Coddling Cuba
Published: Thursday, April 9, 2009 12:32 am By: Washington Post
HALF A DOZEN members of the Congressional Black Caucus spent hours huddling with Fidel and Raúl Castro in Havana this week as part of a swelling campaign to normalize relations with Cuba. "It is time to open dialogue and discussion," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) told a news conference in Washington after their return. "Cubans do want dialogue. They do want talks." Funny, then, that in five days on the island the Congress members found no time for dialogue with Afro-Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez. Mr. García, better known as "Antúnez," is a renowned advocate of human rights who has often been singled out for harsh treatment because of his color. "The authorities in my country," he has said, "have never tolerated that a black person [could dare to] oppose the regime." His wife, Iris, is a founder of the Rosa Parks Women's Civil Rights Movement, named after an American hero whom Afro-Cubans try to emulate. The couple have been on a hunger strike since Feb. 17, to demand justice for an imprisoned family member. They are part of a substantial and steadily growing civil movement advocating democratic change in Cuba -- one that U.S. advocates of detente with the Castros appear determined to ignore. In addition to the Black Caucus, the congressional campaign is led by longtime advocates for the Latin American left such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), by farm state representatives eager to increase the $400 million in food the United States already exports annually to Cuba, and by Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Lugar dispatched staff members to Cuba this year to report on the prospects for improved relations; they also didn't meet with anyone from the democratic opposition. They did propose lifting all restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans -- something that could give Cuba's state-run tourism industry a $1 billion annual boost -- and Mr. Lugar is now co-sponsoring legislation that would do just that. The congressional pressure, and that by leftist Latin American presidents who have been streaming to Cuba in recent months, is very likely to undermine President Obama, who
