Posted on 05/20/2003 12:13:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
MIAMI - Jorge Mas Santos stands in an elegant Coral Gables living room espousing what, until very recently, was heresy here - moderation toward Cuba.
"We do not need the 101st Airborne in Havana," Mr. Mas tells a group of the best and brightest young Cuban-Americans who've gathered for drinks and crudités. "We have to change the debate, talk about the violations of human rights, the need for elections, the enslaving of the Cuban people. That's what we need to show the world, that's a compelling argument that cannot be debated."
With Cuban-American relations more strained than at any time since the missile crisis 40 years ago, Mr. Mas Santos's words are particularly salient. But what makes them still more striking - and revealing - is that Mas Santos's father was Jorge Mas Canosa, powerful founder of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which over the last 20 years has shaped the hard-line US policy toward Cuba as well as more than one presidential election in Florida.
Now, as the Bush administration prepares its response to Fidel Castro's recent crackdown on dissidents and emigrants, it's confronted by a new dilemma: Cuban-Americans, a key political constituency, are split between the traditional hard-liners and a new generation of moderates like Mas Santos, who has taken over the chairmanship of the CANF. The old guard is lobbying to have the US cut off the funds - more than a billion dollars annually - that Cuban-Americans send to their families on the Caribbean island, and to ban all travel there.
The moderates, made up of younger Cuban-Americans and newer migrants from the island, object to both those aims, and would prefer the administration to champion human rights and free speech - and indict Castro as a war criminal.
More complex politics
To come up with a policy that satisfies both sides, says Sergio Bendixen, a Florida pollster and political analyst, "is not going to be easy."
For a generation, presidential contenders have come to Miami to court the powerful Cuban-American lobby here in Little Havana. Their goal: to win the blessings of the senior Mas Canosa, who often met with them at the Versailles Restaurant on 8th Street, where the staples are beans and rice and fried plantains, and the politics were fairly simple. Pledge a crackdown on Castro, and Mas Canosa could deliver 85 to 90 percent of the crucial Cuban-American vote - and potentially swing Florida in your favor.
But even before he died in 1997, Mas Canosa had grown more moderate, in part because of the hard-line policy's failure to bring on Castro's downfall, and in part because the demographics of Miami's Cuban-American community were already changing.
It's estimated that as many as 20,000 Cubans migrate to the US each year. Unlike those who came in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s - who were fleeing political persecution - many of the newer arrivals are economic refugees. And most, like Sulima Reyes, end up in Miami. She works selling items wholesale to the "dollar stores" around Little Havana.
She arrived six and a half years ago, leaving her father and sisters back home, and now, when she can, she sends them money for medicine and food. While she's no fan of Castro, she wants to maintain that contact with her family, and keep the option to visit.
"I don't know about politics," she says, a clipboard in hand and cellphone wire dangling from her ear. "I'm here to work."
How perspectives change
A recent poll by Mr. Bendixen for a group of businessmen called the Cuba Study Group found that more than 50 percent of Miami's Cuban-American population comprises these newer, more moderate migrants. That's been key in changing the community's political tenor.
And then, in 2000, there was Elian Gonzalez, the little boy who survived the trip from Cuba to Florida, though his mother perished in the ordeal. The furor raised by the Cuban-American community when the US sent the little boy back to his father in Cuba alienated many in the US, including key political allies in Washington.
"It was an embarrassment to all of us," says Joe Garcia, CANF executive director. "It was a collective archetypal event that we all reacted to through emotion and not with the cold calculation that politics requires."
Mr. Garcia doesn't judge the community, noting that many identified deeply with Elian's plight. But Garcia does consider the event a lynchpin in the transformation of the Cuban-American community's mind-set, a prompt for soul searching and a political spur to younger Cuban-Americans.
"It's the responsibility of our generation to continue the battle and struggle that our parents and grandparents led," says Fred Balsera, a political consultant and trustee of the CANF whose father was one of the founders. "But obviously, being American born and raised, and not having the direct scars that an exile has, our perspective is different."
But these demographic and attitudinal shifts have taken a toll on Cuban-American unity. Two years ago, a group that held to the traditional line broke off from the CANF and created the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC) It continues to oppose dialogue with Cuba and advocates cutting off remittances and banning travel.
"The weakest link in Castro's column is the economy," says Luis Zúñiga, executive director of the CLC. "If you cut it off, it collapses."
Mr. Zúñiga believes the original foundation has "lost direction" and the new leaders' underlying goals are economic. Garcia dismisses that notion and counters that the hard line has not worked for the past 40 years, so it's time for an alternative.
The larger political impact is unclear. While polls show the community split, the traditional conservatives vote in far larger numbers than the newer migrants and younger Cuban-Americans. That disparity could be a critical factor when Washington weighs its response to the Cuban crackdown.
Many analysts, like William Leogrande at American University, doubt the administration will cut off remittances. But others also doubt this administration will expand commercial, economic, and political ties to the country as President Nixon did in opening up relations with Communist China.
