U.S.-Cuban ties still not ‘normal’

U.S.-Cuban ties still not 'normal'
ABQnews Seeker Albuquerque News From the newspaper Nation News Politics
Washington World
By Michael Coleman / Journal Washington Bureau
PUBLISHED: Friday, June 12, 2015 at 12:05 am

WASHINGTON – President Obama's efforts to improve relations with Cuba
have resulted in more travel between the two countries, but a Cuban
native and former University of New Mexico professor contends that Cuba
and the U.S. are still a long way from enjoying normal relations.

Nelson Valdes, a former UNM professor, was born in Cuba in 1945 and
arrived in the U.S. as one of thousands of children brought to the
United States in what would later be dubbed Operation Peter Pan. Valdes
has since organized more than 40 research tours to the isolated
communist island.

Valdes will give a lecture on U.S.-Cuban relations from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. The lecture is
sold-out.

"I will give an overview of relations between the U.S. and Cuba from
1959 to the present, and of what the policy is as of now," Valdes told
the Journal. "We are a long way from normal relations. There are still a
lot of roadblocks."

The first major signs of a thaw in the long-standing deep freeze in
Cuban-U.S. relations came in December when Obama made a speech calling
for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations – a "new chapter" for
the former Cold War adversaries, as Obama described it at the time.
Obama also announced several new executive decisions, including the
easing of limits on remittances from the U.S. to Cuba and a relaxation
of rules governing U.S. citizens' travel to the Caribbean country.

Then, in mid-April, the White House announced it would strike Cuba from
its inventory of international terror sponsors, leaving only Sudan, Iran
and Syria remaining on the list. The United States designated Cuba as a
sponsor of terrorism in the 1980s in reaction to its backing of leftist
insurgent groups in Latin America.

Cuba has also harbored a number of dangerous U.S. fugitives, including
Charlie Hill, who is accused in the 1971 murder of a New Mexico
policeman before fleeing to Cuba on an airliner hijacked from the
Albuquerque airport.

New Mexico lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., have called for
Hill's extradition, but it remains unclear whether the Cuban government
will grant the request.

Valdes pointed out that a major obstacle to normalized relations
remains: the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which expanded the 1962 U.S.
trade embargo. Only Congress has the authority to repeal the law, which
is unlikely under the current Republican-controlled Congress.

Another impediment to normal relations with Cuba is a 1992 law that
prohibited foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading
with Cuba.

"I know I'm sort of raining on everyone's parade," Valdes said,
referring to Americans who are optimistic about the new chapter in
U.S.-Cuban relations. "But there is a lot of hype about this."

Source: U.S.-Cuban ties still not 'normal' | Albuquerque Journal News -
http://www.abqjournal.com/597789/news/uscuban-ties-still-not-normal.html