Cuba move reveals split in Georgia’s congressional delegation
President Barack Obama said he expects “honest and serious debate” in Congress about lifting America’s trade embargo with Cuba, following his push to normalize relations with the Communist island nation.
Such a push faced swift resistance from a Congress that will be under complete Republican control come January, with both of Georgia’s Republican U.S. senators serving on the key Foreign Relations Committee.
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson expressed skepticism about Obama’s moves in a phone interview Tuesday, including the possible removal of Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list. Isakson said he looks forward to full briefings on the embargo with top Obama administration officials.
Georgia’s soon-to-be senior senator is wary of any deal that “may have the inspiration of desperation,” given that plummeting oil prices have hurt Venezuela — Cuba’s “sugar daddy,” in Isakson’s words — on top of U.S. sanctions.
“We need to make sure that any agreement done with the Castros is done in ink, and not invisible ink,” Isakson said.
Tellingly, Isakson said he would listen most to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is Cuban-American and represents the influential Cuban-American community in South Florida. And Rubio blasted Obama for “appeasing the Castro brothers” in a move that will allow other dictators to take advantage of his “naivete.”
U.S. Sen.-elect David Perdue withheld comment until more information is known.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, backed Obama’s decision.
“It was the moral choice, and I am glad the president had the courage to do it,” Lewis said in a prepared statement.
“We work with the Russians. We work with the Vietnamese, we work with China and many other nations that we have had difficult relationships with in the past,” Lewis said. “At this point the embargo against Cuba is out of date.”
Georgian and former President Jimmy Carter praised Obama’s “wise and courageous decision” in a statement of his own.
“I hope the U.S. Congress will take steps to remove the economic sanctions against the Cuban people, which have proven to be ineffective in furthering democracy and freedom,” Carter said. “As president, I lifted travel restraints on U.S. visitation and approved the opening of interest sections in Washington and Havana, in which hundreds of representatives of our two countries continue to serve. Full diplomatic relations will contribute to easier and more productive communications.”
— Daniel Malloy
Word that the U.S. will be resuming full diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in more than 50 years moved swiftly through Atlanta’s Cuban community — igniting passions and a mix of emotions that ranged from hope to fear.
The policy shift announced Wednesday strikes particularly close to the hearts of more than 50,000 Georgians with Cuban roots. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in 2013 there were 14,909 native Cubans, plus an additional 37,506 Cuban descendants, living in Georgia.
They include Elizabeth Lisboa of Kennesaw, who legally immigrated to the United States in 2006 when she was just 17.
Lisboa said Wednesday that she is hopeful the changes will mean she can more freely travel back to her native country and reunite with friends and family.
“I feel that I can actually think about recovering all that I lost — all these eight years,” said Lisboa, now a U.S citizen. “All my childhood friends — I miss them. I don’t even know where they are right now because they can’t communicate with us.”
Lisboa, an accountant, said the announcement gave her a sense of relief — “relief that somebody actually did something for us, for the people, not just government and politics.”
“It’s like giving you your freedom,” said Lisboa, who was among those who were celebrating the announcement.
Others, including Teresa Regalado of Lawrenceville, were more skeptical, even fearful that the changes could somehow benefit the Communist government of Cuba.
“Any help, any money, any relations that someone will establish with Cuba — the privileges will go to the government and the people who work for the government, not for the population, which is miserable and struggling with the economy,” said Regalado, who came here 20 years ago and is now a U.S. citizen.
Others, including longtime Atlanta media consultant and Cuba native Angelo Fuster, were upbeat.
“I think it’s great news,” he said. “It took guts to do it.”
Fuster said the policy changes could help Cuba’s economy in a variety of ways, including allowing restaurants and other merchants that now require cash to accept debit and credit cards from tourists, Fuster said.
The Cuban government will no longer have the embargo to blame for its bad economy or other problems, he said.
“I see this as very positive,” Fuster said.
U.S.-born children of Cuban immigrants reacted strongly to the news.
Rosa Basanez, whose parents left Cuba for the U.S. in the 1970s, said her deceased parents “would not be 100 percent happy” with the changes.
“They were of the era of the Cubans who came here when everything was taken from them,” the Kennesaw woman said. “They never traveled again to Cuba. They came to this country and stayed here and lived their life and never went back.”
But Basanez expressed some hope.
“I’m 40 years old now and I realize now, ‘You know what? Maybe this change is about time,’ ” she said. “It needs to happen. Stuff that happened in the past happened in the past. I think that maybe we just need to turn a new leaf. For the people that are there now who have been there many years suffering — what they have endured — I think it is a new opportunity for them.”
Annalury Villasante, a Cuban-American born and raised in Miami who is attending Georgia Tech and pursing an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering, said normalizing relations is unlikely to improve the condition of the average Cuban citizen.
She agrees with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida that this will do nothing to further human rights or democracy in Cuba. Rubio, a Republican, also said the president will get no money for his Cuban policy, no ambassador will be confirmed and the embargo will never be lifted.
Villasante said the U.S. should take a lesson from its 40 years of relations with China. “Economic freedoms do not necessarily lead to political freedoms,” she said.
“There is no binding contract with the Cuban government obligating them to change things now that we have negotiated this prisoner swap,” Villasante said. “Cuba is still an oppressive regime, and they do not have a vested interest in changing their ways.
“I am not saying that things cannot change with a normalization of relations, but I think that the situation in Cuba is much trickier than we think, and our lifting the embargo is not going to change the Cuban situation all of a sudden.”
Regalado’s sister-in-law, Yenia Regalado of Atlanta, said she came here 15 years ago because of the Cuban government’s restrictions.
“Raul Castro is the same as his brother,” said Regalado, a U.S. citizen who co-owns Papi’s Cuban & Caribbean Grill in Atlanta. “In Cuba, you don’t have anything.”
“I won’t go to Cuba anymore,” she said. “I’m finished. I love the United States because the United States opened the door for every Cuban.”
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