Apr 7, 2009 6:47 pm US/Eastern
DeFede: More Change Needed On Cuba Policy
(CBS4)
President Barack Obama appears ready to follow through on a promise he made during the campaign – easing certain travel restrictions to Cuba and allowing families to send more money to their relatives on the island.
In the coming days he is expected to formally announce his plan, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but which undoubtedly will commence a new round of demagoguery here in Miami. Cuban American politicians and radio hosts have built their careers by exploiting the fears and emotions of the exile community. And the President's policy shift – no matter how modest it may actually be – will become grist for the South Florida echo chamber.
Currently, Cuban Americans are allowed to visit the island once every three years and only if certain immediate relatives are still living there. All other Americans are prevented from going. (There are exceptions for journalists, certain business travelers and university professors engaging in research.)
Such a policy forces Cuban Americans to make impossible choices. For example, it is not uncommon for a Cuban American to have to choose between visiting a sick grandparent or relative just prior to their death or wait for them to die so they can be able to attend their funeral.
No one should be forced by their own government to make such a decision.
The travel restrictions – indeed the entire embargo – have been a failure. It has not accomplished the goal of toppling the Cuban regime which is now in its sixth decade. The only reason the embargo remains is because to remove the trade sanctions would be a formal acknowledgement that they failed. We have a hard time conceding failure in the United States and it is particularly hard for aging exiles whose invested so much of themselves in that policy.
Despite its abject failure, there are still those in Miami who are playing a shameful game.
This week, State Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican who prides himself as being the most hard-line of the hardliners Cuban American politicians in Tallahassee, added an amendment to the state's education budget preventing universities and colleges from using state money to finance legally permissible educational trips to Cuba.
This follows an effort last year by Rivera in which he introduced legislation that would require travel agencies that sell trips to Cuba to post a $250,000 bond with the state and pay up to $2,500 in annual registration fees. This was an effort to punish those companies who legally provide a service that Rivera dislikes. It doesn't get any pettier than that.
The law, which easily passed the Florida Legislature, was put on hold last summer by a federal judge. Last month the Justice department weighed in and said the law would "interfere with the federal government's ability to speak for the United States with one voice in foreign affairs."
At this point lifting the embargo is not going to happen and the Obama Administration has made it clear they have no intention of seeking its repeal. But I do wish the President would go further in lifting travel restrictions.
Why should Cuban Americans be the only people able to visit the island? Why should Cuban Americans have more rights than all other Americans?
The United States policy of travel to Cuba is without precedent. Nowhere else do we restrict travel to a country based solely on the question of whether the country is the ancestral home of the person traveling and whether they still have immediate family in the country.
The argument in favor of restricting travel to only Cuban Americans is that non-Cubans who visit Cuba will act as tourists, staying in the island's restricted hotels, eating in select restaurants approved by the state, and feeding dollars to the Cuban economy. Americans traveling to Cuba will exploit the island, they argue, for their own selfish desires – whether it be engaging Cuban prostitutes or plundering the island's artwork.
The idea is to forbid travel as a way of legislating behavior. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. I believe there is far more to gain by having Americans travel to the island. Cubans will learn there is more to America than merely the relatives who fled to South Florida. And Americans who travel to the island will have a much better appreciation for the struggles of the Cuban people.
Last week, nearly two dozen senators, both Republican and Democrat, introduced a bill that would allow Americans – all Americans – to visit the island.
"This issue today with respect to the travel restrictions is a failed policy that has failed for 50 years," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. "And it is long past the time to change the policy.
"We say with China, we say with Vietnam and others, constructive engagement through trade and travel is the right way and the best way to move those countries toward greater human rights," he continued. "That is significantly a part of what we suggest with respect to Cuba. This is about change and the road to freedom for the Cuban people."
Added Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd: "Our experience has been, the one thing that totalitarianism can't stand is light, is information, is communication. That is what travel offers – opening up of doors, creating the light."
Another sponsor of the bill, Republican Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States must change the way it deals with Cuba "in a way that enhances U.S. interest."
The bill also drew the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Human Rights Watch.
But even if you don't like that argument, the notion of creating different classes of American citizens – those who are allowed to travel to Cuba and those who aren't – is just absurd. In fact, it's downright un-American.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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