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May 9, 2002.
Carter schedules trip to Cuba 22 years after Mariel Boatlift helped sink
his presidency
Thu May 9, 3:42 Am Et . By Anita Snow, Associated Press
Writer
MARIEL, Cuba - Outside this industrial port west of Havana, freighters drift
lazily these days on the calm, shimmering waters of Mariel Bay, site of a
foreign policy crisis that helped sink Jimmy Carter's presidency.
Twenty-two years ago, this stretch of water was a storm of activity as
barges, yachts, speedboats, shrimpers — almost anything that floated —
clogged the bay as Cuban exiles traveled from the United States to pick up loved
ones in a chaotic exodus known as the Mariel boat lift.
Carter, who travels to Cuba on Sunday at President Fidel Castro 's
invitation, said back in May 1980 that Cubans leaving this port would be
welcomed in the United States with "open hearts and open arms." That
was just after Castro opened the port in April 1980 to anyone who wanted to go.
A few weeks later, Carter ordered the "freedom flotilla" stopped
as America was overwhelmed by an average of 1,000 new arrivals daily.
By the time Castro ordered the port closed that September, 125,000 Cubans
had arrived in the United States, including tens of thousands of dissidents,
criminals and psychiatric patients.
The Mariel exodus — along with the Iran hostage crisis, an energy
crisis and skyrocketing inflation in the United States — helped Ronald
Reagan defeat Carter in the 1980 election.
"Castro finally realized that he was helping Reagan get elected, but it
was too late," recalled Wayne Smith, then top U.S. diplomat to Havana.
Rooted initially in a rash of boat hijackings beginning in fall 1979, a
Cuban crisis over people who wanted to leave crested on April 1, 1980 when six
people crashed a bus into the gate of the Peruvian Embassy in Havana. Cuban
guards withdrew and more than 10,000 Cubans flooded inside.
A few weeks later, Castro declared Mariel was open to all who wished to
leave Cuba.
While ensuring Carter's re-election defeat, the Mariel crisis embarrassed
the Cuban government because of the number of people leaving. The previous time
Castro had opened a port, Camarioca in 1965, about 5,000 Cubans fled to Florida.
Still, Castro turned the Mariel exodus into a major headache for the United
States by using it to rid his country of dissidents, criminals and others he
termed "undesirables" and "worms." The Peruvian Embassy was
later turned into a museum, celebrating anti-U.S. marches the government here
organized at the time. It was razed in recent years to make way for a French
tourist hotel.
The U.S. government, meanwhile, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to
resettle new arrivals during a deep economic recession. Riots at detention
centers and crime waves blamed on a minority of "Marielitos" with
criminal records stirred up prejudices.
For Carter, it was a disappointing end to a four-year term during which he
had hoped to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations.
Carter's administration earlier lifted travel restrictions on American
travel to Cuba, as well as a ban on spending money here. Cuban-Americans for the
first time since the 1959 revolution could visit relatives on the island and
send them money.
Carter helped establish interest sections in Washington and Havana to carry
out consular matters and open channels of communication in the absence of full
diplomatic relations, which were severed Jan. 3, 1961.
He also promoted a program bringing together 75 Cuban-Americans and Cuban
officials for negotiations that ultimately led to the release of more than 3,000
political prisoners.
Carter's progress toward normalization with Cuba was rolled back by the
Reagan administration, which tightened U.S. trade sanctions, forbade American
tourists from visiting the island and encouraged allied countries to limit
dealings with the communist country.
The Reagan administration resumed spy flights over the island; invaded
Grenada, Cuba's top Caribbean ally; and launched Radio Marti, the U.S.
government broadcasts aimed at Cuban listeners.
But Carter and Castro remained in touch on and off over the years, with the
Cuban president even calling his former U.S. counterpart to consult during a
1994 migration crisis. Carter never publicly revealed details of the
conversation, instead passing them to then-President Clinton.
Then, in 1995, Carter held separate talks with Cuban exiles and high-ranking
Cuban officials in hopes of improving relations between the sides.
Carter said recently he hopes his visit will teach lessons about the past.
"It is an opportunity to explore issues of mutual interest between our
citizens," he said last month, "and to share ideas on how to improve
the relationship between the United States and Cuba."
Former U.S. president's visit underscores differing views of human
rights and democracy
Wed May 8, 8:29 Pm Et . By Anita Snow, Associated Press
Writer
HAVANA - With Jimmy Carter arriving Sunday on the first visit by a U.S.
ex-president to Fidel Castro 's Cuba, human rights are again in the spotlight,
and an old joke about free speech is being recycled on the streets of Havana.
A visiting American tells a Cuban acquaintance: "I can stand in front
of the White House and shout 'Down with Bush!' and no one will arrest me."
Same here, comes the reply. "I can stand in front of the Palacio de la
Revolucion and shout 'Down with Bush!' and nothing will happen to me, either."
