Cuba’s new travel law, announced on Tuesday in Cuba’s
official newspaper Granma, is being spun by the Associated Press and others as a historic first
by the communist regime – a long-overdue reform giving Cubans the freedom to
travel abroad for the first time in more than 50 years.
In reality, the new law is a survival tactic by the Castro
regime.
It's part of the same cynicism that was behind the Mariel
boatlift in 1980 when 125,000 Cubans sailed to South
Florida aboard private boats -- including criminals and mental patients whom
Fidel Castro had set loose. It's part of the same cynicism that Castro
demonstrated during the summer of 1984 -- when he looked the other way as tens
of thousands of Cubans built rafts to escape their tropical prison.
So says a clear-eyed analysis of the new travel law by Fabiola
Santiago in today’s Miami
Herald, “New travel law just another survival tactic for
Castro.”
As Santiago writes:
And now comes Raúl Castro, re-inventing his brother’s
sure-footed strategy to send the enemy into exile — and relieve the pressure on
the government to undertake meaningful reforms — by making it easier for the
disenchanted masses to leave while retaining control of who
travels.
While this may seem a blessing to a people without
hope, when Cuba talks “immigration reform” and “new travel measures,” only one
thing is certain: There will be major — and unfavorable — implications for the
United States, particularly for South Florida.
Clues to Cuba’s intentions are in the details of the
new rules.
They exempt medical professionals, scientists, and
other desirable skilled would-be emigrants, and the military. They sweeten the
offer to the Revolution-bred masses by assuring them that they would be welcomed
back to Cuba and could retain their resident benefits as long as they return
every two years.
In other words, travel to the mythical Miami, city
with streets paved in exile gold; become a resident after a year under the Cuban
Adjustment Act and be eligible for U.S. benefits; send thousands of dollars and
goods to Cuba; come vacation in Varadero — and even collect a few pesos (those
$20-a-month Cuban pensions), rent or sell your home and keep your old
Lada.
“This is a way to get rid of Cuba’s population because
they cannot meet the economic needs of the people,” says Andy S. Gomez, senior
fellow at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies. “They do it with bad intentions. They know that the young people of
Cuba are looking for any opportunity to leave the country…. As a young woman
told me in Santiago de Cuba, ‘Anywhere but here.’”
It’s also no accident that the new travel rules are
timed to go into effect on Jan. 13, days from the U.S. presidential
inauguration.
No matter who wins the election, Cuban officials will
be able to peddle their brand of truth to the Cuban people — particularly the
disenchanted youth — that it’s not their government prohibiting travel, but the
imperialist monster to the North. Another ploy to force their way into the
American agenda.
And so, then, forget about the positive spin being put forth
about the new travel rules. The devil is in the details.
Originally published at The American Thinker
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