Center for International Policy

As printed in
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 13, 2006

Florida bill wrong on several fronts

By Wayne S. Smith

In early May, a bill to prohibit universities in the state of Florida from funding any trips to Cuba or to other countries on the State Department's list of "terrorist states" (Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea and Sudan) passed both chambers of the Florida Legislature. It is expected to be signed shortly by Gov. Jeb Bush.

David Rivera, the state legislator who introduced the bill, explained that: "Taxpayer money should not be used to support or subsidize terrorist regimes -- period."

But this goes far beyond taxpayers' money. The bill blocks public universities from using state funds, yes, but also private donations and grants, for the purpose of organizing, directing and carrying out "travel to a terrorist state."

Thus, if a private foundation had given a grant to a university so that a group of its students and faculty members could carry out research on, say, dangers to the environment in Cuba and how that might affect the environment in Florida, the new law would prohibit the university from so using those private funds. Research that could prove valuable to Florida, in other words, will now be blocked, even though "taxpayers' money" is not involved.

Further, the bill bans not only research, but any kind of academic exchanges with Cuba. Strange: In virtually all past cases, whether it was the Soviet Union, China or Eastern Europe, we encouraged academic exchanges as a means of getting the views of our educated younger generation directly to their counterparts in countries we hoped to influence in the direction of greater openness. Remember the great importance we attached to the Helsinki Agreements?

Why then do we now want to prohibit contact between Cuban university students and our own? Does that make any sense? Is that any way to get across the message of American democracy?

And what about Cuba being a "terrorist" state? It is certainly not a democracy. But neither are Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan or Pakistan, some of our closest allies; yet American students, and all other Americans, are free to travel to those countries. Yes, Cuba is a communist state. But so are China and Vietnam. Americans are free to travel to those countries as well.

And so the prohibition against academic travel falls back on the claim that Cuba is a "terrorist state." But in its annual report on "State Sponsors of Terrorism" issued on April 28 of this year, the State Department presents not a shred of evidence to back up that definition -- nothing. It claims, for example, that: "Cuba did not undertake any counterterrorism efforts in international or regional fora."

Even if that were true, it wouldn't mean Cuba was a "terrorist state." But it isn't true. Not by far. Cuba signed all 12 of the U.N.'s anti-terrorist resolutions. It immediately condemned the 9-11 terrorist attacks and expressed its solidarity with the American people. Subsequently, the Cuban government offered to sign a bilateral agreement with the United States to cooperate in the struggle against terrorism. The Bush administration ignored the offer.

And as though grasping for something -- anything! -- to say, the report complains that Cuba "maintains friendly ties with Iran and North Korea." True, but unless there is some evidence that those ties extend to cooperation in terrorist activities or planning -- and no such evidence is presented -- they are not pertinent to the question of whether Cuba is or is not a "terrorist state."

If this is the best the State Department can come up with in its efforts to label Cuba "terrorist," then a reasonable person's reaction would be to conclude that it isn't.

(For a full refutation of the State Department report, go to www.ciponline.org, and then to the Cuba page.)

Finally, the bill is of doubtful legality. It comes just as a group of academic entities is on the verge of filing suit in the federal court in Washington, D.C., against the restrictions on educational travel handed down by the Bush administration in 2004 -- restrictions, the litigants maintain, that blatantly violate academic freedoms as defined by the Supreme Court. The prohibitions in the Florida bill appear to be equally at odds with those academic freedoms; it would be surprising if a legal challenge is not soon mounted in Florida as well.

Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1979-82).