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Reasons behind
U.S. policy
By Roger F. Noriega, www.state.gov/p/wha/.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 11, 2004 in The
Miami Herald.
Fidel Castro's cynicism apparently knows
no bounds. Recently at a conference in Havana
for Cubans living abroad, regime spokesmen
claimed that they were dedicated to reuniting
Cuba's divided families and blamed the United
States for impeding this process.
Given that deception and manipulation are
Castro's stock in trade, it is important
to set the record straight.
The mandate of President Bush's Commission
for Assistance to a Free Cuba was to provide
recommendations on how the United States
can (1) help the Cuban people bring about
an expeditious end to the dictatorship and
(2) assist a free Cuban government meet
its humanitarian and reconstruction challenges,
if requested.
As the commission looked at new means to
hasten a transition, it identified six interrelated
tasks: empowering Cuban civil society, reducing
financial flows to the regime, undermining
the regime's ''succession strategy'' (i.e.,
from Fidel to Raúl Castro), breaking
the regime's blockade of information to
the Cuban people, increasing public diplomacy
efforts abroad to counter Cuban propaganda
and encouraging multilateral efforts to
challenge the Cuban regime.
We found that Castro had built an elaborate
apparatus to profit enormously from the
humanitarian aspects of the U.S. policy
on Cuba. Although family visits may be undertaken
with the best of intentions by Cubans abroad,
Castro's dollar-devouring mechanisms have
turned such visits into an important component
of this massive profiteering.
Unwilling to permit open-market activities
that would free the productive energies
of the Cuban people, the regime has chosen
instead to exploit this source of foreign
exchange through its control of charter
flights' access to the island, its dollar
stores (designed to capture cash brought
into Cuba) and the numerous fees that it
charges travelers. The commission estimated
that the regime was able to generate close
to $100 million in hard currency through
family visits to the island in 2003.
In short, the policy has had the effect
of lining the pockets of Castro and his
repressive elite, and it facilitated the
ability of some Cubans in the United States
to effectively ''commute'' between the United
States and Cuba primarily for economic reasons.
This cynical manipulation of Cuba's divided
families allows Castro to divert scarce
resources to maintain his grip on power
and free him from his obligations to meet
the basic needs of the Cuban people. Dollars
and donated goods, although provided with
good intentions by U.S. persons, are in
fact helping to keep afloat the Castro regime.
On this question, the commission tried
to strike a balance between enabling Cubans
to reasonably assist immediate relatives
in Cuba and reducing the regime's manipulation
of family visits to generate hard currency.
This produced the recommendation of one
visit every three years to visit immediate
family, a reduction in the amount of cash
that a person may carry for expenses while
traveling in Cuba and limiting the length
of stay to 14 days.
Measures to alleviate the hardships of
a portion of the Cuban population -- including
cash remittances of $100 a month and gift
parcels of unlimited food quantities as
well as $200 a month in medicines and medical
supplies -- remain largely intact.
In the end, what the United States seeks
is the reunification of all Cuban families
in a free Cuba. We want Cuban families to
be free of the fear, intimidation and manipulation
that are the hallmarks of Castro's tenure
in power. We cannot succeed in this effort
without the support of Cubans living in
exile. The time has long since passed for
Cuba to retake its rightful place in the
democratic community of nations, befitting
itslong history of struggle for freedom.
Roger F. Noriega is assistant secretary
of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
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