Clearly, the views of the Cuban-American community have changed. Polls show that some 55% now say the embargo hasn't worked and that it is time to look for a new policy. A February poll taken by The Miami Herald has the majority of Cuban-Americans supporting efforts at dialogue with the Cuban government. And when it appeared that in response to the deplorable March crackdown in Cuba, President Bush might cancel charter flights between Miami and Havana and curtail the remittances Cuban-Americans send to their families on the island, the Cuban American community strongly opposed. As Alfredo Duran of the Cuban Committee for Democracy put it: "There would have been a revolt in Miami if those measures had been put in place. The majority of Cuban-Americans want to continue to visit their families - or at least for it to be possible - and to send money to them. In fact, they do not want any new sanctions which would make life more difficult for their families over there."

And so the charter flights were not touched - and remittances were actually increased.
Further, as reported in Cuba Trader on June 23, at a June 13 meeting between senior government officials and various Cuban-American groups, when the latter urged that the Administration go ahead in cutting back travel and remittances, the response from the government side was that the Cuban-American groups must first call on their own community to stop sending cash to Cuba and to reduce travel. That, according to Cuba Trader, was met with dead silence. Obviously, for they knew their own community would not do any such thing.
We now have a situation, then, in which not only the majority of Americans and the majority in both houses of Congress, but now a majority within the Cuban-American community itself, favor lifting travel controls. Were this handled democratically in other words, travel controls would be removed.

Perhaps it was his sensitivity to that reality that brought Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, in a news release on July 12, to accuse the Center for International Policy, and me personally, of "grotesquely manipulating" the comments of Sr. Rene Gomez Manzano, a Cuban dissident. Readers of our Web Page will recall the publication on July 9 of the recorded statement of Gomez Manzano, speaking on behalf of the organizations All Together (Todos Unidos) and the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (Asamblea para Promover la Sociedad Civil). The statement, published in its entirety by the Center for International Policy (CIP), urged solidarity with those who had been arrested in Cuba during the recent crackdown.

It also noted that a number of organizations in the United States were trying to remove controls on travel to Cuba. Gomez Manzano did not say that he and other dissidents in Cuba supported the lifting of those controls, nor did he say they wanted to see them maintained; rather, he simply said they were assured the matter would be resolved "in accordance with the secular traditions of the United States: traditions of freedom, traditions of democracy, and tradition, traditions of respect for human rights and traditions of international solidarity."

That is exactly what he said and exactly what we reported (superfluous words and all). Not a word was changed or omitted. Nothing was taken out of context.

In my own introductory comment, I noted that: "Dr. Gomez Manzano is right. The issue will be resolved within the traditions of our democracy. It is clear that the majority of Americans do not support the travel ban, which is an infringement of their fundamental rights and counterproductive in terms of bringing about greater freedoms in Cuba. How can we consistently urge freedom to travel for Cubans at the same time that we deny it to the vast majority of American citizens wishing to travel to Cuba?

"The issue will of course be fully debated in the Congress, and, as a prelude to that debate, on July 15, the Center for International Policy - along with ATRIP, the Lexington Institute, and USA Engage - will host a 'Freedom to Travel Forum and Day of Action' on Capitol Hill."

Those are my words. Nowhere do I attribute any of the sentiments expressed to Gomez Manzano - except for alluding to his confidence that the matter would be resolved within the traditions of American democracy. Congressman Diaz-Balart nonetheless insists that Gomez Manzano's words were "shamefully" manipulated by me "so that it seemed the two organizations supported the unilateral lifting of restrictions on travel to totalitarian Cuba."

Nothing of the sort. Rather, what Diaz-Balart may be reacting to, and trying to draw attention away from, is the assertion by Gomez Manzano - and seconded by me --that this will be resolved within the traditions of American democracy. Diaz-Balart certainly doesn't want that, because he doesn't have the votes. He would lose. As reported by Reuters on July 15 , Diaz-Balart acknowledges that he counts not on the support of the majority, but on the support of powerful friends. Referring to the move in the Congress to lift travel controls, he says: "We're going to win. We've got President Bush. We've got the House leadership and we win."

But that kind of victory would be a perversion of democracy. And the kind of perversion of which the vast majority of Americans, including the majority of Cuban-Americans, are growing increasingly tired. Let us indeed get back to the traditions of American democracy. The majority must be heard.