Well-timed lifting of travel restrictions marks improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations

Commentary

Well-timed lifting of travel restrictions marks improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations

February 1, 2011 11:58:18 am

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Dr. Wayne Smith [Senior Fellow and Director of Cuba Program, Center for International Policy]: “U.S.-Cuba relations changed little during 2010, and certainly showed no signs of significant improvement. On the contrary, the two sides seemed to be in something of a stalemate, with the U.S. taking the apparent position that it could not take steps to improve relations until the matter of Alan Gross was resolved — Mr. Gross being the USAID contractor arrested in December of 2009. The U.S. maintained that he had committed no crime. The Cubans, on the other hand, noted that Mr. Gross had entered Cuba improperly and had been distributing highly sophisticated radio equipment without a license.

Although no charges have been filed against Mr. Gross, Cuban officials privately hinted that a step would have to be taken on the U.S. side in order for the case to be fully resolved. That step finally came on January 14 of 2011, when the White House announced an easing of the restrictions on the travel of U.S. students and religious groups to Cuba, in addition to granting permission of limited remittances from U.S. citizens to Cubans.

Interestingly, the White House announcement came only days after a meeting of U.S. and Cuban delegations in Havana at which, reportedly, the Cubans were “responsive” on the Gross case. We will see what that means, but the expectations are that Gross will be charged and then released during the weeks ahead. If so, the way may then be clear for some significant improvement in relations.

And meanwhile, restrictions on travel have been eased. All to the good. Those restrictions have long since been counterproductive and should have been eliminated decades ago. One does not, after all, bring about change in what has been something of a closed society by keeping it closed. The best way to encourage the kind of change we’d like to see in Cuba is by encouraging the free flow of citizens between the two countries, and of course, the free flow of information. Hopefully, we are now at long last moving in that direction. Obviously, the next goal should be to remove travel restrictions altogether.”

This article was prepared for publication by Yuriy Vilner, an associate editor for JURIST’s professional commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to him at professionalcommentary@jurist.org

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Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.