Posted on 05/11/2002 8:04:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
As far as Elena Bonau is concerned, you can't change a "devil."
Pope John Paul II tried and didn't get far. Jimmy Carter isn't going to fare any better if he tries to persuade Fidel Castro to improve conditions for his people, she says.
Other Cuban-Americans in metro Atlanta, estimated to number 10,000, agree that little good can come from Carter's trip to Cuba, which starts today. They believe Carter will give a repressive regime legitimacy and run the risk of hurting his reputation as a man who can advance democracy. They point to the pope's visit to Cuba in 1998 as just one example of how intransigent Castro is.
"He's just like the devil. He's astute, very astute. He's just going to use Mr. Carter," Bonau, a retired teacher from Sandy Springs, said of Castro. "The only good thing that can happen for the Cuban people is for Castro to die and for a democratic government to come to power."
Bonau left Cuba for the United States in 1962, three years after Castro won the war against dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Bonau is a Republican but says she still has much respect for Carter, a Democrat who was governor of Georgia before being elected president in 1976. He's taken up the cause to advance democracy in other countries, she said, "but those countries don't have Fidel."
Her husband, Rogelio Bonau, 78, called Carter "one of the useful fools who has supported communism. He won't accomplish anything, anything."
'Cuba could be a success story'
Rene Diaz, a Cuban-American and CEO of Diaz Foods in Atlanta, sits on the Carter Center's Board of Councilors, an advisory group of prominent regional and local figures. He said Cuban-Americans need to take the opportunity to start a dialogue with Castro to come up with a post-Castro succession plan. When Castro dies, Diaz believes, different groups will vie for power: Castro's brother Raul, opposing generals in the army and the Cuban people. Cuba could "get worse before it gets better."
"Carter is one man who can convince Castro that his legacy is important. He doesn't want to be the man who ruled Cuba for 40 years and then he died and it collapsed," Diaz said. "Carter can bring about some dialogues, some ideas to get to the next step. Cuba could be a success story."
At the Washington office of the Cuban American National Foundation, Executive Vice-president Dennis Hays said he is disappointed in Carter's schedule in Cuba. The foundation had suggested that Carter visit prisoners of conscience, call for the repeal of laws that punish those who publicly criticize the government and invite independent Cuban journalists to press functions during the trip.
Some of Carter's scheduled events include a tour of the La Castellana Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center, a private lunch hosted by farmers and visits to the Latin American Medical School, an AIDS sanitarium and a school for disabled children.
"I can't believe President Carter will permit himself to be used in this manner," Hays said. "The Cuban people are waiting for someone to tell them the truth -- that human rights and freedom are everyone's birthright. Carter is justly known as the human rights president. How can he go to Cuba and not shout out the truth?"
Hays said it's "not a good sign" that Carter is not scheduled to see anyone from the opposition until his last full day in Cuba, when Carter will meet with human rights activists and religious groups. Hays believes Carter will do "something on human rights; the question is will it be significant or not."
Carter is political pawn, some say
At the Coco Loco Cuban restaurant in Buckhead, Rey Regalado, 41, a paint contractor from Tucker who came from Cuba in 1991, chuckled as he reviewed the list of Carter's scheduled visits. The former president is being steered to places designed to show Cuba in the best light, Regalado said.
"You see? Castro is so smart," he said. "Castro is controlling him. [Carter] is not going to see the real Cuba. I'm not against him going. He's just going to be manipulated."
Regalado said he was "born in the revolution" and knew nothing else. He said life was fine in Cuba until the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had economically propped up the island. By 1991, the economy declined so much he decided to leave. The Soviet Union's collapse showed him communism "wouldn't work," he said. "I decided to get out before it was too late."
Even Castro's harshest critics stress that he's smart, and, in the opinion of many Cuban-Americans, he doesn't do anything unless he stands to gain something. For this reason, they say, Carter needs to treat him with suspicion.
"He needs to understand that if the embargo is to be ended, there has to be changes in political prisoners, in human rights and in open and free elections, which is basically what the U.S. government has said from Day One," said Cuban-American Joaquin "Jack" Coello, 57, a lawyer.
Rafael Andino, 37, a Lawrenceville biomedical engineer who came to the United States when he was 3 years old, is pessimistic.
"I think Carter will try to press for certain freedoms, but I don't think he'll be successful. [Castro] can't allow basic freedoms because it compromises his position," he said. "We wish Carter well, but we're not hopeful."
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That is a good thing Rene Diaz, the collapse of communism is a good thing!
Good grief!! It sounds as if he wants Carter to tell Castro to make some
reforms so that communism can continue after his long overdue death.
This trip to Cuba should work out OK, if the Cuban secret police don't find out about Jimmie's secret mission. They didn't search Jimmie too well when he arrived and did not discovered the false bottom on two of his bags. So, he still has those blank Panamanian passports, acquired during the Noriega capture, and should be able to pass them on to the group helping several high Cuban officials who wish to defect.
The cash for bribes has long been in Cuba, brought in by tourists and several European diplomats, but the passports were too risky to carry in that way. Now, as long as Fidelito's killer don't find out, this should be pretty interesting over the next six months.
I assembled this thing from old parts starting in January, and it's fought all of the way.
I began with an IBM 'opal' motherboard- 66 mHtz CPU, and 4 mb of RAM.... upgraded to 16, the max the board can hold without SIMM stackers.
The floppies were salvaged from a 386 used as a doorstop, the hard drive is a 210 mb Conner from a junk IBM, the modem's a USR 33.6k sportster. OS's have been DOS 6.22, Win 3.1, and finally Win 95, upgraded to 95a over the web.
And the keyboard sticks, the track ball is gritty, and the dang thing is slow.... but it works more or less like the other one.
and that's why there may be weird typos- it's hard to go back & correct easily!
And that's why I can't give you nay links- thus !@#$! crashed 2 days ago & I'm bringing it up from bare-metal recovery- don't have my files handy. Try to get back later....
nay=any
thus=this
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