Global Exchange, Marazul Charters Inc., and Cuba Advocates Demand End to Travel Ban

Global Exchange, Marazul Charters Inc., and Cuba Advocates Demand End to Travel Ban


Denounce Bush Administration Pressure on Cuba

Global Exchange
May 19, 2004
Ana Perez, Tim Kingston
Contact: Ana Perez, 415 575 5521
Tim Kingston, 415 575 5543

For Immediate Release: May 17, 2004
As President Bush is about to rally support for yet another tightening of the 40 year embargo against Cuba on May 20, more than100,000 United States citizens are calling for greater engagement with Cuba and an end to the unconstitutional policy banning travel to the island. Global Exchange, Marazul Charters Inc. and more than twenty other non government organizations (NGOs) are launching a nationwide effort to convince legislators and the White House to drop the travel ban as punitive and misguided.

While some may say President Bush has an obsession with unseating Fidel Castro, others suggest that a recent 500-page Administration document urging regime change in Cuba has a lot more to do with preventing regime change at home. Editorial writers around the country suggest that the recent crackdown and provocations against the Cuban government are a way to keep the old guard of the Cuban American community happy and voting Republican in 2004.

"What the Bush administration forgets is that the Cuban American community is no longer monolithic. Instead of solidifying support, the Bush administration is coddling the extremists in Miami who don't seem to care that their demands are fracturing families, community and country. This policy is simply insane," said Ana Perez, director of Global Exchanges Cuba program. "The Bush administration has no respect for the U.S. constitution or for the majority of U.S. people who want to engage with Cuba."

It is not just NGOs that are calling for a lessening of hostility. On May 20 members of Congress will hold a press conference in Washington D.C. denouncing Bush Administration's efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Cuba. Congressional representatives are also calling for a revocation of the travel ban. Organizations around the country are urging citizens calling to flood the White House with calls demanding the elimination of the travel ban.

Not only is the Bush administration doing its best to prevent American citizens from learning about and making people to people links with Cuban citizens it is now going after Cuban American citizens and those with family members in Cuba. Family visits to Cuba have been cut back from once a year to once every three years, while the daily spending allowance for those visiting Cuba has been slashed from $164 to $50 a day. Is this a way to help Cuban families? "It is arrogant for any government to limit the number of visits family members can make to Cuba," said Silvia Wilhelm of Puentes Cubanos/Cuban Bridges." It is totally inhumane to define who is a member of a family and who is not, particularly for Latino families. We are outraged and will not stand still until he takes a second look at these recommendations."

Even Colin Powell's chief of staff Larry Wilkerson called the U.S. Cuba policy "the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth." The question is, when will the rest of the Bush administration realize just how dumb their Cuba policy is? ###