"Those who surmise that President Bush is likely to emulate President Nixon on China have the courage of their ignorance," says John Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonpartisan business group. "It's not likely the administration will risk what they know to be a certain voting block for an unknown."
May 21, 2002 - Bush: Embargo Stays Until Cuba Reforms*** WASHINGTON - President Bush sent a message of both hope and caution Monday as he promised to maintain the U.S. embargo against Cuba until the government there adopted a wide-ranging series of political and economic reforms.
In two speeches marking Cuban Independence Day, the president offered a set of proposals designed to return Cuba to the "community of democracies" in the Western Hemisphere.
The "Initiative for a New Cuba" calls for free and open elections next year in the National Assembly and the opening of Cuba's economy through a series of improvements, including better treatment of Cuban workers and their ability to form independent trade unions.
"One hundred years ago, Cuba declared her independence and nearly 50 years ago, nearly a half century ago, Cuba's independence and hope for democracy were hijacked by a brutal dictator who cared everything for his own power and nada for the Cuban people," Bush said, denouncing Fidel Castro at a Miami event. Attending were Cuban-American entertainers Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez, who immigrated from Cuba as a child.
"All elections in Castro's Cuba have been a fraud. The voices of the Cuban people have been suppressed, and their votes have been meaningless. That's the truth," Bush said in an earlier speech at the White House.
"Start to release your chokehold on the working people and on enterprise," Bush demanded in Miami. "Then - and only then - will we talk about easing sanctions, and not before."
The president was introduced by his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, who is seeking re-election in November.
Thousands of Cuban-Americans roared approval at Bush's remarks, interrupting him again and again with standing ovations and cries of "Libertad! Libertad!" and "Cuba, si, Castro, no!"
Bush shouted back, "Viva Cuba libre!"
Bush's speech represented his administration's most comprehensive Cuba policy statement to date.
"If Cuba's government takes all necessary steps to ensure that the 2003 elections are certifiably free and fair, and if Cuba begins to adopt meaningful market-based reforms, then - and only then - will I work with the United States Congress to ease the ban on trade and travel between the two countries," Bush said.
At present, trade with Cuba is restricted for the most part to U.S. sales of medical-related goods and the cash-only sale of food.
Americans who wish to travel to Cuba generally must receive a license from the Treasury Department. Those with a professional interest in Cuba or with family ties on the island are eligible for licenses. Tourism by Americans is forbidden.
Bush's speeches came just days after former President Carter, during a visit to Cuba, urged an end to the U.S. embargo.
Democrats on Capitol Hill generally expressed disappointment with Bush's statements.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Latin America, said Bush "set forth a laundry list of actions that the Castro government must take before the U.S. takes even one step toward modifying U.S. policies. "By doing so he has guaranteed that the current political system in Cuba will remain the same."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the embargo "has not accomplished one thing it was meant to accomplish. What a foolish policy it is."***
The Bush administration was wary of some suggested steps, such as a ban on cash remittances to Cuban families from relatives in the United States, officials said. That is due to concerns the move could make humanitarian conditions worse and do little to weaken Cuban President Fidel Castro's communist government.
But the administration is discussing ways to aid pro-democracy forces, such as boosting broadcasts from the United States or giving communications equipment such as fax machines to dissidents, an activist said. It was also seeking to rally additional international opposition against Castro.
"To my way of thinking anyway, it's difficult to overcome the humanitarian implications of a cut-off of remittances," one State Department official said on Monday. "It's hard to say to somebody 'You can't send $50 a month to your mother'."
Said an anti-Castro activist: "Everything that I'm being told is not to expect any kind of major policy initiatives (on Tuesday). We're not unhappy with that. I think we need to avoid reactive and predictable steps that maybe run counter to what our actual interests are." Bush is to mark the 101st anniversary of Cuban independence from Spain -- a major rallying date for anti-Castro Cuban-Americans -- by meeting former Cuban political prisoners and relatives of current prisoners at the White House.
The meeting comes only weeks after Cuba jailed some 75 dissidents in its harshest crackdown in decades. Cuba's government has called the crackdown and prison sentences of six to 28 years a defense against U.S. "mercenaries."
"We will highlight the brutal repressive nature of this regime," a U.S. official said of the Tuesday's White House event.
Although banning cash remittances would have an immediate impact on Cuba's struggling economy, the payments -- estimated to be as much as $1 billion a year -- are a vital source of income for many Cubans coping with economic hardship since the collapse of the Soviet Union. [End]
There's the reason for maintaining the embargo: Jimmy Carter, the foreign policy FAILURE, tyrant appeaser, and numero uno hater of America!
Yes, Jimmy Carter hates America for voting him out of office. He's a bitter and spiteful little man, whom the press adores primarily for his left-wing views, and not for his 'habitat for humanity.'
Carter has many people fooled, but not me. He may be a USNA graduate, but he didn't learn a damn thing.
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