The Cuban blockade and freedoms of Americans

[Say_What]

Posted in the NEIGHBORS TO THE SOUTH section of Radio Progresso http://www.rprogreso.com/

<clips>

“We must thank George W. Bush for maintaining the Cuba embargo,” repeatedly declared Congressman Lincoln Díaz Balart (R.-FL). He’s right: only the president’s intervention keeps alive a policy that has been rejected by the UN and the U.S. Congress.

According to Díaz Balart, in this manner Bush keeps the commitment he made with the Cuban American extreme right, which has made clear that their backing for next year’s presidential election depends on it. And since the first responsibility of any American politician is to get himself elected, it seems that Bush will remain faithful to his promise, no matter the steps he has to take to keep it.

Meanwhile, he is facing the possibility of having to veto a bill that contains an amendment in favor of traveling to Cuba, which was passed first in the House and recently in the Senate. Although the bill will have to navigate through the tumultuous seas of the U.S. legislature and survive the manipulations of the Republican leadership in both Houses, the connotation of this decision goes beyond the Cuba issue, because it expresses a consensus about what is considered a violation of the rights of the American people.

At the same time that lawmakers manifest themselves in such a manner, Bush, in order to humor the Cuban American ultra right, converts the issue into a national security problem. He has empowered the Homeland Security Department with enforcing repression on Cuba travelers, and unleashes a harassment offensive even against persons that travel under the law. That is the purpose of the strict controls and the inconveniences showered on passengers of charter flights between both countries, and the threats against tour operators that visited Cuba recently invited by the Cuban Ministry of Tourism.

http://www.rprogreso.com/