Cubans Stung By New U.S. Policy

By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum

The airport information board announces the arrival of Continental Flight 2980 from Miami. Tension builds as those waiting crane to catch a glimpse of their loved ones through the sliding doors of the terminal. Finally passengers loaded down with luggage begin to emerge. There are shouts and tears as the two sides of the Florida Straits meet with hugs and kisses. It is family reunion time in Cuba.

Cuban families, unnaturally split by politics and economics, did not welcome the latest measures announced by the White House, which will greatly reduce the number of allowed family visits.

On Thursday President Bush endorsed several measures recommended in a report by the Commission for a Free Cuba headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

He ordered family visits by Cuban Americans reduced from once a year to once every three years; he kept the current $1200 a year limit on money they could send their relatives on the island but restricted recipients to members of the immediate family; the same goes for gift parcels—cousins, aunts and uncles were excluded, as were "certain Cuban officials and Communist Party members" and he approved drastically cutting the per diem from $164 to $50 for Cuban Americans traveling to the island.

The 500-page report urges these and a number of other measures to cut the flow of U.S. dollars to the Castro regime and destabilize its 45- year-old socialist system. Many have linked the timing of the report to the upcoming elections, pointing out that South Florida, home to some 800,000 Cuban Americans, could make a difference in Bush's bid for reelection.

The reaction among these Cuban Americans remains to be seen but in recent years an estimated 120,000 of them have visited their families on the island annually. A Foreign Ministry official who follows U.S. policy closely told us that Havana has strong evidence that some Cuban Americans have been eschewing the direct flights and traveling through Nassau, Montego Bay, and Cancun to get around the old-once-a-year restriction. "I don't think the Bush Administration will achieve anything with these new limitations. All it will do is push people to break the law," he said.

The Cuban Government's official reaction Friday was in line with this. Instead of the usual tirade of anti-American rhetoric it simply informed the public of the report's contents, clearly believing they would provoke outrage.

An editorial in the official Communist Party daily, Granma, noted that while the Cuban Government "continually relaxes the rules" for visits home by Cubans living abroad, the U.S. is tightening them. Havana announced earlier this year that as of June it was waiving the visa requirement for Cubans living in other countries. Until now, Cuban exiles had to have both a valid Cuban passport and a Cuban visa to return to their birthplace. The elimination of the visa was popularly received by Cuban Americans. — In contrast, the editorial stresses the U.S. will impose "draconian restrictions on their rights to travel and send remittances."

In Havana Friday, ordinary Cubans approached by CBS News expressed unhappiness with President Bush's decision to implement new restrictions.

"The new measures are absurd, totally absurd," said Maria, a single mother of three after listening to the editorial Friday morning. "My cousin Julian from Pinar del Rio is leaving for the U.S. with his wife and daughter on the 11 a.m. flight today. Now they're letting him join his parents there but at the same time they're telling him he can't see the rest of us for at least three years!"

Oscar, a self-employed house cleaner, just rolled his eyes and issued a single comment, "Malo, malisimo," which means "Bad, very bad."

His neighbor Manuel, a 74-year-old retired economist and staunch revolutionary, agrees. "On the one hand there's the Cuban Adjustment Act," he said. The 1966 law allows Cubans arriving in the U.S. legally or illegally, immediate rights.

"That gives Cubans certain privileges that no other immigrants receive. On the other, Cuban immigrants are the only ones who can't go home whenever they want and can't send their families as much money as they want. The U.S. Government doesn't tell Mexicans or Salvadorans how much money they can send to their country. Those countries would collapse without their cash," he said.

An estimated $100 million to $1 billion in U.S. dollars flow into Cuba's coffers from remittances originating in the U.S. However, it's only a tiny proportion of the $31 billion that all Hispanics living in the United States send annually to their relatives in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The editorial also refers scathingly to the Report recommendation that Washington help a post-Castro transition government by immediately immunizing all children under five against major childhood diseases. "Our people can draw their own conclusion," it says.

Lazara, an accountant and the mother of two-year-old Roberto, did. "My son has had all the vaccinations he needs," she told us. Cuba has received United Nations recognition for its preventative medicine system, in particular the vaccines, some of them unique, developed by its bio-tech industry.

There is opposition to the new policy in the U.S. as well. Five Senators have written a letter rejecting the report's recommendations.

Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Larry Craig (R- Id.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) sent Mr. Bush alternate proposals. They want to remove restrictions on Cuban American travel and remittances and to end all limitations on travel and people-to-people contacts for all U.S. citizens.

While in Havana with a trade delegation from his state last November, Senator Craig told CBS News he was certain that "no matter who wins the presidential election, the trade and travel bans on Cuba will be lifted next year."

Some Cuban analysts believe that Republicans in Congress have held back from their push to change the regulations out of respect for Bush, hoping to help him win reelection. However, they say that once Nov. 2 is past these Republicans will join their Democratic colleagues in an all out assault on the current restrictions on Cuba trade and travel.

Havana also reacted sharply to the report's recommendation to provide an additional $29 million (on top of the current Cuba program budget of $7 million) to hasten a transition to democracy in Cuba. The editorial classified potential beneficiaries of this U.S. aid as "mercenaries at their service in Cuba." That's the same charge they brought against 75 dissidents sentenced to long prison terms one year ago.

In a statement presumably aimed at the hard-line anti-Cuban forces in Miami who have criticized the President for not doing enough to unseat Castro, Bush affirmed, "We are not merely waiting for a free Cuba, we're working for a free Cuba." He described the policy as a strategy that "encourages the spending of money…to protect dissidents and to promote human rights."

He said it would bring the truth to the Cuban people through Radio and TV Marti endorsing the recommendation to broadcast pro-democracy messages from a military plane to circumvent the Castro government's jamming of the transmissions.

"What are we supposed to think," a law professor stopped on his way to class rhetorically asked us. "The so-called human rights and dissident movements in Cuba are not home grown but seeded and fertilized by Washington. The U.S. is not only promoting the opposition, it's calling for regime change."

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega told the press in Washington that the report "represents a national commitment to help the Cuban people bring an end to the Cuban dictatorship…" and to prevent the perpetuation of the communist government by undermining plans to have Fidel Castro succeeded by his younger brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro.

The editorial in contrast called it a report to a "President fraudulently elected," adding, "Cuba can be erased from the map…but it will never again be a U.S. colony."

Echoing the May Day speech by President Fidel Castro, who has governed Cuba for 45 of his 77 years, the editorial concluded, Cuba "will defend itself with its laws and, if necessary, with its weapons, to the last drop of blood."