Cuban-American, Who Came to US Via Pedro Pan, Says Open Travel to Cuba to ALL Americans

[magbana]

SILVIA WILHELM'S REMARKS
ROLL OUT HR 874
PRESS CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON DC
APRIL 2, 2009

Thank you so much for the opportunity to say a few words at this important event.

In January of 1961 I was sent to this country as an unaccompanied child in what was later known as Operacion Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan). My family was disenchanted with the changes taking place in Cuba and did not want me to be raised in that environment. They thought this separation would be at the most for 9 months to one year. They obviously miscalculated what was taking place on the ground in Cuba. I am standing here today as a proud Cuban American having lived in this country for close to half a century.

The Cuban American community applauded just a few weeks ago changes in travel that now permits us to visit our family once per year. We now anxiously await President Obama's executive order that would keep his campaign promise of unlimited travel and remittances by Cuban Americans to the island.

BUT WE ARE NOT HERE TO SUPPORT TRAVEL FOR SOME AMERICANS, WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT TRAVEL FOR ALL AMERICANS. WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT HR874.

My husband, a native Californian and a decorated strategic air command flight surgeon during the Vietnam War cannot on his own right travel to Cuba, yet he can travel to communist Vietnam, where thousands of his fellow Americans died. He applauds his right to travel to Vietnam but cannot understand why his right to travel to Cuba continues to be denied.

As a representative of the Cuban American community I can assure you that we have never been a monolithic group. In the last 10 years our community has witnessed a trend towards moderation in how to deal with the realities of the Cuba of today. This is primarily due to the thousands of new arrivals from Cuba who left family behind and to the new generations of Cuban Americans who are tired of the politics of war and isolation and are committed to engagement and reconciliation.

When you specifically deal with travel to Cuba, the latest Florida International University poll conducted in December of 2008 showed even greater support amongst Cuban Americans in South Florida for TRAVEL FOR ALL 68% verses 67% for Travel for Cuban Americans only. And if this poll could show these results in conservative South Florida I can just imagine the results if you conducted the same poll of Cuban Americans nationwide. But this is not about polls this issue is about RIGHTS.

I will also have to admit that there are some in the Cuban American community, now a minority, who will never support travel to Cuba and they have every right to have their opinion. The question remains, do they also have the right to take away our rights to travel?

There are some in Congress that refuse to endorse HR 874 until Cuba makes improvements in correcting its human rights record. This totally contradicts the recommendations of human rights organizations like Freedom House, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who have come out supporting the right of travel for ALL Americans.

I have traveled to Cuba on a regular basis since 1994 after a 33 year voluntary absence. In many innumerable conversations with Cubans from all walks of life they have expressed their desire to welcome Americans to their homeland and they will do so with open arms. The people of Cuba are worn out after 50 years of witnessing the intransigence of two governments who refuse to take the first step towards normalizing relations. The strategy to isolate Cuba in order to bring about regime change has been a total and dismal failure. It is time to engage.

As the 400plus members of the Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists (ENCASA) have noted:

There is no better first step than to allow Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba and be American ambassadors of goodwill. This step will be loudly applauded by Cubans, Cuban Americans, Americans, Latin Americans, and by the international community as a whole.

THE TIME HAS COME TO REPUDIATE COLD WAR POLICIES AND SET POLICIES THAT REFLECT THE REALITIES OF THE 21ST CENTURY. THE TIME HAS COME TO BUILD BRIDGES AND TEAR DOWN WALLS.

ENDORSING HR 874 WILL DO JUST THAT.

Thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Oh, NOW, they want to express their wishes to be conciliatory. How sweet, right?

Where WERE these guys before the noise got this loud to drop the hostilities toward Cuba?

Their silly claims that Americans can be "ambassadors of goodwill" to Cuba are hilarious. It's not Cuba who's holding another country hostage, broken under a crushing embargo, the target of a savage economic war lasting 50 years, unmatched anywhere in history by any country.

They don't need to worry about meddling in Cuba's perception of Americans. Dropping the embargo will say more than one zillion loud, overbearing, imperious "ambassadors of good will."