CANF head advises McCain, Obama

The head of one of the country’s most important Cuban exile groups penned a must-read opinion piece in Saturday’s Washington Post.

Cuban American National Foundation chairman Jorge Mas Santos criticized U.S. policy toward Cuba as “at best static and at worst counterproductive.” “Just as a democratic Israel is a key U.S. friend in a critical region, a democratic Cuba would be a crucial ally in furthering democracy in Latin America” wrote Mas Santos. He also claimed that the next president needs to take a more active approach in dealing with Cuba, and provided the following recommendations to John McCain and Barack Obama:

• Change the rules that make it impossible to send cash aid and allow direct, substantial and unfettered aid to Cuba's dissidents.

• Lift the 2004 restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans. Removing the handcuffs that have prevented us from becoming active participants in the development of Cuban civil society will make us agents of change.

• Maintain sanctions that diminish the Castro regime's access to hard currency, which it uses to help fund its apparatus of repression.

• Engage democratic and reformist forces in Cuba, including those in the military and in the civilian government. They need to know that they can count on the friendship and support of the United States.

• Rebuild our intelligence capabilities in Cuba; they have been dismantled over the past decade, creating a vulnerability in this nation's security.

Will the next president scrap what Mas Santos believes is the current “failed ‘wait and hope’ policy”? We’ll have to see what happens.

Image- The Age (“Maximo Gomez Park in Little Havana, Miami. Hatred of Fidel Castro and memories of the Bay of Pigs have made most Floridian Cubans staunchly pro-Republican.”)
Sources- washingtonpost.com