news Fidel Castro urges Obama to lift trade embargo following easing of sanctions

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Fidel Castro urges Obama to lift trade embargo following easing of sanctions


Tue Apr 14, 11:44 AM




By The Associated Press

HAVANA - Fidel Castro says the Obama administration did not go far enough in softening sanctions, and criticized it for leaving in place the embargo that bars most trade and travel between the two countries.
The White House said Monday that Americans will now be able to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba. Under previous rules, Cuban-Americans were eligible to travel here only every three years and send up to $300 to relatives every three months.
Monday's action eliminated those limits in the hope that less dependence on their government will lead Cubans to demand progress on political freedoms.
Many in Cuba saw the changes as a humanitarian gesture.
"You can imagine what it is like to have a marriage by telephone," Berta Maria Mayor said Tuesday as she awaited the charter plane carrying her husband back to Cuba for the first time in three years. "I'm in love with someone I barely get to see," the 45-year-old added.
Mayor said she hoped she could now see her husband several times a year, although family finances are tight after his layoff from a Florida shirt factory job three months ago.
Castro responded to the measures in an online column Monday night. The ailing former president wrote that the United States had announced the repeal of "several hateful restrictions," but had stopped short of real change.
"Of the blockade, which is the cruelest of measures, not a word was uttered," he wrote.
Castro noted that several U.S. senators favour lifting the trade embargo and urged Obama to seize the opportunity.
"The conditions are in place for Obama to use his talent in a constructive policy that ends something that has failed for nearly half a century," he wrote.
While analysts say the U.S. policy change could usher in a new era of openness between the two countries, few here think it will mean the end of the trade embargo, which has choked off nearly all U.S. trade with the island for 47 years and counting.
"I'm not hoping for much more from Obama," said 43-year-old office worker Layna Rodriguez. "I don't know that he can do much more since to him, the important thing is what the Americans in his country do."
But many Cubans are happy that relatives in America will now be able to come whenever they want, stay as long as they want and send as much cash home as they can. About 1.5 million Americans have relatives in Cuba, which turned to Communist rule after Castro seized control in 1959.
Allowing unlimited travel by family members, "is a humanitarian question, above all a thing of the heart," said Yulesvi Ramirez, a woman in her 20s, as she arrived Tuesday in Cuba for the first time since leaving to live in the United States 1 1/2 years ago.
Other steps taken Monday by the White House include expanding items allowed in gift parcels sent to Cuba. The administration also will begin issuing licences for companies to provide cellular and television services to Cubans, and letting family members pay for relatives on the island to get those services.