Win gives Cubans hope of better relations
HAVANA, Cuba, Tuesday
US President-elect Barack Obama’s promise of change reached across the Florida Straits on Tuesday as Cubans said his victory over John McCain gave them hope for better relations with the US and improvement in their own lives.
Obama’s campaign vow to ease the 46-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba and his willingness to consider dialogue with the Cuban government were a breath of fresh air after almost eight years of tough talk and hard-line policies from the Bush administration, Cubans said.
“I think with Obama we will have some improvement. We’re going to breathe a little, because if the other (McCain) had won we would be in bad shape -- and not just the Cubans,” said housewife Cristina Recio, 50.
Communist Cuba and the US are worlds apart politically and have been at odds since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power, but only the Florida Straits, 145 km across, separate the countries that were once closely allied.
Family ties between the two countries are strong, as an estimated 1 million Cubans have emigrated to the US.
Many Cubans kept a close eye on the US election and most viewed McCain as an extension of President George W Bush, who toughened the embargo by limiting how much money their US-based relatives could send home and how many times they could visit.
McCain said he would not ease the embargo and denigrated Obama for offering to speak to the Cuban government without pre-conditions.
“He (McCain) tried in his campaign to separate himself from Bush but he didn’t fool anybody,” said Diego Lopez, 41.
In a column published on Tuesday in state-run media, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared himself neutral in the race, but blasted away at McCain while mostly praising Obama.
Obama, Castro wrote, is “without doubt more intelligent, cultured and calm than his Republican adversary”.
Blamed for problems
The 72-year-old McCain, the ailing 82-year-old said, is “old, bellicose, uncultured, not very intelligent and not healthy.”
Cubans were wary of hoping that Obama’s win could bring an end to the US embargo, which the Cuban government blames for many of its problems, but admitted they were ready for an end to 50 years of tense US-Cuba relations.
“I’m not so idealistic as to think that the embargo will be lifted immediately,” said Cuban dissident and writer Jorge Olivera. “But I expect better times as much for the United States as for Cuba.” (Reuters)
