Cuba libre

"I don't trust those guys," says Rafael Hernandez, referring to Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. Like many other exiled Cubans, Hernandez fled to Miami in 1960, right after Castro's Communist Party seized power.

Now, he's sitting at the wheel of his taxi, visibly struggling with his emotions. "If you ask me, Castro should die," he says before turning to his passenger.

Then: "It'd be good for the people," answering the question of whether the US should lift its embargo on the country, which President John F Kennedy imposed 50 years ago.

Then he weighs in on America's latest dilemma over Cuba, one sparked by a New York Times article calling upon the US to remove the sanctions. Were that to happen, Hernandez says, Cubans would get "enough to eat and drink, but no freedom."

Removing US sanctions shouldn't come without strings attached, says professor Jaime Suchlicki of the Cuban-American studies department of Miami University. First, the Cubans must release Alan Gross, the American aid worker who has been in a Cuban prison for five years, he told DW.

"On top of that, they have to open up the Internet, so all Cubans get access to information. They have to open their economy, allow political parties, respect human rights and freedom of opinion."

As long as those conditions aren't fulfilled, the political scientist - himself of Cuban heritage- sees no reason to change US policy.

A half hour from Suchlicki's institute, Arian Rodriguez works as a barkeeper at a gay bar on Miami's South Beach. "We were in Cuba, and we realized how the sanctions affected our lives - that's why we left," he said. He moved to Miami six years ago with his mother, while the rest of the family stayed with his stepfather.

No change

Arian's stepfather is a human rights activist who spent five years in jail. The family experienced Castro's repression first-hand. But: "The only people who suffer from the sanctions are the Cubans. The sanctions have existed for so long, but they haven't made a difference, so what's the point?" He points out that, fifty years later, the Castros are still firmly in power.

From his perspective, there is one other reason why sanctions need to be lifted. "The Cuban government won't have an excuse for the desperate poor situation." Most young Cubans agree with him, he says, while older people want to see the embargo maintained.

The latest polls support Rodriguez' view, and they also show that more and more Americans, and now even a majority of exiled Cubans, are in favor of lifting the embargo.

'I'm American'

While slow afternoon business gives Arian time to chat, a hundred meters (330 feet) down the road, Mimi Franco and Mary Costa are having a cigarette break in front of the SLS hotel. The two chambermaids had heard nothing of the latest embargo debate.

"I have no clue about Cuba," Mimi says. "I'm American, born and bred." Mary is from Mexico, but her partner is a Cuban who has been living in the US for two years. "Once they're here, they don't want to hear about Cuba anymore," she laughs. Her partner has told her about changes in the country - that people are allowed to own property and that travel restrictions have been relaxed. "But the people don't believe in changes, they don't believe in Fidel and Raul Castro."

Ana Quintana, of the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation, is also skeptical. She considers all of Cuba's reforms as no more than "shop window politics" achieved mainly thanks to the pressure of sanctions and the fall in oil prices, which make it more difficult for Cuba's remaining allies like Venezuela to support the island state with subsidized oil. America's Cuba policy needs to be "human-rights-oriented," and the motto should be "free trade only with free people."

Lift the embargo!

John Hemingway, grandson of author and long-time Cuba resident Ernest Hemingway, thinks the US embargo policy is hypocritical. After all, the US does plenty of business with China and Saudi Arabia.

"After more than 50 years, the time has come to lift the trade embargo and accept that the two countries determine their fates their own way," Hemingway told DW. He thinks US President Barack Obama should take the initiative - if need be, by bypassing Congress. Hemingway feels bound to the island, and visited it two years ago.

So did 19-year-old Javier Gonzales, a student at Miami Dade College. The conditions under which people in Cuba live are difficult, he says. They have little room, and "they don't have food like we have, the water isn't clean, they get it from the river. They don't have TVs and DVD players. They're super surprised when they see my cell phone." Unlike many others of Cuban origin his age, he still feels like a "Cuban in America." And he wants the sanctions to be lifted, "even if it's hard to deal with the Castro brothers."

Don't sell Cuba

Javier is a volunteer at the Miami book fair, and sits with a handful of "friends of Cuba" at a reading of new Cuban literature, where Louis Martínez-Fernández is presenting his book "Revolutionary Cuba: A History."

Martínez-Fernández thinks the New York Times has been "pretty superficial" in the way it has handled the debate. It isn't enough to simply say Obama can do it since he doesn't have to get re-elected and could secure himself a place in the history books with the decision. There are, Martínez-Fernández believes, "lots of things he could do that are less controversial."

One thing he wants to avoid: that US investors flood Cuba with money, and "US capitalism aggressively takes over the Cuban economy." As far as he is concerned, the best solution would be for Obama to strike a deal with the Castro government which includes guarantees for democracy. But the most important thing is "that Cuba isn't sold off to the US."