 Cubans in Miami protest Bush policies restricting travel to Cuba, July 2004. Photo: Max Lesnick |
In Miami, Cubans responded to the Bush administration’s recently implemented restrictions on their right to travel to Cuba by taking to the streets in protest. A series of demonstrations over the past several months led by progressive Cubans in South Florida denounced the restrictions as “cruel,” “inhumane,” and “anti-family.” Polls show that well over than 70 percent of Cubans in the U.S. vehemently oppose the new travel restrictions.
The restrictions were implemented on June 30, as recommended by the 450-page report of the “Commission for Assistance to Free Cuba.” Authored at Bush’s request by Secretary of State Colin Powell and other assorted reactionaries, the report outlines a detailed plan to hasten the restoration of capitalism in Cuba. It calls for a tightening of the U.S. blockade and further limits travel for U.S. citizens and Cubans living in the U.S.
The enforcement of these recent measures ushers in a new phase of U.S. aggression against Cuba. For more than four decades, successive U.S. administrations—Democrat and Republican alike—have sought the overthrow of the Cuban Revolution by terrorizing people living inside Cuba. This new phase not only targets Cubans who live in Cuba, it attacks Cubans in the U.S. with family and friends on the island.
ANTI-CUBA MEASURES
The first provisions in the report enforced by the U.S. severely limit the right of Cubans living in the U.S. to travel and send remittances to their families in Cuba. With a special license, Cubans living in the U.S. can now to travel to Cuba only once every three years, and for a maximum of 14 days. Previous travel was permitted once a year under a general license. Those who stay beyond 14 days may be fined anywhere from $7,500 to $65,000.
That is only the beginning. The measures also restrict the ability of Cubans to send money to relatives in Cuba. Cash remittances can only be sent to “immediate family members,” as defined in the report. Aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews and more distant relatives are excluded. Members of the Cuban Communist Party and the government cannot receive remittances. Travelers previously could carry up to $3,000 for their families in Cuba; now they may take only $300. The list goes on.
These strictures negatively affect the majority of the 1.5 million Cubans living in the U.S. More than 77 percent of the Cuban community has family on the island. With the introduction of these measures, Cubans must carefully choose when to visit their families in Cuba, especially if they have a sick or dying relative. The U.S. has said it will no longer grant any special travel permits on humanitarian grounds, even in extremely grave cases.
The situations of Cubans like Felix Ramirez, who came to the U.S. in 1969 and visits the island once per year, illustrate the crises caused by the restrictions. Ramirez has a terminally ill sister in Matanzas, Cuba, and fears he will not see her again. “She’s dying. In three years, she’ll be dead and buried and I can visit her bones in some cemetery.” (Miami Herald, May 11)
To these concerns, the official U.S. response has been callous and arrogant. When asked about the exclusion of humanitarian permits, Dan Fisk, right-hand man of Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, commented: “Any individual can decide when they want to travel once every three years and the decision is up to them. So, if they have a dying relative, they have to figure out when they want to travel. … ” (Granma International, July 22).
MIAMI CUBANS RESPOND
Voices from the ultra-right, like U.S. Congresspeople Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as well as the terrorist-run Cuban Liberty Council, praised the harsh restrictions as “a serious demonstration of solidarity with Cuba’s right to be free.”(Quote by Diaz-Balart, Washington Post, May 7) Meanwhile, the bulk of the Cuban community in the U.S. has displayed opposition.
Hundreds of Cubans in Miami are speaking out openly against the measures, much to the surprise of the anti-Castro extremists. Soon after Bush announced the restrictions, a broad range of groups based in the Miami Cuban community began mobilizing joint press conferences and rallies decrying the measures and encouraging Cubans to come together to work against them.
The rallies, principally organized by the Antonio Maceo Brigade, Jose Martí Association and Alianza Martiana, all long-time activist groups in the progressive Miami Cuban community, are drawing hundreds of Cubans onto the streets to denounce the measures. These groups oppose the 45-year U.S. economic war against the Cuban Revolution.
More moderate forces are organizing around this issue and have forged a coalition with the progressive groups to take action against the travel restrictions.
Although these groups do not share the same political perspective on Cuba, they perceive the need to fight the travel restrictions together. Andres Gomez, president of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, says the fact that his group “coincides politically and ideologically with the Cuban Revolution”—whereas others within the Miami community do not—is secondary to the need to forge unity against the restrictions. “We are here to defend our right to travel, to help our families. This is the primary concern right now.”
These organizations recognize that the Miami community is overwhelmingly against the new restrictions because, for most people, it is fundamentally an issue of family. Max Lesnick, journalist and president of Alianza Martiana, believes the widespread protest “results from the consensus of people, most of whom have no political or partisan affiliation, who feel affected by these irrational measures.”
The Miami Cuban organizations first organized a press conference, drawing 400 people, on May 10—four days after Bush announced the restrictions.
On June 19, two car caravans of Cubans totaling 300 participants drove through Little Havana honking horns and waving signs in protest of the crackdown on travel. Since then, the groups have called protests on a weekly basis and have drawn ever-larger numbers.
