Source: The New Internationalist
The restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba announced on Wednesday is welcome – and long overdue.
Cubans have been celebrating in Havana. And – not that you’d guess from some of the news reporting from Miami – it’s been welcomed by Cubans living in the US too.
The fiercely anti-Castro lobby that reporters go to when wanting ‘the Cuban exile view’ is now in a minority. This is partly due to demographic change as the hardliners grow old or die and a new generation of Cubans living in the US want relations between the two countries to be ‘normalized’.
Normalization has long been high on the list of Cuban commentators living in Cuba too – such as journalist Roberto Veiga, formerly of Espacio Laical, now co-founder of debating forum Cuba Posible in Havana.
The big breakthrough came this week with an agreement, brokered by Pope Francis, to exchange prisoners. The remaining three Cuban intelligence operatives of the ‘Cuban Five’, imprisoned in the US for almost 15 years, were exchanged for two US citizens convicted of spying, including Alan Gross.
The restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba announced on Wednesday is welcome – and long overdue.
Cubans have been celebrating in Havana. And – not that you’d guess from some of the news reporting from Miami – it’s been welcomed by Cubans living in the US too.
The fiercely anti-Castro lobby that reporters go to when wanting ‘the Cuban exile view’ is now in a minority. This is partly due to demographic change as the hardliners grow old or die and a new generation of Cubans living in the US want relations between the two countries to be ‘normalized’.
Normalization has long been high on the list of Cuban commentators living in Cuba too – such as journalist Roberto Veiga, formerly of Espacio Laical, now co-founder of debating forum Cuba Posible in Havana.
The big breakthrough came this week with an agreement, brokered by Pope Francis, to exchange prisoners. The remaining three Cuban intelligence operatives of the ‘Cuban Five’, imprisoned in the US for almost 15 years, were exchanged for two US citizens convicted of spying, including Alan Gross.
– See more at: http://newint.org/blog/2014/12/18/cuba-us-embargo/#sthash.RwXx0IXz.dpuf