A Cold, Poll-Driven Calculation:Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba

May 28, 2004

A Cold, Poll-Driven Calculation
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
By Rep. BILL DELAHUNT

Divert resources from antiterrorism investigations, mandate burdensome government paperwork and forbid families from helping -- or even seeing -- their relatives. That's the new U.S. policy toward Cuba.

As if four decades of a failed embargo were not enough, the White House just made matters breathtakingly worse. To demonstrate its disdain for Fidel Castro to Florida's hard-line exiles, the White House will now punish those most critical to the future stability of post-Castro Cuba: the moderate Cuban-American community.

The Bush administration recently announced a battery of provocative steps to undermine the Cuban government, but the real impact -- like the existing travel ban -- is mainly on U.S. citizens.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the tightened restrictions on, of all people, Cuban Americans. Until now, they could travel to the island annually and without hassle. The tears of joy at Havana's Jose Marti Airport, as relatives from across the Florida Straits are reunited, are profound testament to the deep devotion of the Cuban people to the sanctity of the family -- and to the hope for a day when the only obstacle to family reunions would be the 40-minute flight.
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U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., serves on the House Committee on International Relations and co-chairs the bipartisan Congressional Cuba Working Group.

http://www.counterpunch.org/delahunt05282004.html