I won’t visit Cuba Again until Castro sets it free

NORM COLEMAN
www.coleman.senate.gov

The future of U.S. policy toward Cuba is bound in two tides of change.

* First is the momentum building in the United States to engage with Cuba. United States policy toward Cuba over the last 40 years has not brought change. Fidel Castro has outlasted eight U.S. presidents, and in the post-Cold War world, Cuba no longer poses a strategic threat to us.

Americans have recognized Cuba as a potential market for our agricultural goods, which under a 2000 law can be exported to the island. Sen.Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has introduced a bill in the Senate that would lift the restrictions against Americans traveling to Cuba, and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont, has introduced legislation that would end the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

* Second is the demand for human rights for the people of Cuba. Cuba is no paradise. Cubans lack the right to free speech, free association and free enterprise. The sheer numbers of Cubans leaving for our shores speak to the disastrous state of human rights in Cuba.

Last year, at great personal risk, more than 30,000 Cubans signed a petition, the Varela Project, calling for a referendum on democracy and human rights in Cuba. The Cuban government responded with a wave of repression, arresting more than 75 leading dissidents. This crackdown drew harsh criticism from even those who had been most tolerant of the Castro government.

Like many other Americans, I believed that the best way to promote change in Cuba was through increased trade and travel -- a position that put me at odds with the administration. With this view in mind and with great concern over the crackdown that began this spring -- I recently traveled to Cuba.

I met with Cuban officials and had satisfactory discussions about the opportunities for agricultural sales from my state of Minnesota. During these meetings, I also raised my concerns about human rights.

I spent time with the other face of Cuba, too. I met some of the few leading dissidents who are not in prison -- Osvaldo Paya of the Varela Project, and Elizardo Sanchez and Vladimiro Roca of Todos Unidos, an umbrella group for various human-rights organizations. I also met with the wives of some of Cuba’s political prisoners.

I also learned about several dissidents, among them:

* Roberto de Miranda, who was sentenced to 20 years for organizing a teachers’ union and for signing the Varela Project petition.

*  Pedro Alvarez Ramos, a labor organizer, who was sentenced to 25 years in a prison some 265 miles from his family’s home in Havana.

*  Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an independent economist and journalist, who was sentenced to 20 years and is suffering from chronic liver disease.

For women, trying to remain in contact with their imprisoned husbands is another source of heartache. After traveling hundreds of miles for scheduled meetings with their husbands (in a country where few people own automobiles), the women arrive at the prisons only to find out that the appointments have been canceled for no apparent reason. Scheduled telephone calls are similarly called off.

I continue to believe that both tides of change are inevitable. Thanks to the brave efforts of people such as Paya and others, Cuba will change someday. And I am equally certain that the United States one day will lift its embargo and travel restrictions.

I want to go back to Cuba. I want to enjoy its beautiful beaches and to engage its welcoming people. I want two million Americans tourists to spend money in Cuba and lift its economy -- but not while Chepe, de Miranda and many others serve unjust prison sentences for seeking freedom.

The United States should end its embargo on Cuba when the Cuban government ends its embargo on its own people.

Castro, let your imprisoned dissidents go -- and when you do, I will gladly join the chorus of people seeking to end the travel ban and trade embargo.

Senator Norm Coleman, R-Minn, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. 

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