It’s Time to Ease Rules on Cuba

Let the people go. The Archdiocese of Miami has asked the White House to make an exception to the U.S. travel ban so more than 1,000 American Catholics can go to Havana for the January visit of Pope John Paul II. More than religious comfort could be achieved if Washington grants that request.

Standing in the way are the rigid and largely outdated U.S. restrictions on citizens visiting Cuba, rules that form part of the 34-year-old economic embargo against President Fidel Castro’s government. Americans are a free people and should be allowed to travel wherever they please. Washington, however, has made it difficult or impossible to travel to a handful of countries deemed inimical to American interests. Cuba stands at the head of the list.

There appears to be little propaganda hay that Castro can make of an American influx for the papal visit, however. Most of the applicants fled his rule and would be going back only to visit relatives and see the pope.

President Clinton would do well in this instance to reject the advice of those like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican anti-Castroite who opposes easing the embargo and prefers that Cuban Americans listen to the papal festivities on radio rather than see them in person.

Another key figure in U.S.-Cuban relations, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has expressed a far more open view, saying she sees the pope’s visit as “an important development in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and faith and the importance of respecting human rights.” She is right and offers evidence: Whenever a Roman Catholic pontiff travels to a country ruled by the communists, the political fabric is changed. John Paul’s visit to Nicaragua in 1983 turned politics in that troubled country away from extremism.

For the pope to deliver an uncensored message of hope and reconciliation in Havana at a time when Fidel Castro’s days in power are numbered could have a significant effect in the divided Cuban community. The United States should not sour this opportunity.