ACLU plan strengthens Castro's grip

Frank Calzon
The Miami Herald, February 22, 2002

The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the U.S. government to lift its ban on travel to Cuba. It would be ironic if in the name of advancing civil liberties, one of the world's great human-rights violators were bolstered by an infusion of American-tourist dollars.

The ACLU states: "Freedom to travel should be the right of all Americans, even to countries like China and Cuba where we disagree with much of their domestic policy. The issue relates more to rights of American citizens than to rights or foreign-policy positions of foreign governments.

'' The ACLU's work in defending unpopular people and causes and protecting American civil rights and liberties is admirable. Consider, however, that changing U.S. travel policy would only help Fidel Castro legitimize the Cuban government's "tourist apartheid.''

The Castro government sets aside hotels, beaches, stores and restaurants, even hospitals and clinics, for foreigners, and it prohibits Cubans even from visiting the areas and facilities. Has the ACLU no moral responsibility to raise that issue while advocating changes in U.S. travel policy? Should the rights of vacationing American tourists supersede the rights of people living in Cuba to move freely about their own country? To eat at the same restaurants? Visit the same beaches? Seek care in the same clinics? Why not call on Castro to lift his tourist apartheid?

Castro goes to great lengths to restrict the rights of Cubans. Consider the case of Lázara Brito and her children, Yanelis, Yamila and Isaac. They were granted U.S. visas in 1996 but remain virtual hostages in Havana. The Castro government will not allow them to join José Cohen, her husband and their father, in the United States. Cohen, a former Cuban intelligence officer, received political asylum in the United States in 1994. Despite his appeals to international organizations and to Americans who meet with Castro, his family remains in Cuba. They are not charged with any crime.

Will the ACLU ignore the flouting of the right to travel freely to and from one's own country? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba signed, guarantees that right.

What about the right of U.S. citizens to use international airspace? Six years ago Castro's warplanes shot down two small planes in international airspace over the Florida Straits. Three U.S. citizen died. So did a Cuban legally residing in our country. The United States presented indisputable evidence to international organizations that the Castro government deliberately killed these men.

CONSIDER CASTRO'S ABUSES

Would it be fair to say that the right to live is just as important as the right to travel? Will the ACLU join families seeking an indictment of those who pulled the trigger? So far it considers this "the failure of the Justice Department to take action, that is something far beyond our sphere of influence.''

The Cuban regime needs the foreign tourism to maintain its repression. The government is bankrupt. Yet the dictator continues to mobilize foreign apologists to press for access to both U.S. trade credits and loan guarantees (which U.S. taxpayers would fund) and to American tourist dollars.

Let us not pretend that Americans have an absolute right to vacation in Cuba, without regard to impact. Rights are always balanced with responsibilities. Americans have a right to travel, but they also have the responsibility to take into account Castro's denial of all civil liberties in Cuba, his 43 years of allying with rogue regimes and sponsoring anti-American violence around the world, and his continuous self-serving efforts to manipulate American institutions and public opinion.

In 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on travel to Cuba ''are justified by weighty concerns of foreign policy.'' That is no less true today. Defense of civil liberties neither requires nor warrants U.S. dollars subsidizing repression in Cuba.

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