From Deseret News archives:
Cuban exile groups urge U.S. to relax rules on travel, aid
The request Monday by the coalition Cuban Consensus comes weeks after top Cuban dissidents made similar requests and highlights the changing political views among the exile community over how to respond to the communist government's restrictions on freedom of expression and movement.
Among those demanding the changes are The Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan Washington-based organization of business and community leaders, the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, and the association of Independent Libraries of Cuba.
"I came from the hard-line position," Cuba Study Group Co-Chairman Carlos Saladrigas said. "But isolating a people has not brought us change in 47 years. Isolating a people only helps to support the dictatorship."
The move comes at a time of great political uncertainty in Cuba. Fidel Castro, 80, temporarily ceded power to his brother Defense Minister Raul Castro more than four months ago following intestinal surgery. Many believe Raul Castro will be the Cuban leader the U.S. deals with in the future.
The coalition is taking aim in particular at U.S. restrictions implemented in 2004 that made it more difficult for academic and humanitarian groups to travel to the island and limited the number of times Cubans can visit their families there from once a year to once every three years.
The coalition said the restrictions implemented by the U.S., as well as those of the Cuban government, which severely restricts the travel of its citizens, violate fundamental human rights.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a longtime supporter of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, said he was glad to see growing consensus among Cuban organizations but that the coalition was missing the larger issue.
"The genuine consensus that needs to be emphasized at this critical moment must be focused on the immediate liberation of all political prisoners without exceptions and in the scheduling of free, multiparty elections in Cuba, not in unilateral concessions to the dictatorship," the Republican said.
The coalition also is calling on the Cuban government to make it easier for Cubans to visit family members abroad and to reduce the costs of obtaining permission to leave the country. They are also asking the Cuban government to cut the country's high long-distance telephone taxes and provide citizens access to the Internet.
