US--71% of us believe the criminal US trade embargo against CUBA should be lifted

[Translated from aporrea.org, Caracas]

71% of US citizens favor lifting the embargo against CUBA
By Telam Published on 4/19/2009

Former US diplomat Wayne Smith maintained that "71% of the citizens of the United States believe that relations with Cuba must be normalized, and the embargo must be lifted." "The opinion polls show that a majority of people in the US, around 71%, believe we should normalize relations and completely lift the embargo," Smith, a civil servant assigned to Havana during the 1959 Cuban Revolution, said. In an interview for the daily paper Página 12, the 76 year old former diplomat asserted that "there is a great deal of support for lifting the embargo against Cuba, but make no mistake, that support will not be reflected in crowds protesting and demonstrating in the streets in favor of Cuba," Smith anticipated. Smith worked with John F. Kennedy as one of his advisors for the region; Jimmy Carter named him to be the number one man in the new US Affairs Office in Havana. Smith recalled that "Cuba did not put restrictions on the trips of US citizens, nor did it block trade with the US," referring to recent decisions by the Barack Obama administration regarding Cuba. "If I know the Cubans a little, I know they will not accept conditions for so little; they never did that for anyone, and they will do it even less for Washington," the former official concluded. Smith warned that "until now we have not seen a change in United States policy towards Cuba," and the Department of State "goes on without speaking with the Cuban Interests Office in Washington and the United States Office in Havana, nor do they have a formal relationship with the Cuban diplomatic service." "The United States' policy towards the island is the same, and, regardless of what they may say in Washington, the ball is still in the United States' court," he related. Smith said US President Barack Obama "promised many changes in the election campaign, but I have the feeling that we won't see them." However, " it must not be forgotten that opposition to the blockade is growing stronger" in the US. In this connection, he reported that "the opinion polls show that the majority of those in the US, around 71%, believe we should normalize relations and completely lift the embargo." Finally, the former diplomat indicated that "changes from the United States could push Cuba a little from the pure socialist system, but it does not have that now," and he remarked that "beyond the adjustments that must take place, I believe the Cuban government is reasonably prepared to control the changes."