The legal structure of the 55 year U.S. trade blockade and prohibitions of travel to Cuba.Photo: Ramon Espinosa/AP |
By:
Emile Schepers
This week, a Cuban delegation arrived
in Washington D.C. to continue discussions with the U.S. State
Department on the proposals for regularizing relations between the two
countries. At the same time a number of bills have been presented in
the Senate and House of Representatives for the purpose of eliminating
the legal structure of the 55 year U.S. trade blockade and prohibitions
of travel to Cuba.
The first task, as explained by the head of Cuba's delegation,
Josefina Vidal, who is in charge of U.S. affairs in the Cuban foreign
ministry, is to get Cuba removed from the list of state sponsors of
terrorism. This should be simple because everybody but the most extreme
Cuba-haters agrees that Cuba is not, indeed, a state sponsor of
terrorism.