U.S. Restrictions on Trips to Cuba are Inhumane

Two years had passed since Yankees pitcher Jose Contreras had seen his wife and his two young daughters -- an eternity by any father's standard. Two years of a family divided by the repression of an old man clinging to power.

Two years is a long time to wait and see someone you love. Think about that as this country -- not Cuba -- begins enforcing new travel restrictions Wednesday that will limit family visits to the island to once every three years.

If two years is an eternity, what must three feel like?

Currently, family members can visit their relatives in Cuba every year. But since this year is an election year, President Bush needs to bolster his support among Cuban Americans by showing them how tough he can be on Castro.

Of course, this draconian measure will have no impact on Castro. Bush is simply doing it because he knows older Cuban Americans are desperate enough to mistake it for a real policy on Cuba. And they are the ones who vote in November. Besides, many of them came here long ago; their connection to family members left behind has faded with time.

So starting Wednesday Cuban families will be divided and kept estranged by two men whose primary interest is their own political survival.

For hard-liners like State Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican, the measures are overdue. ''Cuban Americans need to decide whether we are economic immigrants or political exiles,'' he says. ``If we are political exiles, then we have no business traveling back to the persecutor from which we fled. As far as I'm concerned, that is an abuse of the political refuge being granted by the United States.''

That decision is an easy one for Rivera. He was born here. He didn't leave family behind. ''I do have relatives in Cuba,'' he said, ``but I don't think I have any business traveling over there to visit them.''

Rivera is free to make that choice. But that seems like an intensely personal decision every Cuban American should struggle with on their own. It shouldn't be done by fiat, and it certainly shouldn't be done as an election-year tactic.

How many grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters will die without seeing their loved ones for a last time because Bush is trying to placate a group of reactionaries within his own party?

And since when did it become a sign of strength to keep families apart?

You also get the sense that for many older Cuban Americans, there is a lack of sensitivity. Many of them left parents and siblings behind, never to be seen again, and now they think these more recent arrivals should share that pain by experiencing the same deprivation.

For me, the policy is not only heartless, it's also not very smart. Rather than keeping the focus on Castro and his repression of dissidents in Cuba, we're suddenly arguing whether Bush's travel ban is cruel and inhumane.

''Now the debate is here about this country's actions,'' says Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and a critic of the president's travel restrictions. ``That is the last place we wanted it to occur. We've said from the start, this debate is not in Washington, it is not in Miami. This debate should take place in Cuba, and it should focus on what Castro is doing inside of Cuba, not what the United States is doing to Cuba.

''This red meat for the reactionary right in essence has destroyed the debate that we have been having,'' he continues. 'Now, once again, it is the United States vs. Cuba. You don't even hear the dissidents' voices because they are drowned out.''

Garcia believes it will backfire on Bush during the election, as moderate Cuban Americans question their past support for Bush. ''I hope the administration will realize this is much trickier than they first realized and that they got bad advice,'' Garcia said.

Oh, sure. If there is one thing this president is known for it's admitting when he makes a mistake.