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Carter to visit Cuba; he'll be 1st ex-president there since '59
Miami Herald ^ | March 23, 2002 | ALFONSO CHARDY achardy@herald.com

Posted on 03/23/2002 5:37:38 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Jimmy Carter said Friday that he will travel to Cuba sometime this year -- a trip that would make him the highest-ranking former U.S. official to have visited the island since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

''We are making plans now and, as we have said, we have been invited to go to Cuba and we intend to go,'' Carter said during an interview with CNN. ``But I'm not prepared at this point to give our goals and the names of people that will go or when we will go because we haven't really made those plans yet.''

The trip could have significant impact on U.S. policy at a time when the Bush administration is under increasing pressure to shift strategies and open up to the Castro regime. While many members of Congress have visited the islands, Carter would be the first former president to travel there since the Cuban revolution.

Carter told CNN that the Bush administration may not like the fact that he's going but likely won't stand in the way. ''I expect to get their tacit approval, not their blessing,'' he said. ``We can't go, obviously, without the permission of the government. My understanding is that they will give that approval.''

REACTION

Cuban Americans reacted swiftly to Carter's announcement.

Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said his organization welcomes the trip -- if Carter intends to tell Castro to leave power.

Garcia said, however, that if Carter intends to promote better relations with Castro, the influential exile organization would oppose the trip.

''If he is going the way he went to Haiti [in 1994] to tell [Haitian military leader] Gen. Raoul Cedras to leave, then we welcome his trip to Cuba if he is going to tell Fidel Castro to leave,'' Garcia said. ``However, if he's going to give legitimacy to a 43-year-old dictatorship, then I think it would be unfortunate.''

While Carter declined to outline his objectives in Cuba, he indicated to CNN's Judy Woodruff that his intention was to improve relations between Cuba and the United States -- not to deliver an ultimatum to Castro.

Carter indicated support for easing the embargo and allowing U.S. citizens to travel freely to the island, though he spoke strongly in favor of democracy on the island.

VISION FOR ISLAND

''As you probably would remember, when I was president, I departed from my predecessors and unfortunately my successors, in lifting all travel restraints on American citizens to go to Cuba almost immediately when I was president within a few weeks,'' Carter said.

``And I also established interests sections, which is one step short of full diplomatic relationships between Havana and Washington. And those interest sections with staffs representing our countries have never been closed.

``So I think the best way to bring about democratic changes in Cuba is obviously to have maximum commerce and trade and visitation by Americans and others who know freedom and to let the Cuban people know the advantages of freedom. That's the best way to bring about change and not to punish the Cuban people themselves by imposing an embargo on them, which makes Castro seem to be a hero because he is defending his own people against the abuse of Americans.''


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: carter; communists; embargo; socialists
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To: MadelineZapeezda
Where was Jimmy during the joke of an election in Zimbabwe? He is as brave as Clintoon.
41 posted on 03/23/2002 10:20:39 AM PST by cibco
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To: Clara Lou
Hopefully he will stay in the workers paradise
42 posted on 03/23/2002 10:22:11 AM PST by stumpy
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To: breakem
I do not think you have a clear picture of what is going on in Cuba. At least we did not lose jurisdiction from Cuba by opening up with Cuba. Nowadays Castro rationalizers are the types who would let him influence us over affairs such as Elian, immigration and what not. Who needs a pro-Castro lobby in the US when we have stupid people giving him jurisdiction and a voice in the US.
43 posted on 03/23/2002 10:37:30 AM PST by lavaroise
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To: breakem
"Had we maintained open relationships for the last 40 years, we may have had a positive impact."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

It's worked so well with the ChiCom!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

44 posted on 03/23/2002 10:43:38 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: William Wallace
Pssst! Over here!

You may also want to stop by post #14 and talk about old times.

45 posted on 03/23/2002 10:45:35 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Castro had Jimmy bent over and grabbing his ankles during most of his administration, he cleaned his jails and insane asylums into the US via the Mariel boatlift while Carter talked to Playboy interviewers about the lust in his heart.

What a pathetic loser this guy is.

46 posted on 03/23/2002 10:48:21 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Title of the article should be:

A Commie in Commieland

47 posted on 03/23/2002 10:49:46 AM PST by jwalsh07
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To: lavaroise
I am not a Cuba rationalizer. If you read my post you would see that I made no pretenses about Castro. I merely state that a few hundred thousand votes in Florida have stopped the government from dealing with Castro the way we dealt with other despots.
48 posted on 03/23/2002 10:52:48 AM PST by breakem
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To: Luis Gonzalez
The influence of US trade and culture would have had some positive impact on Cuba. The question is how much. Perhaps you are too busy laughing and mocking to tell the difference between China 25 years ago and today. With a country the size of Cuba, the influences would be even stronger.

I know you have made a life crusading against this guy, but perhaps that has blinded you to the other ways of dealing with him.

49 posted on 03/23/2002 10:55:35 AM PST by breakem
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To: breakem
According to Castro, when the US traded with Cuba, it was exploitation. Now that the US doesn't trade with Cuba, it's abusive.

What makes you think that Castro would have allowed any sort of "relations" to exist?

