Life in Peru

US – Cuba policy

President Obama has relaxed restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba.

Guess what? Peruvians don’t care. I don’t care. In fact, no one outside Miami or Washington DC cares.

Other than the US, practically the entire world has normal relations with Cuba. People here in Latin America travel freely to Cuba and have otherwise normal relations with Cuba. Many Latin American countries currently have democratically elected, yet left-leaning regimes (Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, …) and people still admire Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, evidenced by posters, shirts and hats with his name or semblance. For anyone who has lived in the poverty that still exists in Latin America, the US brand of capitalism and phobia of anything socialist is simply absurd.

I believe history won’t be kind to US politicians unless they normalize relations with Cuba immediately. The Cuba embargo hasn’t changed the Castro regime in nearly half a century, it’s become nothing but a distraction to many better causes our elected officials could spend their energy (and our tax dollars) on.

April 14, 2009 - Posted by wwelvaert | Life in Peru | Castro, Cuba, embargo, Obama, politics, world