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Under its new travel advisory system, the U.S. State Department appears to have softened its position on Cuba travel.
In late September, the Department issued a travel warning for Cuba, advising U.S. citizens to not travel to the island nation following reports of U.S. embassy employees suffering mysterious health attacks. Symptoms reportedly included hearing loss, dizziness, headaches and cognitive issues, and the government evacuated many employees from the U.S. embassy in Havana.
However, on its newly overhauled travel advisory system, the State Department ranks Cuba a level 3 nation, suggesting Americans “reconsider travel.” The same ranking is given to Russia and Turkey.
When asked by reporters to explain the change, Michelle Bernier-Toth, acting deputy assistant secretary for overseas citizen services, said that the department “routinely reviews previous travel warnings” and determined that level 3 was appropriate. She also said that part of the reason Cuba has a level 3 ranking is because the Department has significantly reduced its staffing at the embassy in Havana.
“Whenever we do that, traditionally we have always issued a travel warning,” she said, adding that “we have a small footprint in our embassy in Havana. We have very limited consular resources and our ability to help people in an emergency is extremely limited.”
However, the advisory on the website says that the reason for the advisory is “due to health attacks directed at U.S. Embassy Havana employees.”
“Because our personnel’s safety is at risk, and we are unable to identify the source of the attacks, we believe U.S. citizens may also be at risk,” the advisory continues. “Attacks have occurred in U.S. diplomatic residences and at Hotel Nacional and Hotel Capri in Havana.”
It later adds that due to the drawdown in staff, “the U.S. Embassy in Havana has limited ability to assist U.S. citizens.”
Tour operators in September had decried the Department’s earlier travel warning as without merit and based on political posturing by the Trump administration.
“It was completely unfounded,” said InsightCuba president Tom Popper in September. “We knew something was coming once the story broke about the symptoms that the embassy officials were experiencing.”
Source: travelweekly.com
FYI, the State Department justified the categorization as bureaucratically mandated and insisted it was just as severe, flying in the face of reality:
” When an embassy goes to authorized or ordered departure, that automatically puts it into either the Level 3 or Level 4 rankings, which would be the equivalent of an old Travel Warning if it’s not already there. …
On Cuba, I would note if you read further into what the different definitions or explanations of the different levels are, Level 3 is reconsidered travel, but the message behind that is avoid travel due to serious risks. So I think that does not change from where we were on Cuba previously.”
The State Department has compromised its new Advisory system by politicizing the categorization of Cuba as 3 rather than 2.
This is intended to pressure Cuba to provide information on a medical problem we can’t explain or assign responsibility for.
Based on an ideological assumption that Cuba must know more than we do because it is a communist country, the State Department is needlessly frightening off American visitors.
There has also been an effort by some officials to hide the fact that independent travel is as open as before, utilizing the license category of Support for the Cuban People instead of People to People.
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
Well said and correct.