New travel restrictions will only hurt Cuban people

The leader of a Rollins tour group, in Cuba at the time of the announcement of travel restrictions, reflects on the decision.

I was in Cuba with a group of college students and colleagues when the U.S. administration announced new restrictions designed to discourage Americans from traveling to that island nation. No longer will it be legal for cruise ships or small vessels to stop for a day in Havana harbor or the old city of Cienfuegos. No longer will U.S. tourists be able to simply spend a few days meeting, learning from, and talking with local citizens. When the new restrictions were announced, the Cubans who were with us were disappointed and desolate. The new constraints will mean half a million fewer visitors to their island, and a serious reduction in their already meager incomes. They can’t comprehend why their northern neighbor — considered the most powerful nation on earth — would want to bully their small country in this way, further impoverishing its people. Frankly, I cannot understand it either.

Rollins College has, within the past decade, sent eight groups of students and faculty to Cuba under one of the State Department’s general licenses: “activities of private educational institutions.” During these academic field studies, more than 100 students and approximately 20 faculty engaged in dialogue with their Cuban counterparts, discussed fundamental differences in political and social ideologies, and even drafted feasible and amicable solutions to build successful and enduring relations between both countries. It should be noted that this kind of license to travel legally to Cuba has not been revoked and, just like Rollins, many colleges and universities in Florida and across the nation will continue to partake in these transformational travel experiences. Also, non-academic trips are still available to Americans under the category “Support the Cuban People.” Nonetheless, the new restrictions are meant to prohibit many kinds of tourism, and to discourage and confuse other potential visitors. This all seems to me unfortunate — indeed, ethically unconscionable.

The stated goal of the U.S. government with the new travel policies banning further visits to the island through a “People-to-People” license is ostensibly to damage the Cuban government and thereby ultimately help the Cuban people. But, in fact, these new policies will chiefly hurt the people — the very group the administration claims to support. Many Cuban antirevolutionaries, alongside the U.S. government, assert that every dollar that enters the island ends up in the hands of the military. However, this claim is absolutely fabricated, and this falsehood further exacerbates a rhetoric and atmosphere of alarm and mistrust. The purported fear is really a twofold agenda for the Trump administration: to win the Cuban-American vote in Florida, and to force the island nation to end its support of the discredited socialist president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Yet the Cuban people should not pay the price for electoral machinations in the U.S. Nor does it make strategic sense to make the Cuban citizens suffer for a misguided foreign policy initiative of their government.

In 2018 each of the nearly 4.75 million visitors to Cuba (Canada and the United States leading the pack) spent money in private businesses, shops, and restaurants that have been flourishing since the government allowed privatization in 2006. This private sector is growing, and the profits are being invested in further business ventures, and many times in repairing the beautiful colonial buildings of Havana that have fallen into disrepair. Money spent by visitors supports and strengthens this growing niche of economic freedom, and promises, in time, to transform the Cuban economy and society. Decades of embargo and blockade have caused misery for the people and had little positive political effect. Engagement with the island — personal, educational, economic, and cultural — is the only promise of greater progress between both nations.

I respect those who do not like the Castro regime. I don’t blame them. But the Castros are no longer in power and, as of February 24, 2019, under the leadership of Miguel Díaz Canel, Cuba has drafted a new constitution that received 86.85 percent approval rating from its citizens. It is time for the United States to stop decades of hostility toward the island nation and realize that our country, too, can learn a little something about sustainable and pesticide-free agricultural developments, a free health care system for all, maintaining one of the highest literacy rates in the Americas, and achieving longevity rates equitable with those in developed countries.

Visit Cuba and judge for yourself. Don´t let the government speak for you. Don´t let the government restrict where you can and cannot travel.

The author is an associate professor of Spanish at Rollins College.

Source: New travel restrictions will only hurt Cuban people | Commentary – Orlando Sentinel