Cubadebate

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Cubans revolt against W

Albor Ruiz

Thursday, June 3rd, 2004

The Great Communicator he is not, but history could remember President George W. Bush as "The Great Uniter."
If you don't believe it, just remember that in Iraq he achieved what many had thought impossible: He brought together Shiites and Sunnis, who put aside historical enmity to present a united front against U.S. occupation.

Now he has done it again, this time in Cuba. Though no more than 200 delegates were expected at last month's "The Nation and the Emigration" conference in Havana, thanks to Bush, 521 Cuban-born people from 49 countries attended, including 242 from the U.S.

The number ballooned after Bush announced new, Draconian measures against the island on May 6. They included naming a "coordinator for the transition to democracy in Cuba" - that is, a Paul Bremer for Havana. This was widely taken, in Cuba and in Miami, as an intolerable infringement on Cuba's sovereignty.

"This is a decisive moment for Cuba," said Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer who was one of the founders of the powerful anti-Castro group the Cuban-American National Foundation and a veteran of the 1961 failed Bay of Pigs invasion sponsored by the U.S.

Like Zamora, many other participants put aside ideological differences to attend the conference. Bush's measures, they believe, threaten not the Castro regime but the very survival of the Cuban nation.

"To be or not to be Cuban, that is the question," said another conference participant, Max Lesnik, a Miami radio journalist. "To have been born in Cuba doesn't mean much if you are not willing to defend the country's sovereignty."

The conference was part of a continuing effort to normalize relations between Havana and Cubans who live abroad, the island government said. A group of expatriates was invited to travel to Cuba to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The feelings of Zamora, Lesnik and other delegates were echoed by Cubans on the island. In interview after interview, they said they don't like what they see as an intrusion into their affairs driven by the demands of ultraconservative Cuban-Americans in Florida.

"It is all done with one purpose in mind: to win the elections in November," said Anay García, a woman selling Che Guevara T-shirts, books and key chains. "But [Bush] is wrong, because every Cuban has been affected by these cruel measures, both in the U.S. and here. I think he has shot himself in the foot."

"Who the hell does Bush think he is?," asked Miriam González, a bookseller at Havana's Convention Palace. "Is he going to tell me what family is? After what he is doing in Iraq, it is obvious he doesn't know what democracy is. We will do whatever it takes for him to fail."

Under the new measures, Cuban-Americans who now can travel to Cuba once a year to visit family will be able to do so only once every three years. And only if they have spouses, children or siblings there. Under the new rules, uncles, aunts and cousins are no longer family. In a clearly discriminatory measure, the President also reduced the amount of money Cuban-Americans (it does not apply to any other visitors to the island) may spend in Cuba to $50 a day, from $164 a day.

Bush's outrageous plan has already accomplished the unthinkable: It has united Cubans of all political tendencies on the island - and in what qualifies as a certifiable miracle, it has brought together Cubans in Cuba and a growing segment of the Cuban-American community.

President Bush, the Great Uniter. Too bad he unites people firmly against his policies and, by unfortunate extension, against the U.S.