One More Broken Clinton Promise

When Soviet invasion and a civil war sent Afghans into flight for their lives, Pakistan took in millions of them. When Saddam Hussein slaughtered the Kurds, Turkey opened its frontiers to hundreds of thousands of refugees, despite the internal risks the Turks knew it would create for their country.

And when communism ruled the Soviet Union for decades, the U.S. was lantern and haven for Jews, Pentecostalists and dissidents.

But now America, with so much help to offer, quakes at the thought of refugees - neighbors who prefer the risk of drowning at sea to living longer in the prison made of their country by the only remaining communist dictator this side of China.

Now, an American administration says what a fine victory it is to make a secretly negotiated agreement with Fidel Castro to share the job of preventing Cubans from fleeing their country. Americans with small memories and hearts to match nod their plump heads.

Now, U.S. ships will pick up Cubans who manage to escape Castro’s police patrols and coast guard, give them quarterdeck “hearings” and return them to Cuba, in irons if needed. There, American officials will tell them to drop around to the office in Havana and apply for a visa under the eyes of Castro police. Nice?

This policy is recognition and anointment of Castro as the warden of the Cuban national jail - in partnership now with the land of the free 90 miles across the water. It also happens to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The decision was accompanied by another - a good one allowing Cubans incarcerated on Guantanamo to enter America. But Washington did not need Castro’s permission to do it - or to hold out hints of reward if he permitted us to be his co-warden.

Washington’s excuse was that otherwise the flow of refugees would continue. True, but has this country absolutely no breathing space left for people strong, brave and desperate enough to launch themselves into the sea to escape Castro?

There is, incidentally, a cheap, trendy antiimmigrant passion being stirred up in this country. Among its promoters, the most impudent is a small clutch of British writers and editors. As soon as they stroll off the Concorde and collect their green cards, they demand that American doors be closed - except for those of compatible origin and color.

If we want to stop the flow of Cuban refugees, the only decent and effective way is to squeeze Fidel Castro to make his plantation somewhat less filthy to live in. Such as: tightening the embargo by boycotting foreign companies doing business with Cuba. If we have not courage to so use our economic power, Cubans will continue to flee the prison whose bars we have reinforced.

The decision to return escaping Cubans is one more broken Clinton human rights promise. Attorney General Janet Reno had said we would never do such a foul thing. When will they grasp that broken promises destroy domestic and foreign confidence in a president, and soil his name into history? Ever?

The administration got a contemptuous zero from Castro for breaking its promises - not even the release of some political prisoners, not the grant of a single civil liberty.

The world will understand that the U.S. cared about refugees from communism when it was in the interests of the struggle against Soviet Communism. Now that the struggle has been successful, an American president turns his back on those who try to escape from what remains of the very evil empire, China and Cuba.

Sometimes, when I am being particularly insensitive or obtuse, my wife hands me an article or book she thinks may be corrective.

Cannot somebody, maybe his wife or daughter if they care, give the president a certain fat blue book, with markers between pages 365 and 375? They deal with the torture, murder, degradation and suppression of all liberties in Cuba. The book is the latest human rights report turned out not by sentimentalists or romantics but by cool, skilled professionals of his own Department of State.

The president will read. Then he will understand what kind of place it is that he forbids human beings to escape without permission of their tormentor, and how degrading of America to do this thing. Won’t he?

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