…………………..While the arrest and conviction of the dissidents has angered organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the decision to summarily execute the three hijackers has alienated even some of Cuba's left-leaning allies. Criticism has come from such diverse sources as the French Socialist Party, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and the prominent Uruguyan writer Eduardo Galeano. "In the hard road it has traversed in so many years," Galeano wrote in the April 18 edition of Mexico City's La Jornada, "the revolution has lost the wind of spontaneity and freshness that has driven her from the start. I say it with pain. Cuba hurts."
Meanwhile, the flood of international condemnation has left many Cubans fearful for the future. The New York Times has reported that President Bush is preparing to issue a statement on Cuba's crackdown, including a stern warning that the United States will not tolerate another mass exodus of Cuban rafters to the United States, as happened in 1980 and 1994. The Times has also reported that the Bush administration is considering a retaliatory move that would revoke Cuban-Americans' ability to send money to their families on the island, and end direct flights to Cuba from the United States.
Such measures risk worsening the acute poverty on the island while doing little to affect the political situation, says Gerardo Sanchez, of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation, the independent Havana organization that monitored the dissidents' trials. "The economic impact would be tremendous," he said, adding that he himself receives cash sent from relatives in the United States. "That's what many people here depend on to survive." ***