Not only that, but how do you justify continued relations with a regime that stole billions of dollars in property from US citizens?

You may think it's OK to legitimize dictatorships via "relations", but I don't.

50 posted on 03/23/2002 11:05:13 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: breakem
I am not the blind one here.
51 posted on 03/23/2002 11:05:51 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: breakem
The votes should not influence how we deal with Castro, but our very sense of self jurisdiction and self direction.
52 posted on 03/23/2002 11:10:37 AM PST by lavaroise
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To: breakem
Your are wrong, the Cuban exile community has tried to educate de American people about the nature of the Cuban regime, but, are President Bush and his great team of experts who realizes Castro's menace to the U.S. and are exerting the right policies to deal with him.

Prospective investors should ask, what purchase power can people have whose average salary is less than $7 dollars a month?

Castro has been very candid by repeatedly maintaining that he will never allow in Cuba any changes that may threaten his Stalinist scheme, much less to allow the free enterprise system. Don’t count on the protection of any law that favors foreign investment- in Cuba, nothing, according to Castro, is irreversible. Those who think they are going to reap quick profits in partnership with Castro, sooner rather than later, will find that they will loose their investments.

The Cuban regime is economically, ideologically and morally bankrupt. Those who have been helping to keep afloat the Cuban tyrannical regime for over four decades will pay dearly when Cuba is liberated and return to the rule of law under a democratic government. The American taxpayers should not allow to be charged for unwise business deals made by corrupt companies.

53 posted on 03/23/2002 11:19:28 AM PST by Dqban22
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To: Jethro Tull
"Georgia Jimmy" is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people. He is bILLclinton in Sunday school demeanor. He is the reason that I voted to elect Ford-Dole in 1976. Now Ford and Dole embarrass me every time they open their mushy mouths, which are increasingly liberal with age. The old adage that a liberal at 20 has "heart" but a conservative at 50 has a "head" does not fit with Ford-Dole. Now back to "Georgia Jimmy," one of his finest hours was when he left the Southern Baptist Convention, claiming this body was too conservative for him!!!!! Honestly, I can't think of one thing he did that was helpful. Perhaps deregulating the airlines, but what else??
54 posted on 03/23/2002 11:22:31 AM PST by Theodore R.
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To: foghorn
Actually, foghorn, one could say that "GA Jimmy" gives sanctimony a bad name. He also makes one hold the state of GA in lower esteem than he otherwise might. I still say "GA Jimmy" makes Lester Maddox look like a great governor!
55 posted on 03/23/2002 11:24:39 AM PST by Theodore R.
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Still working on his paragraph in future histry books.
56 posted on 03/23/2002 11:30:43 AM PST by tillacum
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To: Dog Gone
Carter was the first social worker president.

Clinton was the first social diseased president.

57 posted on 03/23/2002 11:32:19 AM PST by oyez
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
"While Carter declined to outline his objectives in Cuba, he indicated to CNN's Judy Woodruff that his intention was to improve relations between Cuba and the United States -- not to deliver an ultimatum to Castro."

Isn't attempting to politically influence mentioned under the definition of terrorist in the "Patriot Act"?

58 posted on 03/23/2002 11:45:18 AM PST by monkeywrench
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To: Luis Gonzalez
....stole billions of dollars in property from US citizens...

At last! Finally we have a winner. Someone who knows why we actually have an embargo on Cuba in the first place.

This is the difference between Cuba and China, which the ignoramuses keep scratching their heads about.

A bit of history for the chronologically disadvantaged:

1. The U.S. supported Castro in his toppling of the strongman regime in power at the time. We welcomed Castro as a hero.

2. It was only after consolidating power that he took off the wraps and exposed himself as a murderous communist dictator.

3. We still tried to do business with him until he nationalized the guts of his nonfarm economy, which was owned primarilly by American citizens and American businesses.

4. Despite diplomatic efforts, the sh*t-hook wouldn't compensate the rightful owners for stealing their property.

5. We put an embargo on Cuba in response to the criminal acts of the Cuban regime; which could have been lifted at any time in the last 40 years, by Castro's own act of justice in making amends for his larceny.

It was only incidental that he was a communist. We did not impose the embargo because he was communist. We imposed it because he was a criminal bastard.

6. El Caca has chosen not to do the right thing and as a result has chosen to inflict the embargo on his own people just as Saddam has chosen to impose hardships on his own people.

7. At any given moment both Castro and Saddam have the opportunity to end the embargoes on their countries, in fifteen minutes, at no cost to themselves or their countries' security.

8. They refuse to do so because they are mere psychopaths who would gladly sacrifice their people's welfare for irrational insane egotisms.

To accommodate such scum is beneath us and beneath the aspirations of the people they abuse. Of course, that means it's right up Carter's alley.

59 posted on 03/23/2002 12:17:43 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Pity me. I live in Atlanta and can't escape Carter. Every week there's an article about him in the Atlanta papers.

Whatever respect I had for Jimmy Carter vanished when he went to North Korea. Clinton wouldn't even see him when he got back.

60 posted on 03/23/2002 12:19:01 PM PST by Atlantian
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