Door open for CANF to help shape policy

Door open for CANF to help shape policy
BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ

W ith 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