By Judy Mann. The Washington Post. Wednesday, July 12, 2000; Page C15
When an experiment has failed for 40 years, most sensible people would say to themselves: Let's try something different. We did that with the Soviet Union and China, and we're in the process of doing it with North Korea.
But with Cuba, we're barely budging from a harsh intransigence dictated by the far right and those great protectors of democracy who tried to kidnap a child, the Miami Cubans. The U.S. government rightly stood up to them, and Elian Gonzalez went home to Cuba with his father as most Americans,
horrified by the behavior of his Miami relatives and their supporters, cheered. For once, we didn't let a noisy group of expatriates blackmail us into more anti-Castro foolishness. This was the perfect moment for the United States to regain control of its foreign policy and normalize relations with
the island nation. And there is still time.
For nearly four decades, the United States has forbidden the export of food and medicine to Cuba and banned American tourist travel, the mainstay of pre-Castro Cuba's economy.
Economic activity with Cuba is administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In recent years, the government has eased restrictions on Americans sending supplies to individuals in Cuba to meet basic humanitarian needs. Travel restrictions also have been relaxed, and there are a number of categories of people--including journalists, researchers and athletes--who can
travel to Cuba for their work. Tourist travel and general business travel, however, remain strictly banned to restrict the flow of dollars into the Cuban economy.
Just before the July recess, House Republicans concocted a deal that would allow the sale of food and medicine to Cuba and four other blacklisted nations--Iran, Sudan, Libya and North Korea. While the other countries could try to generate private financing here and to export products here, Cuba
could not. Nor could Cuba have access to U.S. government credit and loans.
The pressure for change came from House members representing farm states who have been pushing to open prohibited markets. But anti-Castro lawmakers such as Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Republicans from Florida, held out for strict conditions on sales to make them--in
Ros-Lehtinen's words--"as difficult as possible." Estimates are that initially food exports could total $25 million to $45 million, rising to $200 million a year within five years.
The trade-off for easing those restrictions, however, is that the ban against tourist travel, which is now a regulation, would be codified into law, making it much more difficult to change. Diaz-Balart declared that to be "our most important achievement in years."
The net result is that Cuban Americans would continue to be able to visit the island once a year under the family-reunification category. Humanitarian, religious and educational groups could still travel to Cuba, as well as a U.S. citizen who was fully hosted by an organization. The same is true
of journalists, but not of ordinary citizens.
And U.S.-Cuba policies continue to loosen up in one area and tighten up in another, with no real progress toward normalization.
I, for one, do not see why Cuban Americans can go to Cuba once a year and most other Americans cannot. That strikes me as pure discrimination. They're spending dollars on those trips, just as any tourist would. So here we have another piece of favoritism for the Cuban Americans, right up there
with giving them instant asylum when they touch U.S. soil.
The island's infrastructure reflects the embargo and the collapse of the Soviet Union--i.e. electricity, water and phone service are unreliable. It was already a mess when I visited Cuba as a student in 1964. That has not stopped Canadian and European interests from building hotels. But U.S.
resort chains and public utility companies that could help build an infrastructure can't get in the door.
Fidel Castro is most vulnerable in the court of American public opinion to charges of human rights violations. But while this country has been trying to force him from office by strangling Cuba's economy, he has educated Cuba's children and given its people universal health care.
In a July 10 New Yorker magazine profile by Tracy Kidder, there are some fascinating statistics: Cuba's life expectancy is among the highest in the world; malaria, dengue fever, tuberculosis and AIDS are rare; Cuba has more doctors per capita than any other country and more than twice as many
per capita as the United States; Cuba has trained medical students from all over Latin America, for free, sending nearly 1,000 to Haiti alone.
When the Soviet Union left Cuba without a lifeline, the government increased spending on health care. Cuban medical equipment is poor, and the country lacks access to many medicines. But if basic health care is a human right, and I believe it is, then Castro has done very well by his people on
that ledger.
Continuing the ban on general travel perpetuates a policy that hasn't worked for 40 years, that has brought deprivation to millions and grim satisfaction to the never-say-die cabal in Miami. Cuba is no longer a threat to American interests. The ban discriminates against the majority of
Americans, it limits their freedom to travel for no constitutionally valid reason, and it keeps American corporations out of a market that could benefit tremendously from stronger economic ties with the United States.
The United States and Cuba found common ground in the matter of Elian Gonzalez, and both governments acted in good faith. We should be building on that, with the ultimate legacy of a little boy being peaceful coexistence between two nations.
Judy Mann can be reached at (202) 334-6109 or by e-mail at mannj@washpost.com.
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