Castro insists US take action, lift ‘cruel’ embargo

Fidel Castro says the Obama administration did not go far enough in softening sanctions, and criticized it for leaving in place the embargo that bars most trade and travel between the two countries.

The White House said Monday that Americans will now be able to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba. Under Bush administration rules, Cuban-Americans were eligible to travel here only every three years and send up to $300 to relatives every three months.

Monday’s action eliminated those limits in the hope that less dependence on their government will lead Cubans to demand progress on political freedoms.

Many in Cuba saw the changes as a humanitarian gesture.

“You can imagine what it is like to have a marriage by telephone,” Berta Maria Mayor said Tuesday as she awaited the charter plane carrying her husband back to Cuba for the first time in three years. “I’m in love with someone I barely get to see,” the 45-year-old added.

Mayor said she hoped she could now see her husband several times a year, although family finances are tight after his layoff from a Florida shirt factory job three months ago.

Castro responded to the measures in an online column Monday night. The ailing former president wrote that the United States had announced the repeal of “several hateful restrictions,” but had stopped short of real change.

“Of the blockade, which is the cruelest of measures, not a word was uttered,” he wrote.