Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Clinton enjoyed a certain amount of maneuvering room: there is no significant sentiment in Congress to open up immigration or lift the trade embargo on Cuba. "The solution is not for 100,000 Cubans to come to the U.S.," says New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, "but for one man to leave Cuba, and that is Fidel Castro." While some angry Cuban Americans took to the streets of Miami shouting, "Down with Clinton!" exile leaders like Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, lobbied the White House to keep up the pressure. The truth is that even...
...Some in Cuba, however, doubted the policy change would be any more of a deterrent than the sharks, the hunger, the stormy seas that refugees were already braving. In the Havana suburb of Miramar, the news that boat people would be detained did not deter a young Cuban who was hurrying to finish his raft. "I'll take my chances," he said. "They won't send us back...
...exodus follows nearly five years of increasing turmoil in Cuba after the fall of its Soviet patrons. Since 1989, imports have dropped from $8 billion to $2 billion. Last summer Castro eased a few restrictions. Possession of U.S. currency is no longer illegal, and some private employment is allowed. The timid reforms raised hopes for improved living standards. But a year later, with Castro blocking liberalization, and tensions erupting between the haves and the have-nots, refugees say hope has died. Ration books provide barely two weeks' worth of food. For the rest, families must rely on the black market...
...Castro so much that the CIA fabricated seashells to explode when he was scuba-diving and a powder that would make his beard fall out. He and his beard survived all those barbs. Today the loathing has softened, but its spirit still animates America's punishing economic embargo against Cuba, now 32 years old. Virtually all commerce with the island is banned. Ships that trade with Cuba cannot visit American ports for six months. Most Americans are at least technically subject to prosecution for visiting there. Even the U.N. sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq permit it to buy food...
Does this make sense anymore? Except for flooding Florida with boat people, Cuba poses no threat to U.S. national security. It no longer has a nuclear- armed patron in Moscow buying anti-Yanqui mischief with $6 in billion annual aid. The whole world has passed by Fidel's moth-eaten socialism...