Thread: Ban Lift Sends Wave of AZ Valley Relatives to Visit Cuba

Lifting of ban sends wave of Valley relatives on visits to Cuba

by Daniel González and Dan Nowicki - Jun. 11, 2009 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Victor Calderon hasn't seen his two daughters in 15 years. He has never met his two grandchildren. And his mother, at 84, is getting old.

So, Calderon recently decided it was time he tried to return to Cuba, the communist country he fled in 1994 on a homemade sailboat cobbled together from oil drums, scrap metal and old bedsheets.

The trip, which Calderon plans to make in August, won't be as difficult as it has been for other Cuban-Americans in the past.

In April, President Barack Obama lifted travel and spending restrictions for Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island. The move has prompted a wave of people from Phoenix and other parts of the country to openly visit relatives in Cuba.

It also opened a debate over whether easing travel to Cuba could help bring democratic change to the communist country or help prop up the 50-year-old Castro dictatorship.

"What it says is that at least there is a thawing in the relationship," said Kyle Longley, a history and political-science professor at Arizona State University, who has written about Cuba.

Phoenix has a small but rapidly growing Cuban-American population made up largely of Cubans who have been resettled here by refugee-resettlement organizations.

Since Obama ended the travel restrictions, many have already left for Cuba or are making arrangements to travel there, said Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban immigrant and a leader of the Organization of the Cuban Community of Arizona, a group that helps newly arrived Cubans adjust to life in Phoenix.

"It is a basic human right that everyone should have to travel freely to their homeland," Gutierrez said.

Travel and trade with Cuba has been restricted since the 1960s. Before the April rule change, Cuban-Americans were limited to one visit every three years. Those who did go there often did so clandestinely, first traveling to Mexico, then catching flights to Cuba.

Most other Americans are barred from visiting or spending money in Cuba, though some do travel there via another country, violating the rules.

Jeff Flake, a Republican congressman from Arizona, has introduced legislation in Congress that would allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.

Flake, a libertarian-leaning conservative, has been pushing to revoke the travel ban since he first came to Congress in 2001. He believes dismantling the entire U.S. trade embargo eventually would bring about the end of the Castro government.

Although the Cuban government has protested the embargo for years, Flake believes the Castro government doesn't actually want the embargo to end because Fidel Castro, who governed Cuba for nearly 50 years, and his brother Raul, who is now president, have used it to help stir up anti-U.S. sentiment that has helped them hang on to power.

The bill to lift the travel ban already has more than 150 sponsors.

Flake thinks it will move through the House this year, perhaps in the fall, and believes Obama is receptive to the idea. Former President George W. Bush's administration opposed lifting the travel ban.

"It's an issue of freedom. This isn't a sanction on Cubans, it's a sanction on Americans," Flake said of the travel ban.

"There's no guarantee that this will be the thing that turns the Castro brothers around or changes Cuba into a democracy. I don't necessarily believe it will happen that fast. But it's a lot more likely to hasten democracy than retard it."

Some members of Congress vehemently oppose ending the embargo and are angry with the Obama administration for allowing even Cuban-Americans to visit the island.

Calling the changes a "serious mistake," Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican brothers from Florida who are originally from Cuba, say lifting travel and spending bans for Cuban-Americans will help feed the communist government, keeping Castro in power.

"Unilateral concessions to the dictatorship embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalize pro-democracy activists," the congressmen wrote in a statement.

"(A)nd this unilateral concession provides the dictatorship with critical financial support."

Longley, the ASU professor, said that although the Obama administration has softened American policy toward Cuba, the end of the trade embargo remains a long way off.

For the U.S. to end the embargo, the Castro government would have to embrace democracy, which Longley doesn't see happening because it would mean relinquishing power.

Meanwhile, Calderon is looking forward to seeing his family for the first time in 15 years.

His two daughters, Danay and Jessell, were 8 and 17, respectively, when he left. They are now 23 and 32. One of the granddaughters he has never met is already 13.

The other is 3 and was born with heart problems. A friend took pictures during a visit to Cuba last year.

Calderon, 54, was among about 35,000 "balseros," or rafters, who fled Cuba during the summer of 1994 on makeshift boats to escape an economic crisis triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. After his boat was interdicted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, Calderon spent a year and six days in a military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay before he and about 30,000 balseros were allowed to come to the United States.

Calderon spent a week in Florida before being resettled in Arizona.

An architect in Cuba, he now works as an artist and musician in Phoenix, painting murals and performing at restaurants such as the Havana Cafe in Ahwatukee Foothills.

Calderon, now a legal permanent resident of the U.S., said he plans to travel to Cuba as soon as possible. The only holdup is renewing his Cuban passport, which he left behind when he fled the island in 1994.

"I am so excited," Calderon said. "I am finally going to meet my two granddaughters."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ravel.html

Calling the changes a "serious mistake," Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican brothers from Florida who are originally from Cuba, say lifting travel and spending bans for Cuban-Americans will help feed the communist government, keeping Castro in power.

I agree that it's very possible Castro's true motivation is to bring an influx of money into his communist country to keep his dictatorial rule afloat. I also suspect the Obama administration knows this but doesn't care.