Cuban-Americans mostly feel that Barack Obama is making the right conciliatory gestures
By David Adams
From
The Economist
When
the Obama administration relaxed restrictions on travel to Cuba,
Yanaisy Queija wasted no time. Taking a week’s holiday from her job
at a computer-parts factory, she checked in on May 2nd for the
45-minute flight from Miami to Havana, looking forward to seeing her
father and grandparents. Because the previous administration limited
Cuban-Americans to one visit every three years, she had not seen her
relatives for two years.
The
plane was crammed. Demand for seats on the handful of charter flights
has risen by up to 60% since the restrictions were eased. New flights
are being added, with bigger aircraft. Some older Cuban exiles insist
that visiting Cuba simply puts money in the hands of the Castro
regime, but Ms. Queija had no qualms. She pointed to her luggage,
bulging with toys, medicines and clothes. “None of this”, she
pointed out, “is for the government.”
Barack
Obama’s policy shift fulfilled a promise he made to Cuban-American
voters in May 2008 at a campaign stop in Miami. At the time, many
thought he was taking a risk that might alienate hardline
Cuban-Americans. But his move was designed to cause as little outrage
as possible, while appealing to a new generation of exiles who are
more progressive than those who fled the Castro regime in the 1960s.
At
least 300,000 Cubans have come to the United States since 1994, when
an accord was signed granting 20,000 American visas a year. The vast
majority of newcomers are seeking the economic freedom Fidel Castro
has denied them, not political asylum, and retain their strong ties
to the island. “These people are not going to be aligned with
virulent anti-communism,” says Mario Loyola, a Cuban-American and
former Republican foreign-policy adviser in the Senate. The new
arrivals, he adds, are now reshaping Cuban Miami. “They don’t
understand a policy that isolates Cuba. They see Cuba as a prison.
How does it make prisoners happy when you cut them off from the
world?”
A
recent opinion poll shows that 64% of Cuban-Americans approve of Mr.
Obama’s travel policy, giving the president an overall approval
rating of 67%. “For the first time, a majority of Cuban-Americans
are aligned with a Democratic president on Cuba policy,” says
Fernand Amandi, who works with Bendixen & Associates, the
Miami-based firm that conducted the poll. But hardliners reject the
poll numbers, arguing that Bendixen polls are biased. Though they
agree that Cubans should be allowed to visit their families, they are
angry that Mr. Obama gave Cuba a free pass. “This was a great
opportunity to demand a good-faith gesture from Cuba, like releasing
political prisoners,” says Ninoska Pérez, a popular Cuban-American
radio broadcaster.
Some
of the older exiles, such as Carlos Trueba, a Cuban-born retiree
playing dominoes in an outdoor park in Miami’s Little Havana,
object to the lack of ideological spine among the new arrivals.
“Cubans come here asking for political asylum and then a year later
turn right around and want to visit their family for a vacation.
That’s not right.” Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican congressman,
goes further, likening those who favor Mr. Obama’s proposals to
people who supported doing business with Hitler.
But
most of Miami’s right-wing Cuban-Americans leaders have fallen
uncomfortably silent. This can be explained, in part, by the fact
that Mr. Obama has so far defended the 47-year-old trade embargo
against Cuba. He is wise to do so, says Joe Garcia, a prominent
Democratic Party activist and director of the Cuban-American National
Foundation, an exile group that was once hardline but now backs
greater engagement with Cuba. “The embargo is not a policy, it’s
a religion. So…you leave it alone.”
If
the president plays his cards right, he could pull off a political
coup. “Obama is creating a whole new political base among
Cuban-Americans,” says Francisco Aruca, a moderate Cuban-American
radio-show host who also runs one of the charter companies flying to
Cuba. The relatively mild reaction of Cuban officials helps to
strengthen the view that he is not caving in. In fact the Cuban
government seems caught off-guard, tentatively welcoming the new
Cuban-American visitors — and their money — while continuing to
rail against the embargo and rejecting any call for concessions on
its own part.
Other
diplomatic action includes a meeting last week between the State
Department’s senior diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, and
Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington, Jorge Bolaños. The Obama
administration has also chosen as its new ambassador to Mexico Carlos
Pascual, a Cuban-American diplomat and leading author of a recent
Brookings Institution study advocating engagement with Cuba.
Although
Cuba was still on the State Department’s annual list of state
sponsors of terrorism, along with Iran, Syria and Sudan, when it was
reissued last week, the report credited it with “no longer
actively” supporting armed struggle around the globe. (Cuba remains
on the list because it “continued to provide safe haven to several
terrorists”.) That is some progress.
American
officials have privately made it cle ar that further steps towards
better relations with Cuba can be expected. Most of these will be
minor and incremental, such as reviving the talks on immigration that
used to be held regularly but were suspended by the Bush
administration. The next move could come from Congress when, this
autumn, it takes up a bill to lift travel restrictions for all
Americans. The bill already has 134 co-sponsors in the House; a
bigger battle is expected in the Senate. Both houses passed a similar
bill in 2003, but it was killed by Republican congressional leaders
before it could make its way to Mr. Bush’s desk. If this time it
gets passed, it is hard to see how the trade embargo could survive.
