[Marxism] Get-Tough Policy on Cuba May Backfire

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(An exceptionally interesting and important article
which everyone interested in US-Cuba relations will
want to read carefully and share widely, including
the final paragraph by Joe Garcia, the flack for
the Cuban American National Foundation who says:

("We succeeded in turning Castro versus the U.S.
government into David versus Goliath,''
Mr. Garcia said. "The giant is perceived
as being abusive.")
==================================================

July 29, 2004
Get-Tough Policy on Cuba May Backfire Against Bush
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, July 28 - The Bush administration, which has
undertaken a number of tough measures against Cuba in this
pre-election season, is finding opposition to some of them
from large numbers of Cuban-Americans, a group whose
electoral support the White House hoped to solidify.

Administration officials say their strategy is intended to
hasten the end of Fidel Castro's government, provide aid to
a transition government and help establish a democratic
free-market state.

"Our goal is to liberate the Cuban people from the tyranny
and from dependency on international charity," Roger F.
Noriega, assistant secretary of state, told reporters in
May, when the new restrictions were announced. "We want
them to control their own destinies, to be free to make
choices on how they want to live their lives."

But critics say the measures, which were laid out in a
policy report from a presidential commission led by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, are chiefly intended to
add to backing for President Bush among Cuban-Americans, a
group White House advisers have acknowledged is central to
his re-election strategy.

Paradoxically, some of the critics say, several provisions
- like a tightening of travel restrictions and a curb on
relief packages - may backfire, harming Mr. Bush's chances
in Florida, a crucial swing state.

The strategy was drafted largely by administration
officials who were once aides to Senator Jesse Helms of
North Carolina, now retired, the author of hotly contested
anti-Castro legislation enacted a decade ago. It was
thought that the policy would appeal to longtime exiles
with few family ties to Cuba and a deep-seated desire to
eliminate the Castro government. Such people voted for Mr.
Bush by more than four to one in 2000, pollsters say.

But the strategy has pumped life into a voter registration
drive among newer Cuban immigrants, who generally favor
greater contact with the island and their relatives there.

Sergio Bendixen, a longtime pollster based in Miami, said
the new measures were drawing supporters and opponents in
equal numbers among Cuban-Americans. For a bloc that has
been characterized by remarkable electoral cohesion for
decades, the split is telling, Mr. Bendixen said.

"They've been very controversial," he said of the new
restrictions. "The Bush side feels it's going to energize
their base. The Democrats feel it has created a very
important opening to gain significant support."

Jorge Mursuli of Mi Familia Vota, a voter registration
drive among Hispanics in Florida, said his nonpartisan
operation was signing up as many Democrats as Republicans.

"It shows you the potential this issue has to blow up in
their faces," Mr. Mursuli said of the president and his
advisers on Cuba.

The document prepared by the presidential commission listed
about 675 specific policy recommendations, many of them
steps the administration would favor after Mr. Castro was
gone. American involvement, if the successor government
requests it, is offered in areas as diverse as tax
collection, environmental protection, cultural
preservation, mortgage financing and labor relations.
Involvement so detailed, critics say, would amount to
dictates from the United States, which is likely to control
the economic levers of a Cuban recovery.

But the travel provisions are the most controversial of the
new measures. Already adopted by the administration, they
limit Cuban-Americans to one family visit to the island
every three years - down from one a year - with no
exceptions, as in a death in the family. Administration
officials say they are trying to deprive the Castro
government of much-needed cash that visiting exiles bring.

As for people other than Cuban-Americans, tourism per se to
the island has long been barred - some limited educational
and cultural travel is allowed - and the administration
plans to tighten enforcement of the ban.

In addition to the new travel restrictions on
Cuban-Americans, the administration also initially
prohibited sending clothes, personal hygiene items, seeds
and other basics to family members in Cuba, saying the
government there benefited by charging exorbitant
commissions to deliver them. (The shipment of medicine and
some other provisions was permitted.) It also ruled out
packages of any kind for extended-family members.

Then, earlier this month, a heated debate ensued in the
House, where Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of
Arizona, proposed easing the parcel rules, portraying them
as anti-family. "Withholding of such basic items will have
little effect on Castro,'' Mr. Flake said, "and a
significant effect on individuals who already struggle for
the basics.''

Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican
who is a leading advocate of the tougher measures, said Mr.
Flake's proposal would "serve the interest of a brutal
dictatorship."

"We recognize that many common Cubans will be severely
affected, and especially the children, the elderly and the
ill,'' Mr. Diaz-Balart said. "But we, as members of the
Cuban opposition, will try to care for those families as
best we can.''

After the House voted 221 to 194 to soften the rules on
parcels, the administration eased its regulations, placing
personal hygiene products on the list of allowed items.

Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American
National Foundation, based in Miami, said the restrictions
adopted by the administration amounted to "bad policy and
bad politics." Although his longtime anti-Castro
organization, the largest exile lobby, supports most
provisions in the new strategy, the restrictions on travel
and relief packages have changed the focus of debate, he
said, away from Mr. Castro's human rights record and the
persecution of dissidents.

"We succeeded in turning Castro versus the U.S. government
into David versus Goliath,'' Mr. Garcia said. "The giant is
perceived as being abusive."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |


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