May 13, 2004

The pictures and video images are innumerable and impossible to forget. From Chevrolet Trucks and Buicks converted into sea faring vessels, to "rafters" braving pepper spray sprayed directly into their face in an attempt to deny them reaching the Miami shoreline and freedom, or wading tirelessly for hours before making a swim and a dash to a Key Largo hotel and a new life of opportunity. Cubans driven by oppression, desperation and a deep seated feeling of helplessness launch themselves into the perilous waters of the Florida Straights risking their existence (and that of their children) to reach US shores and freedom. Once settled in their adoptive country the new arrivals begin to notice that, though the level of oppression is measurably less, they are by no means free by any stretch.

Last week President Bush reinforced the feeling of oppression on this side of the Florida straights. After months of analysis of the situation in Cuba and, more importantly (for him), the electoral situation in Florida, the Bush Administration revealed its plans to clamp down on travel and money transfers between Cuba and the United States. Bush, hoping to tilt the odds in his favor in Florida this November, trampled further on the individual rights of not only Cuban-Americans, but of all Americans regardless of race, religion or national origin.

US Citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba or spend money there without "special" permission. Those who ignore theses laws do so at the risk of legal and bureaucratic nightmares in the US befitting a Franz Kafka novel. Bush's new measures restrict Cuban-Americans to one trip every three years to visit immediate family. By decree cousins, aunts and uncles will no longer be considered close enough family to warrant a trip to the tropical island. Cubans who have lived under a communist totalitarian regime are all too familiar with travel restrictions and ridiculous decrees, but are probably very surprised to find that a similar problem exists on the northern end of the Florida Straights.

Many of the exiles and immigrants fortunate enough to make it alive to the US from Cuba, send money to their enslaved family members trapped on the enormous island gulag. The money helps those on the island survive since the economy there has been decimated by 45 years of disastrous socialist economic experiment. President Bush (perhaps at the behest of God) took it upon himself to determine how best to deal with this serious family issue. Family members living "free" in America may send no more than one hundred dollars per month to relatives living in Cuba. Cubans may have escaped Castro's ration cards, but have come to realize that Uncle Sam knows there's more than one way to skin a taxpayer.

Anyone who can meet all the requirements and legally travel to Cuba will have to do so on only fifty dollars a day (No Ritz for you!). That's down from the previous figure of $164.00 a day. Surely the founding fathers never intended the federal government to serve as a travel agency. Unless you are Cuban-America with family on the Island or have some "special" reason (like a connected politician or privileged farmer) you have better odds of winning the power ball lottery than visiting the Pearl of The Antilles.

Cubans still living under surrealistic conditions on the island received another unpleasant surprise this week. The government there decided to close the stores that sell wares in dollars. The reason posted on some of the store windows was "Inventory." Castro's reasons obviously do not have electoral implications on the island, but is the Cuban "Caudillo" playing with a segment of Florida's electorate? He can only do so because of the US government's foray into further restricting the individual and economic rights of its own citizens.

These enhanced restrictions are nothing new under the Caribbean sun. For 45 years the US has imposed an embargo (albeit porous) and travel restrictions on Cuba. Fidel Castro conveniently uses the embargo as an excuse for his failed economy, which is due in its entirety to his restrictive and asinine socialist economic policies. The travel restrictions help his repressive apparatus keep most of its resources focused on the Islands inhabitants. Should the US government restrict the rights of its own citizens in order to (feebly and ineffectively) affect change in a foreign country? Ten successive US Administrations have thought so. By restricting the trade and travel rights of its own citizens, isn't the US government mirroring Castro's despotism?

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