[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:14385] Bush Rebuffed on Cuba

[Alfred Kagan]

>From: Carol Gulyas <cgulyas at colum.edu>
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:14385] Bush Rebuffed on Cuba
>Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 11:44:23 -0500
>Reply-To: srrtac-l at ala.org
>Sender: owner-srrtac-l at ala.org
>
>Charleston Gazette (forwarded from OIF list)
>July 09, 2004
>   Cuba vote
>    Bush rebuffed
>   JULY 7 may turn out to be a historic day in Cuban-American 
>politics - the date
>   on which U.S. policy finally foundered in its own misguided zeal. 
>In a historic
>   setback, the House of Representatives voted 221-194 Wednesday to defeat
>   White House restrictions on gifts from Cuban-Americans to their relatives on
>   the island.
>
>   New Commerce Department rules forbid shipments of items including seeds,
>   clothing and veterinary products. They also bar any gifts to 
>relatives who are
>   not immediate family members. But the House vote ditched these
>   curtailments.
>
>   Politicos in both parties have courted the Cuban-American 
>community by trying
>   to isolate the Castro government. In Florida, the conventional wisdom has
>   long held that electoral success is impossible without a fervent anti-Castro
>   plank in your platform. The older generation of refugees, many of them heavy
>   campaign contributors and vociferous lobbyists for their cause, have
>   demanded policies aimed at punishing the Castro regime. If those policies
>   have hurt ordinary Cubans, they haven't seemed to mind.
>
>   The policy has not worked. Castro is canny and still popular and has
>   succeeded in blaming his country's ills on the diabolical norteamericanos.
>   Now, after 45 years of failure, perhaps the tide is turning. A 
>younger generation
>   of Cuban-Americans, with no allegiance to the romanticized Old Cuba that
>   flourished under the dictator Fulgencio Batista, would like to get 
>on with their
>   lives and have contact with their relatives who remained behind.
>
>   It's interesting that one of the bill's opponents was a Republican,
>   Cuban-American Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who proudly
>   displays photographs of himself with President Bush and Secretary of
>   Defense Donald Rumsfeld on his Web site. Diaz-Balart said the White House
>   measure, which took effect on July 1, was "dishonest" and "condescending."
>   Even that font of all anti-Castro fervor, the Cuban-American National
>   Foundation, was not happy with the new rule, saying it "created a greater
>   divide" among Cuban-Americans.
>
>   We have long held that the embargo against Cuba is cruel, unnecessary and
>   ineffective. Closer contact with the island will not serve the 
>Castro regime. It
>   will make more of the fruits of American democracy available to 
>Cubans, along
>   with the lively exchange of ideas that democracy allows. Younger
>   Cuban-Americans understand this, and hope for peaceful change on the
>   island. We hope the age of pandering to their elders' outdated 
>vision is finally
>   coming to a close.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Carol Gulyas
>Reference and Instruction Librarian
>Columbia College Chicago
>624 S. Michigan Ave.
>Chicago, IL  60605
>312.344.7072
>


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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