CUBA TRAVEL U.S.

 Raul Castro, the brother of Cuba’s ailing revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, offered Washington an olive branch last week, saying Cuba was ready for negotiations with the United States on the basis of “equality, reciprocity, non-interference and mutual respect”.
Analysts said the overture was a first step that could end decades of friction while some exile groups called for relaxing the American embargo on Cuba to pave the way for a possible political transition.
“What Raul was saying in his message to Washington was that a Cuba without [Fidel] Castro is a blank slate for everyone, and that it would be better if the two countries were to normalize relations”, said Marifeli Perez-Stable, vice-president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank that specializes in Latin American issues.
Perez-Stable said the likely imminent end of the Fidel Castro era could propel a thaw in US-Cuban relations.
Raul Castro, 75, made an earlier conciliatory gesture to the United States shortly after taking power last July calling for better bilateral ties in an interview in the official daily Granma newspaper.
Washington’s immediate response has been to brush aside the peace offer.
“I don’t see how that really furthers the cause of democracy in that country where you have dialogue with a dictator-in-waiting who wants to continue the form of governance that has really kept down the Cuban people for all these decades”, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
Saying that Cuba faces a pivotal moment, more than 20 Cuban exile groups have asked Washington to ease its decades-old embargo on Cuba.
“This is a chance to turn the Cubans in exile into agents of change inside Cuba”.
The petition sent to Washington seeks to relax US restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba, as well as Havana’s restrictions on postal and wire communications and money transfers from the United States.
National Cuban-American Foundation leader Francisco Hernandez told reporters in Miami that the petition was a response to a similar request made by dissidents inside Cuba, and to Raul Castro’s comments.
He said some aspects of US policy on humanitarian assistance to Cuba needed to be more flexible “at a time when we might be heading toward a transition”.
Fidel Castro’s absence from his own 80th birthday fete heightened speculation he may be more seriously ill than previously believed. He has not been seen in public since July 26, the day before he underwent intestinal surgery.
Havana and Washington have had acrimonious relations from almost the day Fidel Castro took power, and relations have been frostier than ever under the George W. Bush Administration.
Latin American expert Janette Habel, of the French Institute for Advanced Latin American Studies, said that even without relations with Washington, Cuba’s fortunes have been looking up recently, with leftist governments now in charge in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela.
Rather than viewing Raul Castro’s overture as a meek act of conciliation, Habel said his message struck her as defiant.
“It’s a challenge that he issued”, Habel said, adding that the new Cuban leader is saying to Washington: “There, now how are you going to respond. Now it’s up to America, with respect to Latin America, to respond”.