Black People Today

WASHINGTON, USA (CMC) - A group of leading United States business organisations has urged US President-elect Barack Obama to initiate the process of scrapping the 46-year-old economic embargo against Cuba.

"We support the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba," the group, which includes the US Chamber of Commerce, said in an open letter to Obama Thursday.

"We recognise that change may not come all at once, but it must start somewhere, and it must begin soon," the letter added.

The organisations told Obama that it was "simply wrong" that American citizens are free to travel to North Korea or Iran but not to the Caribbean island.

Obama had promised, during the presidential campaign, that he would scrap the regulations sharply limiting the ability of Cuban-Americans to visit their homeland or to send money and goods to family members in the Spanish-speaking country.

Obama's election victory has also fuelled calls to normalise relations with Cuba.

Jake Colvin, Vice President of the US National Foreign Trade Council, said the letter to the US President-elect, who will officially assume office in January, was signed by a number of business groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Business Roundtable, National Retail Federation and Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The letter cites a 2001 government report that the Cuban embargo was costing US exporters up to US $1.2 billion annually in lost sales.
A poll released this week shows that 55 per cent of Miami's Cuban Americans say the US should end the economic embargo, while 65 per cent say Washington should re-establish diplomatic ties with the island.

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) recently supported a United Nations' General Assembly resolution - in its 17th year running - calling for end of the economic embargo against Cuba.

Caricom said the "punitive embargo" is of particular concern since it shares a "history, culture and brotherhood with the people of Cuba".

It said Cuba is the most populous state of the Caribbean region and an "integral part of the Pan-Caribbean process".

"Our future regional development is, in many ways, reliant upon our collective advancement and progress," said George Talbot, Guyana's Chargé d' affaires to the UN, speaking on behalf of Caricom before the General Assembly.

"In that context, we view the embargo not just as a punitive act against Cuba, but as an impediment to our shared regional development," he added.

"The unilateral imposition of extraterritorial laws on third states is contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter, and the embargo itself runs counter to the principles of multilateralism, international law, sovereignty, and free trade that this body traditionally champions," Talbot continued.

The Guyanese diplomat said constructive engagement and peaceful negotiations with Cuba "remain the only acceptable means for advancing long term peace and stability