{dropcap}T{/dropcap}he digital site IrishCentral denounced that the US administration denied the travel permit to Cuba to a group of artist who play Irish traditional music and who were going to attend the Second Annual Festival of Celtic Music, to be held between the 15 and the 26 of April in Havana, organized by the Office of the Historian of the City.

According to the publication, John McAuliff, organizer of the trip, wrote to Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which entity is in charge of authorize the trips to Cuba following the laws of the blockade, to protest for such a disastrous decision. In the letter McAuliff questions: “How the criteria of the Bush Administration can be relevant to implement the policies of President Obama who wishes to do exactly the opposite, promote the travels?”

For McAuliff, who is also the director of the Foundation of Reconciliation and Development, the OFAC has its own bureaucratic agenda and has been under pressures of hard line anti Cuban politicians, such as Bob Menendez, the democratic senator for New jersey, who in 2009 was against the small measures of Obama to favour the trips of the Cubans who live in the USA to Cuba. Menendez also sabotaged the presentations the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was going to held in Cuba.

Translation: Rodney Lopez (Cubarte)