For the first time in half a century, a cargo ship left Miami headed directly for Cuba, carrying a load of humanitarian supplies.
Havana, Cuba / NationalTurk – Ana Cecilia is the name of the ship taht left with humanitarian shipments, and we are assured that there was nothing to be sold in Cuba,’ shipping firm spokesman Leonardo Sanchez-Adega says.
The company, International Port Corp, states it has obtained a special permit from US authorities, totally in compliance with Washington’s 50 years old trade embargo on the Communist-run island of Cuba.
US Cuba Relations soften ? Miami-Cuba Shipping Route opened
Sanchez-Adega continued : ‘ Our company plans for ships to leave each Wednesday on the 17-hour trip to Havana, where the 10-member crew will unload its cargo and return from Cuba, without ever going ashore in Havana.
Miami Havana tours clients for the weekly shipment include charitable, religious and humanitarian groups, as well as relatives of people living in Cuba.
In Florida, most in the Miami area more than 800,000 Cuban-Americans live
The Ana Cecilia can carry up to 16 containers, for which the company is charging $5.99 a pound, or about $13 a kilogram.
Other Florida companies ship to Cuba as well, most through third countries, but Sanchez-Adega says they are the first to offer weekly service directly from Miami to Havana, capital of Castro family led Cuba.
A regular shipping route also exists from Port Everglades, Florida, south of Miami, to Cuba. Ships with US government permits set sail weekly through Crowley Maritime from that port, carrying humanitarian and agricultural goods.
That weekly route has been open for a decade, with the United States becoming a key farm and food supplier to Cuba even as it claims Havana deserves tough sanctions.
Us Embargo against Cuba : America’s battle against communism
The US embargo against Cuba was annaounced by president John F. Kennedy in 1962 – aimed at bringing down the Americas’ only one-party Communist regime. That regime remains in place under President Raul Castro.
The US embargo against Cuba has been condemned by a majority of the United Nations General Assembly each year since 1992. Cuban-American Florida lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on June 19 wrote a letter to the US Treasury Department, where the Office of Foreign Assets Control is in charge of US sanctions, questioning whether there was anything illegal about the new Miami-Havana shipping route.
Apparently things start to change for the sole represantative of communism in Americas!
[adrotate group=”10″]
