Yankee Doodle Castro***Havana recently topped Bangkok as "child-sex capital of the world." Consider the human tragedy, the desperation of poor people driven to such things in such numbers, and after 43 years of "liberation" and "national dignity." 18,000 riddled by firing squads. Half a million incarcerated. 50,000 drowned or ripped apart by sharks in the Florida Straits. Thousands more slaughtered in Africa for Moscow. Two million exiled. And we wind up with a nation that in 1959 had a higher living standard than Belgium or Italy, had a lower infant mortality rate than France, had net immigration, as child prostitution capital of the world. ***

Castro takes U.S. dollars to shore up his glorious revolution and to export anti-Americanism abroad. The people are kept away from the hotels, those jobs go to loyal communists, like Elian's father.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bumps!

[gore3000]

Castro takes U.S. dollars to shore up his glorious revolution and to export anti-Americanism abroad.

Tyrannies need money like everyone else. They need lots of minions to do their dirty work. A Castro, a Hitler, a Saddam, cannot tyranize a whole country. They need lots of helpers to do their evil deeds and keep the population under control. These people have to be well rewarded otherwise the regime colapses. Without money these people cannot be kept happy. It is no coincidence that when the Soviet Union fell, they were unable to even pay their soldiers. Any money going to such a regime will first be used to reward the oppressors, not the oppressed.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Any money going to such a regime will first be used to reward the oppressors, not the oppressed.

Excellent points.