Door open for CANF to help shape policy

[Billy Burnett]

Door open for CANF to help shape policy
BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ
[e-mail]

With Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, the Cuban American National Foundation is sitting pretty after wandering the political wilderness for eight years.

Jorge Mas Santos -- scion of the architect of U.S. policy toward Cuba before ultra-conservatives walked out of CANF in a huff in 2001 -- now has the ear of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mas Santos' father, Jorge Mas Canosa, was brilliant at positioning CANF as a human rights group backed by Republicans and many Democrats in Congress during the Reagan years. When George H.W. Bush was running for reelection in 1992 against Bill Clinton, Mas Canosa tried to straddle both sides.

I recall Mas Canosa telling me at the time that, even though he personally embraced the GOP, he did not want CANF or Cuban Americans to ever be taken for granted, as blacks had been by the Democratic Party. Human rights, he noted, have no party affiliation.

The Bushes never forgot the slight. When George W. Bush ran in 2000, he expected allegiance from CANF. By then Mas Canosa had died, and Mas Santos vowed to keep his father's bipartisan approach. CANF was locked out. Instead, the Cuban Liberty Council, formed by CANF's break-away old guard, had an open door at the White House and pushed to tighten travel and remittances to Cuba.

OPPOSITION SUPPORT

The result? With Fidel Castro all but dead and his brother Raúl in charge, the U.S. government has had no sway on the regime and the opposition is floundering.

With Obama's win CANF is positioned to have immense influence on Cuba policy. What to expect?

An aggressive policy to get more money to the opposition in Cuba. For years the U.S. government has handed millions of dollars to exile groups and academics for democracy-building programs on the island. But as past U.S. government audits have pointed out, most of that money never left Miami. The rules need to change so that money and equipment can reach the opposition -- just as it did during the Cold War for the Polish Solidarity movement.

Radio and TV Marti must be more efficient and have more reach. Programming should focus more on what the opposition in Cuba is doing.

The U.S. embargo toward Cuba will rightly stay. The 2004 Bush restrictions on travel and remittances will go. Returning to the pre-2004 rules would mean Cuban Americans could travel once a year to see family instead of once every three years, and remittances could go up to $3,000 a year -- instead of the current $1,200 -- and open to all family members. This is particularly important after thousands of Cubans were left homeless from two back-to-back hurricanes and with Paloma heading their way.

NAMING THE REAL ENEMY

''The centerpiece of U.S.-Cuba policy has to be our assistance to the brave men and women of the opposition in Cuba,'' Mas Santos said. ``That's key to promoting freedom.''

Republican Sen. Mel Martinez acknowledges that it's time to rethink the U.S. approach, too, but not to do it in a way that's ''unilateral.'' One concession to extract from the regime: the outrageous 20 percent charge it places on remittances. Any new policy, he said, ``needs to have more nuance and flexibility . . . but not give the government a free pass.''

I agree, but we've lost valuable time to the Castro propaganda machine that has spent decades portraying exiles as the enemy.

We need to turn the tortilla upside down and let Cubans know through our actions that their only enemy is a 50-year dictatorship.

Notice that Ms. Marquez "neglects" to mention that the CANF's lord and master, Jorge Mas Canosa, was also chief Miami-Dade fundraiser for Bill Clinton? The result? More (undue) influence with the President's Cuba policy and new sanctions on Cuba were created and signed into law by Mr. Clinton.

Expect more of the same if this story has grains of truth.

When the CANF big split occurred and the mad-dog Cuban Liberty Council was created, another DUer and I speculated that this was stagecraft designed to get their foot in the door by having essentially two fronts for their attack on Cuba's sovereignty. A "moderate" front to placate a leftward political shift and an ultra RW front (the CANF base) to be "rejected" - all the while they are in league, two peas in a pod, operating with the same mission plan.

Expect more of the same if this story has grains of truth.


Considering the river of positive commentary on recent DU Cuba threads regarding hopes and aspirations for Obama and congress to back off on the US sanctions on Cuba and Americans, this story tends to negate any positive feelings I might have entertained.

Expect more of the same if this story has grains of truth.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Well, better to be wary about this now, than knocked flat by it later! Good grief!

I never heard Jorge Mas Santos was involved in Clinton's campaign. I can't believe he got his grubby hand in this, but then, his dad most surely did have his ear, didn't he? Let's not even go into the story Monica Lewinsky bestowed upon the American public about the time Clinton got the phone call from either Pepe or Alfie Fanjul.

Well, if a day starts out with news like this, Billy Burnett, it can only get better, I hope!

Hope Marquez is wildly off base with this bit of gibberish. She is such a rotten, pathetic writer, a failed human being. It really figures they let Max Castro go, and kept this loon, doesn't it?

Forewarned is fore-armed.



Fore-arms.

[Billy Burnett]

2. Mas Canosa, his dad.

You know the famous photo.


Bill Clinton and Miami-Dade Clinton fundraiser Jorge Mas Canosa


:hi:

[magbana]

3. Thanks for this article

If nothing else this article should serve as the "slap in the face, snap out of it" mechanism for liberal Obamaistas who are expecting big change in US/Cuba relations.