Posted on 01/17/2002 2:24:56 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA (AP) - When 40 influential women from Washington state met with Fidel Castro this week, the 75-year-old president spent several minutes chatting with each one, asking their names, their interests, their thoughts on Cuba.
``He obviously had read the biographies and knew who each person was,'' said Susan Jeffords, dean of Social Sciences at the University of Washington.
The personalized attention that Cuba's head of state gave each woman demonstrated his great interest in Americans whose opinions could count in efforts to change U.S. policy toward the communist country. It also underscored what Castro has said all along: his beef is with the U.S. government, not with the American people.
``It was certainly exciting to meet with him. He is a very charming and eloquent man,'' said Jeffords, who traveled here with the university's Center for Women and Democracy. Their visit ends Friday.
Castro learned the importance of courting average Americans such as these women during the fight for shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, who returned to the island in the summer of 2000.
While Cuban exiles battled to keep the child with his relatives in Miami, many other Americans supported efforts to have the child returned to his father on the island.
The seven-month battle over the boy, who was rescued at sea off Florida's coast, showed that even if Americans don't agree with Cuba's form of government, they no longer view Cuba through a purely ideological prism.
While the Bush administration and powerful Cuban exiles support the 40-year-old embargo against the island as a way to pressure Castro, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have fought to ease and even eliminate the sanctions, saying Cuba could become a new market for American products.
Legislators across the political spectrum also have worked to erase U.S. restrictions against travel by most Americans to the Caribbean island.
An Arizona Republican, Rep. Jeff Flake, is sponsoring an amendment prohibiting the Treasury Department from spending money on enforcing the four-decade travel ban.
Flake believes that by traveling more freely to Cuba, Americans will bring with them ideas and values that will help end the communist regime.
The Washington women - bankers, business owners, government officials and others - said they also support freer American travel to Cuba, and hope to return next year. For this visit, they traveled under a Treasury Department license granted to the University of Washington.
The trip was aimed at promoting understanding between U.S. and Cuban women leaders, said Laurie McDonald Jonsson, board chairman of the center that organized the trip and president of Stellar International, a Seattle investment firm.
``I first came here a little over a year ago with a vision that American women should have the chance to share with the women of Cuba,'' said Jonsson.
The Americans said they were impressed by the gains women had made in Cuba, and particularly with individual women they met in recent days.
``I've had the chance to meet some amazing women here. Some I will remember for the rest of my life,'' Jeffords said.
Connie Niva, head of the Washington State Transportation Commission, said she will also remember meeting Castro, who chuckled when she shared a joke learned here about Cuba's huge buses, known as 'camels' for their unusual shape.
The common form of public transport is formed by two connecting trailers and drawn by a tractor. They are typically overcrowded, resulting in frequent disputes among passengers and complaints by women about groping men.
``How are camels like American movies?'' goes the joke. ``Sex, violence and bad language.''
From left: Laurie McDonald, Merideth Tall, Constance T. Bacon, Connie Niva and Suzi Le Vine converse with each other at the San Francisco Plaza in Old Havana, Cuba on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002. They are all part of the Center for Women & Democracy at the University of Washington. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)
Well I'm an American person, and let me say this to Fidel -- if you have a beef with my government then you have a beef with me.
I don't always agree with my government, G*d knows, but Fidel better not think we won't fight to support it.
What an oxymoron: Castro and the Center for Women and democracy! At least Chamberlain did not know at the time of his meeting with Hitler in Munich how evil the German leader was. But, in what planet was Mrs. Jeffords living the past 43 years while Castro crushed any intent for democracy in Cuba and while thousands of Cuban women were being tortured in Castro’s dungeons without pity much less without any kind of medical care. What were their crimes? Wanting a free democratic Cuba, something that Mrs. Jeffords has taken for granted in the U.S. but, in a show of the worst racist bigotry, by worshiping Castro, she seems to believe that Cuban people are not worthy of enjoying freedom and democracy.
This a case of extreme human insensitivity, the Washington women - bankers, business owners, government officials and others - said they also support freer American travel to Cuba, and hope to return next year. Bread and circus, rum and sex, the American women representing the best our leftist zealots can offer; in the meantime, they continue ignoring the blood and tears of hundreds of thousands of Cuban heroes and martyrs while they feast and party with the tyrant.
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