Exile Community and Cuba Policy

Re Wayne S. Smith’s “Isn’t It About Time for Washington to Accept That Castro Is in Power?” Opinion, Jan. 14:

There will be no solution to the Cuban problem unless all Cubans, in or outside Cuba, can participate in deciding the course of their nation. It may well be that, when Cubans someday get to choose freely at the ballot box the kind of politics that they want for their nation, they may not favor the sort of government Smith believes they should have. Excluding Cuban exiles from this process, whether of the right, left or center of the political spectrum, may not only not solve the Cuban problem, but may prolong it unnecessarily at the cost of many lives.

If the U.S. embargo has not worked in inducing democratic change in Cuba, as Smith suggests, then some other way must be found to promote democracy. Excluding the exile community from that process cannot be part of any new approach, once one understands the interests, the potential and the history of the Cuban American community. Cuba has a substantial proportion of its population living abroad as exiles. The Cuban exile community is politically powerful in the United States, much as the American Jewish community was with respect to Israel since the 1940s, or the African American community with respect to South Africa in the 1980s. The challenge for U.S. policymakers is to channel the talents and energies of the exile community into bringing meaningful democratic change to Cuba, where all Cubans, regardless of their political persuasion, can contribute to the process.

LUIS SUAREZ-VILLA

Irvine

* Bravo to Smith. To continue the Cuban embargo or even tighten it further is not only counterproductive, it’s without any sense of reality. Those frozen in the Cold War mentality, such as Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), are running on emotional steam, not intelligence. It seems to me that U.S. policy in Cuba has always been based upon the usual Central American and Caribbean mind-set: control or isolation.

Cuba is no threat to the U.S. The embargo harms children, women and the elderly, not Castro. Castro wants accommodation with the U.S., and it would be to our benefit to accomplish such. U.S. policy should not be influenced by radical-right Cuban exiles.

MANFRED McARTHUR

Los Angeles