On July 10, hundreds protested outside Hialeah’s City Hall. Some 800 demonstrators protested the measures at the offices of Diaz-Balart on July 24. On July 31, hundreds marched on Ros-Lehtinen’s office, and on August 7, protestors demanded the approval of a resolution to reverse the sanctions at Miami City Hall.
Banners at the protests accuse extremists like Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen of disregard for the Cuban people: “Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen have their parents in the U.S., while our parents live in Cuba.”
Right-wing terrorist groups like Alpha 66 and Vigilia Mambisa staged several small counterdemonstrations, but their attempts to intimidate protestors have failed.
In addition to organized protests, spontaneous demonstrations have also materialized. On June 29, one day before the restrictions took effect, hundreds of Cubans were left stranded in Miami’s airport after the U.S. State Department cancelled all flights to Cuba. An angry crowd chanted: “We want to fly!” and “Cuba! Cuba!” (Granma International, July 11)
 Photo: Max Lesnick |
CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS IN MIAMI
Miami has long been a haven for right-wing, anti-Cuban terrorists. Demonstrating against restrictions imposed by the U.S. on Cuba has always been dangerous. In the 1970s and 80s, a Cuban person living in Miami could face death threats or even physical attack for doing nothing more than condemning right-wing violence against Cuba.
Although counterrevolutionary terrorist groups still exist in Miami, the demographics of the Cuban community are changing. Understanding these changes helps explain where the lines of division are drawn on the new travel restrictions, and why it is now easier for progressive Cubans to be heard. Not since the Elian Gonzalez kidnapping in 2000, has the Cuban community in Miami been so polarized on an issue.
The Miami Cubans who came to the U.S. in the 1960s after the Cuban Revolution left Cuba largely because they were wealthy owners of land and property. Around 125,000 Cubans—almost all from the ruling class—left Cuba in 1960. Most supported or collaborated with the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which was overthrown by the Cuban people, led by Fidel Castro, in 1959.
Once in Miami, many of these right-wingers, including the fathers of Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, worked for the CIA in terrorist organizations aimed at bringing down the Cuban Revolution.
Non-ruling class Cubans who came to the U.S. in the 1960s and early 70s enjoyed special privileges beyond what other immigrants received, such as education loans from the U.S. government.
These Cubans, who came to the U.S. in the early years of the Revolution and have no family in Cuba, disproportionately make up the support for the Bush measures.
Cubans who left the island from 1980 onward did so mainly for economic and personal reasons, not for political or ideological ones. In his speech on July 26 of this year, Cuban President Fidel Castro confirmed this fact: “Over 90 percent of those who have emigrated from Cuba since the triumph of the Revolution have done so … for economic reasons. … ”
According to the 2000 U.S. census, of the 600,000 Cubans in Miami, almost 49 percent left Cuba after 1980, most of whom still have family on the island. Contrary to the claims of the exiled elite, many remain poor and if they find work at all, it is in low paying service industry jobs in and around Miami.
Another 32 percent of Miami Cubans were born in the U.S. of Cuban parents. The newer, younger immigrants represent a different generation that does not share the old guard’s extremist views on key U.S.-Cuba policy issues like travel.
A 2000 poll by Florida International University shows that 53 percent of Cubans in Miami favor unrestricted travel to Cuba, including 74 percent of those who arrived after 1984. Additionally, some Cubans in the U.S. who previously thought the U.S. government spoke for their interests, now feel betrayed and are fighting to overturn the new restrictions.
IT’S NOT ABOUT VOTES
Many people think Bush enacted these heightened restrictions to shore up support and secure votes within the Cuban community in Miami. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the Cubans in South Florida as an important electorate.
If Bush hoped to win votes based on the restrictions, his handlers seriously miscalculated the efficacy of this maneuver. “Out with Bush” and “Cambio, cambio!” (change) are popular chants at rallies protesting the new travel restrictions.
For his part, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry says he favors “principled travel” to Cuba, and is against restrictions that hurt “ordinary Cubans,” yet he supports the overthrow of the Cuban government. On the final point, Bush and Kerry agree.
Even the terrorist-friendly Cuban American National Foundation has issued tepid criticism of the restrictions due to the wave of outrage in the community. CANF characterized the restrictions as an “error in judgment.”
Make no mistake, CANF still agrees with all of Bush’s tough policies on Cuba, including the new travel restrictions. It simply wants to save itself from irrelevancy in the community it purports to represent.
Bush did not enact these restrictions solely to get more votes. Florida voters certainly are important to Bush, but more important both to him and the U.S. government are reversing the gains of the Cuban Revolution and re-annexing the island. The new restrictions result from these conscious U.S. policy imperatives.
Another common misconception is that far right elements in the Cuban community pushed for and won the restrictions by the strength of their lobby and their control over U.S. policy on Cuba. This view is erroneous. Extremist Cubans in the U.S. have never steered U.S. policy toward Cuba. The U.S. government controls and sustains these counterrevolutionaries as agents to achieve its imperialist goals in Cuba.
Juan Zarate, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, summed up the larger U.S. policy issues behind the regulations: to “impel as quickly as possible change within Cuba and within the regime.” (South Florida Sun Sentinel, July 24) Because of this punitive policy, Cubans on both sides of the Atlantic are suffering.