The popularity of the joke suggests Cubans are keenly aware that human
rights and democracy mean different things to Carter and his communist host,
President Castro.
Carter came out of obscurity to capture the presidency in 1976, and lost it
by a landslide four years later. He has since made a career out of monitoring
elections in emerging democracies to ensure they are clean and competitive.
Castro, by contrast, has ruled nonstop for 43 years, running every so often
in uncontested elections that recognize only one legal political party —
the Communist Party of Cuba.
Though Carter's trip is opposed by some Cuban exiles, it has the guarded
assent of the politically powerful Cuban American National Foundation, which
says it expects him to emphasize human rights and not hand Castro a propaganda
coup.
When a foundation delegation met with Carter in Atlanta last week, chairman
Jorge Mas Santos handed him a letter saying in part: "It is deeply
troubling that you have entered into discussions with the Cuban regime, thereby
giving a measure of legitimacy to a small group that rules through fear rather
than the consent of the governed."
Nevertheless, it said, "We come today because we are prepared to take
any risk that might speed the day when Cuba is again free. ... We are confident
you will choose to identify more with the prisoners of conscience than with
their wardens."
Carter aides have indicated that during the five-day visit he will meet with
the same rights activists that Castro labels "counterrevolutionaries."
If he does, it will be a striking illustration of how much Cuba has changed
since he was president.
Although it remains a heavily controlled society, some opposition is now
tolerated. The number of political prisoners has also plunged, from several
thousand to a few hundred.
A decade ago there was no publicly known dissident community on the island.
Today there are plenty for Carter to meet: human rights activist Elizardo
Sanchez, reform advocate Oswaldo Paya, and Castro opponent Vladimiro Roca, who
was freed from prison last Sunday in what was seen as a good-will gesture to
Carter even though Roca had just two months to serve of his five-year sentence.
He was convicted of sedition and endangering the economy after he published a
document critical of the government and Communist Party.
Carter is the highest-profile American ever to visit Castro, and comes armed
with official permission from the U.S. government, which licenses all American
travel to Cuba. Castro, who invited Carter in January, says he wants his guest
to tour the country, and "he can criticize all he wants."
But communist officials still grow defensive toward those who say their
country is undemocratic and violates human rights.
Castro on May 1 insisted Cuba was "by a long shot, the most democratic"
in the world. Cuba's elections are cleaner than most, because they don't require
campaign contributions, he said.
The U.S. State Department disagrees.
"Cuba is a totalitarian state," it wrote in its report on human
rights in Cuba. "President Castro exercises control over all aspects of
life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations."
On human rights, Cuban communists point to a broad social safety net that
ensures people food, shelter, health care and education for all.
They argue — and international rights groups generally agree —
that Cuba has been spared the institutionalized torture and death squads that
have terrorized some Latin American countries.
But those rights groups say individual rights to freedom of speech, media,
association and assembly are often denied.
During Carter's administration, negotiations led to more than 3,000 Cuban
prisoners being freed.
More than 240 political prisoners are still held in Cuban prisons, and Wayne
Smith, the top U.S. top diplomat in Havana during the Carter administration,
hopes Carter's visit will lead to the release of some of them.
Ex-President Carter to Address Cuba
Wed May 8, 6:46 PM ET
Former President Jimmy Carter will make a live, televised address to the
Cuban people during his visit here next week, the only American head of state —
in or out of office — to visit this communist country.
Carter is to speak early Tuesday evening from the main auditorium of the
University of Havana, according to a schedule of his activities here issued
Wednesday afternoon by the Carter Center in Atlanta.
The subject of the speech was not announced, but President Fidel Castro has
said that Carter would be welcome to talk to a large group of Cubans while he is
here and issue any criticisms he likes.
Both the White House and Cuban exile groups have encouraged Carter to
address the issues of human rights and democracy during his stay here, May
12-17.
In the latest such appeal, a group of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday sent
Carter a letter asking him to discuss Cuba's political prisoners with Castro.
Independent rights groups inside Cuba say they have been able to document about
240 cases of prisoners of conscience across the island.
"In Cuba, those who champion human rights, free speech and assembly,
and other democratic ideals are beaten, imprisoned, and tortured," U.S.
Rep. Chris Smith said Wednesday at a gathering in Washington of 12 members of
Congress — including two senators — who sent the letter.
"The challenge facing President Carter is that he must be upfront and
frank with Castro regarding Cuba's deplorable human rights situation, said
Smith, a Republican from New Jersey.
Castro will meet the former American president at the airport upon his
arrival Sunday and will be his dinner host twice — on Sunday and again on
Wednesday.
Carter will be accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn, and various officials and
staff from the couple's nonprofit Carter Center. Their son Chip will also be in
the delegation as president of a non-governmental group called Friendship Force.
Carter is scheduled to see a variety of people, including top government
officials and religious groups and human rights organizations critical of
Castro's government. | 
