WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Bush administration recommendation that the United States further limit humanitarian and religious aid to Cuba “flies in the face of religious freedom,” say many U.S. Christian groups, including the Alliance of Baptists.
The Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba released a report July 10 with recommendations designed to foster democracy in the Caribbean communist nation. President Bush charged the interagency task force — headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez — with devising plans to ease Cuba's transition to democracy once longtime dictator Fidel Castro dies. Castro recently turned 80.
But the report also included measures designed to further tighten the nearly-50-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba. One of its recommendations is to ban U.S. groups from providing humanitarian aid to Cuban organizations the administration deems too closely tied to Castro's regime.
The report recommends the government tighten strictures on U.S. groups' “export of humanitarian items, other than agricultural or medical commodities, to ensure that exports are consigned to entities that support an independent civil society and are not regime-administered or -controlled organizations, such as the Cuban Council of Churches.”
That recommendation — and the fact that the commission singled out the Cuban Protestant group — outraged officials with the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.
“We strongly feel that it is completely inappropriate for the U.S. government, or any government, to determine who is and who is not a legitimate national council of churches and to restrict or deny Christian fellowship and humanitarian assistance to any particular national church council, including the Cuban Council of Churches,” said Samuel Kobia, the WCC's general secretary, in a July 11 letter to Bush.
The Cuban body, comprised of about half the nation's Protestant churches, has partnered with the NCC and WCC in humanitarian work since long before Castro seized power. A July 11 news release from the Church World Service, the WCC's humanitarian arm, said the recommendation “flies in the face of religious freedom.”
The Latin American Council of Churches also sent Bush a letter condemning the recommendation as well as the administration's increasingly hard line on Cuba.
The recommendations are the latest in a series of setbacks the Bush administration has dealt to religious, humanitarian and educational groups seeking to work with the Cuban people.
In recent months, the Treasury Department has declined to renew travel licenses for several mainline Protestant denominations and other religious groups with long track records of sending missions and humanitarian workers to Cuba.
The groups include the American Baptist Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ and the National Council of Churches.
Due to the government's embargo on commerce with Cuba, religious groups must use renewable travel permits for religious activity to enable U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba. The permits are granted through the Treasury Department. Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of congressmen sent a letter to administration officials opposing new restrictions that the department had placed on religious travel to Cuba. The restrictions would make it virtually impossible for any religious group other than a local congregation to receive a Cuba travel license.
The head of one Baptist group whose Cuba license was suspended last year said July 11 that the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba's latest recommendations are wrong but not surprising.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the administration has not only exceeded its regulatory authority but also has trampled on the free exercise of religion — not only in this action but in a series of actions limiting our ability to work with churches in Cuba,” said Stan Hastey, executive director of the Alliance of Baptists. The network of churches has a long-standing partnership with a Cuban Baptist denomination that pairs local churches in the United States with Cuban congregations.
Referring to the WCC and NCC letters, Hastey said, “I fully understand why they are outraged by the president's signing off on this — and by that coterie of Castro-haters at the State Department, dominated by hard-line Cuban Americans who, by the way, do not represent even the Cuban-American community in this country.”
Experts outside the administration have said the hard line Bush has taken on Cuba has come in response to Cuban-American Republicans in South Florida, many of whom are Cuban expatriates who fled to Miami and surrounding areas after Castro came to power and seized their property.
The Church World Service news release said the group is “looking into the possibility of a lawsuit” if Bush chooses to implement the recommendation.
Caleb McCarry, the State Department official in charge of overseeing U.S. transition plans for the Cuban regime and director of the commission, was traveling in Florida July 13 and unavailable for comment on the religious leaders' allegations. However, a State Department spokesperson contacted July 12 said the department wasn't even aware of the Christian groups' expressions of displeasure with the recommendation.
The report itself said that the recommendation was necessary because Castro's policies “continue to debilitate the Cuban economy, impoverish the Cuban people, and isolate Cuba from economic advances enjoyed by the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The regime ignores its obligations to its people and diverts its resources to maintain its grip on power, manage a succession of the regime, and destabilize democracies elsewhere in the hemisphere.”
However, the report claimed, the recent travel and financial restrictions “have sharply curtailed the regime's manipulation of and profiteering from U.S. humanitarian policies. These measures have been successful and should continue to be implemented.”
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