Carter to visit Cuba; he'll be 1st ex-president there since '59

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.''

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.

''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.''

re 50, Your unwillingness to establish relationships with dictators is the most narrow view of US foreign relations I have ever heard. If you think it's pratical to eliminate diplomatic relations with a significant part of the world that is controlled by dictators, you have a head-in-the-sand view of what is possible through diplomacy. Do you think that by ignoring Castro it is conducive to improving the Cuban government now or after his death. Kind of a do nothing and things will change approach?

Every communist and totalitarian government has confiscated private property, but we deal with them. I guess you think that the policy that results in the property not being recognized after 40 years will get the job done. One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, getting the same results, but hoping for a different result. Your 41 years of lack of results proves the wrongheadness of your approach.

Dear President Carter:

I saw yesterday with dismay your announcement that you intend to visit Cuba and that you favor the end of the US embargo and the end of restriction of trips by US trips to Cuba.

You certainly know the many crimes against the Cuban people that Fidel Castro and his cronies have committed. The virtual destruction of the country's economy is certainly known to you as is the current lack of the most elementary liberties by the people. Mr. Carter, the responsibility for these crimes fall squarely upon the shoulders of one man: Fidel Castro, the same man you intend to visit and greet. Would you have befriended Adolf Hitler? Why do you now intend to befriend Fidel Castro?

The propositions you have advanced: the end of the embargo and the lift of travel restrictions to Cuba, although in your judgement will be conducive to the improvement of the lot of the Cuban people, are the primary foreign policy initiatives of Fidel Castro. Do you believe that these innitiatives were in the interest of freedom for that people Fidel Castro would seek them now? Cuba can now purchase food and medical supplies in the United States.

The end of the embargo is in reality a policy to grant credits and international loans to Cuba, a country that has officially renegued its financial commitments. What you are proposing is, in fact an injection of hard cash for the benefit of the Cuban Nomenklatura. By your proposal you are becoming in fact, if not in intention, part and parcel of the possibility of a prolongation of the sufferings of the Cuban people.

While you were president I had the opportunity to visit the White House and, full of pride, posed next to you for a photograph that I still keep. I can not express my dissapointment. I once believed in you as an honorable man committed to humane values and human rights. I must say that today you are forcing me and thousands of other Americans of Cuban origin to evaluate our admiration for you.

If you still harbor your beliefs in human rights for which you are so well known, I challenge you to bring some books to the independent "public libraries" - in reality living rooms in people's homes who lend their books to their neighbors... Ask your hosts if you can go and bring books you bring to an independent public library...

In the name of all that is decent in you, I urge you not to go to Cuba and lend your support and credibility to a man whose hands are full of blood.

When you shake them, remember that your hands will be bloody too with the blood and sufferings of millions of Cubans who are in no position to express themselves. You will be wined and dined while Cubans will go hungry. You will sleep in a confortable bed with a beautiful view while thousands of Cuba languish in political prisons. You will be able to read your Bible before going to bed while Cubans are beaten by government-sponsoed thugs for insisting in their right to read and believe that they wish.

How sad it is, Mr. Carter, that you will lend yourself to this charade.

Respectfully yours,

Enrique Rueda Let Mr. Carter know your opinion carterweb@emory.edu

Let me explain to you one of the many things the embargo accomplished. In 1987 Castro had 297,000 active members in his armed forces, 70,000 were sent around the world as the Atila hordes bringing destruction and suffering with them. In 1997, Castro was forced to reduce his forces to 55,000; the Soviet Union was not longer providing over 5 billion dollars in subsides every year plus unlimited free war material.

In truth, it is not the embargo the one that failed, but the policy of appeasement by Canada, Mexico, Spain and 150 other countries toward Cuba, which under the pretense that trading with Castro would bring capitalism, freedom and democracy, went to Cuba for the exploitation of cheap slave labor. History repeated itself; you and all those countries are following the same failed policies of Western Europe toward the Soviet Empire, where, as with Cuba, they ended loosing hundreds of billions of dollars. It was not appeasement, but the strong policies of Reagan and Thatcher that brought for freedom to Europe.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.