6-07-09, 10:04 am

Original source: CubaNews The advantages and dangers of Cuba being opened to visitors from the United States have begun to be assessed from a great variety of angles and interests, both in the United States and Cuba, as well as in other contexts. North of the Florida Strait – according to the polls – the populace is in favor of lifting the prohibition on trips to Cuba, despite the slander campaign against the Cuban political process that has taken place in that country for half a century. Informed sources estimate that each year some 40,000 US citizens enter Cuba through Mexico or Canada to enjoy vacations, at the risk of being punished for breaking the immigration laws of their country, but with the full knowledge of Cuban immigration officials. The figure, although insignificant in the grand total of 2.3 million visitors who arrived in 2008, is revealing given the severe penalties to which these furtive vacationers are exposed. The constant position of the Cuban government in this regard has been to not hinder the visit of Americans to Cuba, as part of its policy of fighting isolation. In recent statements, Bob Withley, the president of the United States Tour Operators Association, maintained that “there is a mystique” regarding Cuba, precisely because “a lot of people want to see it because we’ve been denied the right.” Some time ago, right in the middle of George W. Bush’s administration, the US Congress – without the Democratic majority it has today – passed resolutions opposing the travel ban, which did not go anywhere due to the threat of presidential veto. Recently it was revealed that a bipartisan group of Senators in Washington introduced a new bill that would lift the prohibition on travel to Cuba by citizens of the United States. It was noted that the initiative would result in income of between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion per year for US businesses and would create about 23,000 jobs in that country. On May 6, former president James Carter told the Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo that the initiatives adopted thus far by Obama to loosen the restrictions enacted against the island have been less daring than might have been desired and “not as good as those of the two houses of the US Congress, which are today a step ahead of the president regarding Cuba.” In Carter’s opinion, “the next step should be immediate removal of all travel restrictions to the island...The end of the embargo will follow suit’.” This last conclusion is logical. If you figure that each year no fewer than 3 million US citizens would take advantage of the lifting of the prohibition on travel to Cuba, it stands to reason that the US business community would demand to participate in the division of the economic benefits that this tourism would generate rather than graciously ceding those benefits to its counterparts in other countries who are already involved in the Cuban tourist industry. In the legislative arena, the members of Congress of Cuban origin, known as “Batistianos” (because of their roots in the Batista tyranny that was defeated by the revolution), are prominent in opposing the measure to recognize the constitutional right of US citizens to travel to the only country forbidden to them by law. These members of Congress have been promoted by four successive administrations which shared a neoconservative orientation, from Ronald Reagan to Bush Jr., including the Clinton administration. The possibility that the United States might lift the prohibition on its citizens traveling to Cuba is also being followed closely in the Caribbean because as a destination Cuba would be very serious competition in the market for US tourists. But West Indian businessmen in the travel and leisure industry, among whom it was hoped that panic would spread, are talking more about the benefits than the dangers that the new situation would bring if it became an incentive for the whole region. In Cuba, a growing number of people are in favor of US tourism once again filling the predominant place that it had before the revolution, 50 years ago, because in their view there are clear complementary economic interests in the sector. The massive influx of tourists from the wealthy neighboring country is seen as a way in which citizens of that country could compensate Cubans for all the suffering and privations that have been imposed on them for 50 years by US administrations. Others, starting out from seemingly less naive positions, feel that the large-scale arrival of visitors from the country that is the leader of world capitalism would further the interventionist aims that have always guided United States policy regarding Cuba, with the goal of weakening popular support for the Cuban revolutionary process. US tourism can be beneficial for both nations and peoples if it is based on respectful relations between equals.

--Translation by Will Reissner. Edited by Walter Lippmann.