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Politics

Cubans find ways around embargo

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 23, 2006

MIAMI - A small but growing number of Cubans in South Florida are getting around the U.S. embargo that limits what can be sent to the communist island by sending their Christmas gifts through foreign Internet sites.

At least one Canadian-based Web site, www.-cubamaxstore.com, allows people to ship such items as beef, jams, even deodorant, to relatives in Cuba. While the gifts aren't the iPods and Sony PlayStations that Americans crave, they are much appreciated by Cubans who earn an average of $10 to $15 a month and often struggle to put food on the table.

The trend exemplifies the creative ways that Cuban families seek to stay connected, despite restrictions on travel and exports imposed by the governments on both sides of the Florida Straits, said Cuban-American activist Ramon Saul Sanchez.

"Fortunately, people try to keep in touch with their families. Unfortunately, they have to go through all these measures," he said.

Antonio Conte, who left Cuba in the early 1990s and edits an online magazine of articles by Cuban dissident writers, recently ordered meat and other items sent to his adult daughter and son in Cuba.

"My uncle told me about it. It's better to send food there instead of money. It's not so expensive, and you can help a bit," Conte said. "In Cuba, you have your ration card, and you get chicken only once in a while. Only the children and the sick get meat."

A gift basket of assorted canned meats and other snacks costs about $60. The Web site also offers electronics and appliances, although no one interviewed for this article said they purchased such items.

Aleida Vives, 68, who had never used the Internet before, sent meat to her sister this year.

"It's a little cheaper," she said, adding that meat and other specialty items are often more expensive in Cuba and the quality is poor.

While the U.S. embargo against the island - enacted in 1963 at the height of the Cold War - has long limited what can be sent there, restrictions enacted in 2004 made sending gifts there even more difficult.

Now most Cubans in the United States can visit the island only once in three years and can send only quarterly remittances of as much as $300 a household to immediate family members.

Added to that, the Cuban government takes 20 cents of every U.S. dollar sent there. The amount is smaller for other currencies, such as the euro or the Canadian dollar, which makes the Canadian online store more attractive.

U.S. law forbids exporting products to Cuba through third countries such as Canada or Mexico, but it makes an exception for families sending food, vitamins and personal hygiene items of $200 or less to immediate family members, according to the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

[Last modified December 23, 2006, 06:21:30]