The president of the Cuban Society of Orthopedics complained Tuesday that the U.S. government prevented about 30 scientists from traveling to the communist island to attend a medical conference.

“I received a letter from them saying that they felt very sad in their hearts because, when everything was prepared, the State Department and Treasury Department prohibited them from going to Cuba,” said Alvarez Cambras, who is also a lawmaker and heads the organizing committee in the national legislature.

Officials with the U.S. Interests Office in Havana who were contacted by Efe said they did not know anything about the matter.

Alvarez Cambras emphasized that the decision shows that the economic and trade embargo the United States has maintained against Cuba since 1962 is still being enforced. The measure includes regulations on academic, sports, cultural and scientific exchanges.

Two weeks ago, he first denounced the blocking of the travel permits for his U.S. colleagues, an apparent move that coincided with the decision of U.S. President Barack Obama to implement the measures he had announced in April to ease certain aspects of the embargo.

The new rules end restrictions on Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances to the island and establish other regulations to improve communications between the two countries, but the Cuban government said it considers them to be “extremely limited and completely insufficient.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said last week that the new measures are oriented toward Cuban emigration and rectify the “brutal” policies of the Bush administration, but they do not mean that there has been any change in the embargo.

Source: Herald Tribune