Cuban dissidents labeled the excellent decision to lift restrictions on Obama
April 22, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
The Cuban internal dissent described today as “excellent” by the news that the U.S. president, Barack Obama, decided to lift restrictions on travel and remittances from those who have relatives in the island. Opposition representatives said that now the ball is on the roof of the Government chaired by General Raúl Castro, who claimed to release political prisoners and allowing the departure of the Cubans on the island freely.
“I think a good thing, very positive, that the Cuban people will receive with joy,” he told Efe the economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, one of the 75 caught in the “black spring” of 2003, which now has a non-licensed .
Obama ordered the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce to launch delay, the lifting of restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, said today in Washington Efe a senior.
In addition, the U.S. Administration will issue to facilitate communications with the island and make an appeal to the Government of Havana not to interfere with shipments.
“I expected this because I believe a man of honor and he said it was going to do,” Espinosa said in reference to Obama’s decision.
“Now we expect the Cuban government, which is a new situation and has no speech for President Obama,” he said.
He added that the “logic” says that Havana should respond with an attitude of “softening, flexibility, these new circumstances,” although Cuba has often gone against that. ”
To Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban Commission for Human Rights recognized by the government, the step taken by Obama’s “Chronicle of a decision announced” that can “facilitate the process towards normalization of bilateral relations.”
Sanchez believes that the decision to Obama now demand a determination “similar” in Havana with the application of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on freedom of transit, so that Cubans can come and go “free of island. ”
“Hopefully at least a symmetrical response of the Government of Cuba, although I must confess my skepticism,” said Sanchez.
He added that measures taken in Washington and announcements from General Castro on his willingness to talk are still “modest steps” to normalize relations.
Miriam Leiva, a founder of the Ladies in White (relatives of those imprisoned in 2003), noted that Obama’s decision “very important” because it removes an artificial separation of families and helps those who desperately need help here. ”
But it thinks that would require that “the Congress (U.S.) to allow Americans to travel freely to Cuba,” not only to those who have relatives on the island, “because that would create a contact that will allow an exchange very beneficial. ”
He insisted that now “there has to be positive steps” in Havana, to “show goodwill” as “lift the blockade that the government has for the Cubans.”
“I applaud the move by Obama,” he told Efe in turn Hector Palacios, another prisoner of the group of 75 with a non-licensed, and added that Cuba has to take the next step with the release of political prisoners.
The Cuban government also has to get out of the trench and allow people to travel if you want, said Palacios, who last week presented a paper of three opposition groups are demanding that Obama’s arrival to ensure that money intended to Washington internal opposition on the island.
Vladimiro Roca, the Agenda for the Transition, said that the measure of Obama’s “positive” and said that the decision taken in 2004 by then-President George W. Bush to increase the period to three years between trips to the island Cuban-Americans “do not hurt the people and the Cuban government.”
However, Rock did not see “for now” an eventual normalization of relations between the two countries.
