SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 20A

LENGTH: 667 words

HEADLINE: Cuban exiles paying price for embargo

BYLINE: JAY BOOKMAN

SOURCE: AJC

BODY:
They still dream, the older ones, of the glorious day when their exile ends and they return, triumphantly, to a free Cuba.

They see themselves walking once again through the streets of La Habana Vieja, or Old Havana. They imagine the smells and sounds of the harbor along El Malecon, of nights long ago at El Tropicana, of the sunlight glinting off fields of sugar cane in Camaguey.

And always in those dreams, those sweet, sweet dreams, Fidel Castro is gone. He may be dead and buried, or --- if it's a really good dream --- deposed and dishonored, rotting in prison somewhere. Either way, in the dream world the exiles return by the thousands, coming from Miami, from Tampa, from New Jersey, to recover what Castro had taken from them so long ago, and to reclaim the birthrights of their children and grandchildren.

They dream that somehow things will be as they used to be. But they can't.

Yes, someday Castro will be gone. He turns 76 this August, nearing the time allotted to most men. There are no doubt hundreds of elderly exiles in Florida whose dearest hope is to outlive that stubborn old goat, even if just for a day.

But when Castro goes, and when the exiles and their descendants return, they will do so as outsiders, turistas. The place they knew is gone. The family property they lost in 1959 and its aftermath cannot be restored to them. The political power they once enjoyed as the island's elite cannot be revived.

In fact, the returning exiles probably will be greeted with more resentment than welcome from those Cubans who stayed behind. Those who stayed are the ones who have suffered most from the otherwise useless U.S. embargo on Cuba, a sanction that has been kept in place solely at the insistence of the exiles.

Certainly, Castro himself has never missed a meal because of the embargo. To the contrary, the embargo has given him a villain to blame for all the hardships of the Cuban people. It allows him to stir Cuban patriotism against those imperialistas who practice economic warfare against them, the big American elephant trying to stomp little Cuba.

The embargo is to Castro what a wall is to a drunk. It props him up, gives him something to lean against. Pull the wall away and the drunk falls to the ground, unable to support himself.

The exiles, though, cannot allow themselves to see that. To them, the embargo is less a strategy than a symbol. It is their only weapon, the only tangible means they have of striking back. So they refuse to give it up, even if it harms the people they claim to want to help.

But by doing so, they also hurt themselves and their dreams of return. By banning U.S. residents and companies from trading with Cuba, they ban themselves from any major role in the island's post-Castro future. While they sit in Miami, waiting, the Canadians, the Germans, the Spanish and others have rushed in to restore the old hotels and rebuild the tourist trade. When Castro is gone it is they, not the exiles, who will be positioned to reap the benefits.

Speaking in Florida this week, President Bush reiterated his support for the embargo.

"I want you to know that I know what trade means with a tyrant," he told a cheering crowd of thousands of Cuban-Americans. "It means that we will underwrite tyranny, and we cannot let that happen."

Sadly, those words of principle were a fraud, an excuse. If principle truly guided our foreign policy, we would also impose embargoes against Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and China, all of which have human-rights records as bad or worse than Castro's. But we don't, because this has nothing to do with principle, and nothing to do with helping the people of Cuba.

To the Cuban exiles, the embargo is personal, something between them and Castro.

To Bush it is political, a means of carrying Florida in 2004.

And to the rest of the world, it is petty cruelty.
 
Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays.
 
jbookman@ajc.com

LOAD-DATE: May 23, 2002